Torrey Town 4th of July

Torrey is crazy  beautiful. 

We haven't spent the 4th of July at Torrey Days in  years, so we decided to make it happen this year.

Yaya, The Babe and I snuck off for a bike ride into Capital Reef one morning.

We went to the parade, the kids played at the park with all the inflatables, the Nerf gun war zone, and the epic bubble machine.

We went for some adventure walks, threw one million rocks in the canal (don't tell!), and Tukk and  Maverick rode motorcycles every chance they could.

It was so fun. And kind of exhausting.

Tukker's 11th Birthday

We celebrated this dude's 11th birthday! 

We had a family party with all of Tukk's favorite goodies. 

We even got Grandpa Kyle to come celebrate with  us.

I think his favorite thing was having all of his buddies over for a friend party. They played water baseball for HOURS and he loved every second of it.

In honor of his birthday, here’s a breakdown of The Tukk's life so far.

• His first 4 months: 2 ½ eternities
• His first 3 years: 1.75 lifetimes
• Years 4-11: 182 billion laughs, 49 million adventures, 11 million epic car conversations, and allllll the sugar and donuts… in just 3 blinks.

Even now, 11 years later, I still get a little weepy on his birthday. We experienced some rough times with his start in life. But man, the magic this dude has brought into our lives outweighs the hard stuff by infinity. Times two.

Happy birthday Tukk – thanks for sticking around!

It's Uncanny

They're basically twins. 

June 2019

We kept working on decorating the house, which is soooooo much easier and more fun than building the house.



We ate popsicles with Benja.

We read books with  Benja.



We saw Uncle Paul!  He was here for a few weeks from Afghanistan, and we lucked out because he had time to come down and see Grandpa. He's still a giant, in case you were wondering.

We had Father's Day brunch at Farrel and Kathy's, and Tukk kicked his cousins' butts in basketball. 

We spent MORE money on dental work. For baby teeth. That will fall out. Sigh....

We celebrated Genola Days and watched fireworks from the shop roof, one of our very favorite summertime traditions.

We busted Caulder and Aleah almost basically kind of snuggling. It was adorable, and also I had a heart attack because I'm NOT ready for this phase of life.

And we decorated some more. 

Why Caulder Is Awesome

You guys member when Caulder was tiny and filled with demons and spoke to what we can only assume was some sort of demon in our heat vents? 

Ahhh... those were the days. 

You'll be happy to hear that not  only is he now demon free, but he's become one of the kindest, most patient, most thoughtful (albeit still highly sarcastic) humans EVER. 

Here's some proof. I got this from his bestie Aleah's mom, Sara. 

I love him. 

State Championships

Tukk's baseball team made it into the state championships!

He was so excited.

His team was  good this year, and they had a really dedicated coach. It meant lots of practices, but they paid off.

Rand loved all the games. He'd just run around making a new best friend at every game. He never knew his best friend's name, but is that really important?



Tukk got hit by the pitcher a couple of times during  games. At one of the state games, he got nailed so hard that you could see the imprint of the strings in his arm for days. And even though it hurt like mad and left a gnarly bruise, he took his base and played through the rest of the inning.

Coaching advice from Dad.

They ended  up taking 3rd place!

It was so fun watching him play this year.

May 2019

He-Man and Man At Arms patrolled the neighborhood, looking for evil villains to thump on. 

Rand made us go  on a billion hikes.

I got my first flat bike tire and had to radio Cole for a rescue pickup.

Tukk had his first track meet. 

This strange bat-like creature kept following us around at the track meet. Not sure what this hunching is all about, but it's a little terrifying. 

Will, Tagg, and Tukk killing it at the track meet.

We took a weekend trip to Pocatello to hang with our homies.

Went on a bike ride.

Smooched Benja every chance we got. 

Froze our buns off at Tukk's first few baseball games (we had COOOOOLD spring this year! It rained and blew for  weeks).

And celebrated the last day of school with our besties. (Aleah, Mack, Cauldee)

(Tukk, Ryan, someone?, Will, and Tagg)