Last Month of Summer!

It made me so sad writing that title just now! I feel like this summer started off slow at first, and the first week of June, I was like, "How am I going to get through this summer? I'm going to be so bored and it's going to go so slow without Gabe here and Caleb working and Avery sleeping until noon!" But then by the end of summer, I'm always like, "Ugh, I have to start waking up early again and having a schedule and adult responsibilities?!" lol But then once I get past the first week, it's all good again. I feel like I just have a hard time pivoting. 

Anyways, here are some things we have been up to just in the past 2-3 weeks! I figured this would be my last "summer" update, and then the next one will probably have the back-to-school photos and all that! There's going to be so many fun things coming up in the next month or two! School starting, Caleb's senior pictures, football games, homecoming, my mom coming to visit! Fall is always a fun and busy time of year! But before I get ahead of myself... here is what we've been up to in the past couple weeks!

Floating Warm Slough

This is always one of our favorite ways to get some water fun in our lives during the hot summer days! We've floated with the Summers family once (I think that was around my birthday), and we've floated with Claire's family a couple times, and then just me and Josh have floated once, so I think we have been about 3-5 times this summer. Caleb didn't come on this one because he was at football practice. Here are some pics of that one with Claire's family!

Koda Getting Bigger!

Our cute little puppy isn't so little anymore! He will be as big as Zeus (or bigger!) in no time! I haven't even weighed him lately, but I'm guessing he's like 30 pounds! (He was 10 pounds when we got him at 8 weeks old, on June 13!) So he's tripled in size! He loves to run all over the yard with Zeus first thing in the morning, and he's ALWAYS hungry. He tries to be sneaky and go into the pantry and eat Zeus's food if there's ever any Zeus hasn't finished. He's cute and I'm glad we have him because I know he will eventually be a big, beautiful, calm dog, but right now he sure is a handful!

Golf Tournaments

Josh and Caleb got to participate in the DARE golf tournament a week ago! It was so funny because Josh had to play at the last minute because the ICCU lady's son got hurt, so then all of a sudden, she calls Josh and says, "We need to you to play. I have your costume. It's a Happy Gilmore theme!" Josh was just soooo thrilled to dress up like the crazy guy with the nail in his head and the Tshirt that said, "Guns don't kill people, I kill people." (I thought it was HILARIOUS. Even more so because Josh hates that kind of stuff that draws attention to himself in any way! lol) Caleb, on the other hand, already had the Gimore hockey shirt in his closet! So that worked out! Haha The ICCU lady that was in charge of sponsoring their team and getting it all ready even decorated a golf cart! It was so funny! It had the alligator on top and everything!

Caleb's Boy Trip to Boise

Caleb gets only one week off from football the whole summer, and that's "dead week" which is the first week of August. He filled those days up with lots of fun! On Monday-Wednesday, his friend, Collin, had planned a trip to Boise to go to a waterpark (ok, his mom planned it lol) and they drove to Boise and stayed in an Airbnb and did lots of Top Golf. It was Caleb, Colter Summers, Collin Plaisted, and Porter Williams. They had a lot of fun and they got back Wednesday afternoon.

Young Men's Campout

After Caleb got home from Boise, Josh and Caleb left on Thursday morning for the young men's overnight campout. It was really low-key and Mitch (our neighbor) was called to be in charge of planning a camp, so it was a little thrown together! haha They just went to Ashton and camped at Jason Moore's parent's land on the river. They rented rafts from the BYUI place and went fishing and camped in tents and then came back on Friday by 1:00pm. It was fun, but I honestly am a little sad for the boys that they don't go to the week-long Boy Scout camp anymore in Island Park. Gabe always had fun at those with Porter. Even Avery did a 3-day camp in Ashton (in cabins, but still). I think they just need to plan ahead better for next year, but I won't have a boy in young men's anymore after this, so oh well I guess! They had fun, but I think Josh was glad it was only one night. He's a primary teacher, so it wasn't even his calling to go, but he just went because Mitch asked him to and Caleb was there!

The Rexburg Quest

I'll be honest, I kind of don't even want to write about this because it's going to put me in a bad mood again! lol But honestly. This was a thing that we did as a family, like a big city-wide scavenger hunt/race and we SHOULD HAVE WON!!! We were robbed. Not only were we ahead of every other group by like, 30 minutes the majority of the time, but then at the very end, our group was the only one where EVERY person in the group completed the ropes course. I can't even talk about it. It makes me so mad. But anyways, this local realtor lady named Sydney, who is also our Summerfield neighbor, put this whole things together and it took about 4 hours on a Saturday and it was really fun... until we didn't win the $5800. But, here are some pictures of us at the ropes course, which we rocked at! Even Avery did amazing at it. She was so brave! But we didn't get the cash and now I have to think of another way to get $5000 for a trip to Spain next summer!

More Golfing

I had a few more pictures of golfing that I wanted to share! Caleb's life this summer has really fallen into 3 categories this summer - 1) Football 2) Golf and 3) everything else. It seems like he is either at the high school for football or at the golf course for work or fun. But I even went and bought a golf punch pass for Teton Lakes so I could see Caleb! We have gone a few times as a family, and then the other night Josh and I just went with Denise and Nate Routson. (Their son, Buddy, just left for his mission in Las Vegas, but he and Gabe were friends and on the same soccer team.) Here are a few pictures of us golfing!

Freakier Friday

Back in like, oh... I'm guessing.... 2003 I think? There was a movie that came out called "Freaky Friday." It was a good Disney movie about a mom and daughter that switch places, and I remember seeing it and liking it when I was like, 18 or 19. Anyways, they made a sequel! Avery had seen the original one too and liked it, so we decided to make it a mother-daughter date night and go see the new one on the Friday that it came out in theaters! So me, Avery, Claire, Annie, and Bob went to see it together. It was really good! But my favorite part was taking these pictures as we were getting ready to go into the theater! lol I have to say... Avery has come a long way since last year at this time. She just seems like she's settling into her new teenage body and is more talkative and fun to be around. I think her hormones are starting to level out! Phew. Last summer she was just soooo moody. Especially as she started junior high and things were just overwhelming. I was beginning to worry, "Are we ever going to be friends?!" But now I can say, I have hope for the future! When we went to Utah together, she was talking my ear off the whole drive there and back, and we had a lot of fun! She still disagrees with me a lot on clothes, but she's starting to actually wear shirts that fit her and aren't a XXL! I have to post some family pictures too! But here is out funny reenactment of the movie poster! (And Claire and Annie's too! ;)

Gabe Still in Alcazar

Gabe is still just plugging away in Alcazar! He's been there a total of about 8 weeks now. He had a cool experience the other day when he happened to be at the temple. He is in a zone that's close to the temple, so he gets to go occasionally, and he said when he and his companion were coming out, the elevator doors opened and there stood his friend Bautista (who is 18) and his older brother, Bruno! Bautista is from Gabe's first area of Aranjuez. His family became like Gabe's second family when he was just a brand new greenie. They had him and Elder Bright over for dinner almost every Sunday and they always were talking about their oldest son (Bruno) who was serving a mission. So it was just awesome that Gabe got to meet Bruno for the first time and see Bautista again! Here is a picture!

Also, he had kind of a sad say recently because the one guy that they had been really working with (named Victor) and was set with a baptism date messaged him out of nowhere a few days before his baptism and was like, "I'm not ready to be baptized. I'm sorry." And then totally ghosted them. So Gabe was super bummed. But then like, 4 people suddenly popped up out of nowhere for Gabe and his companion (Adams) to start teaching! It was a miracle! So now they've been teaching Gina, Gabby, Anabel, and Nicolas! I will put a picture here of Gaby. (She's got a pretty sad life right now... I hope they can get her out of her current situation... She basically lives in a garage... see pic)

And then here's just a funny picture of Caleb flexing to show Gabe how great he looks. lol Gabe is unimpressed. 

Family Pictures

Claire took our family pictures out at Cress Creek on Sunday. It was the LEAST I have ever prepared for family pictures and they still turned out cute! I just was like, "Gabe isn't going to be in these, so I will never hang them on my wall or do anything with them,"  but I did want one to use for a Christmas card. So we took the 8x10 framed picture of Gabe along and took some with me holding that! haha (Maybe it looked kind of weird, but oh well.) Avery looks sooooo grown up and beuatiful in these pictures. I can't believe how much she has changed since last year at this time. It's like she's finally becoming a little more confident and comfortable in her own skin! She's going to just get more and more beautiful and Josh is going to have to settle down when all the boys start flocking to her! It's hard to decide which ones to post, so I'm just going to share a bunch!

Summer Adventures!

I have a LOT to catch up one! Basically I have to write about all of our summer 2025 adventures so far, and it's basically August (July 28 to be exact.) I will try to keep it to only the highlights or else I will be here all day!

Caleb's 17th birthday

Caleb turned 17 on June 6! Caleb always feels like the forgotten middle child, but in truth, he kind of chooses to spend most of his time with his friends. I asked him what he would want to do for. his birthday and if he would like to go to Utah with me like Gabe did for his birthday when he turned 16, and he was like, "Ummm... I'd rather just have the cash." (eye roll) So on his birthday, he went fishing with his first group of friends, which was Lexi, Bree, and Brantley. Then we took him out to dinner at Red 8 for sushi with Grandma and Grandpa Rhodes, and then he went and bought Legos and had a Lego building night with Benson, Cole, and Noah, and we had an ice cream cake. The next day was Saturday, and he went fishing again, this time with Benson and Cole and Josh. So, I'd say he still had a fun birthday weekend!

KODA!

On Friday, June 13th, we welcomed a new member to our family... a Bernese Mountain Dog that we named Koda! (After much debate about names) The story behind this, is that my friend, Claire, has a brother and sister in law that breed these type of puppies. They had a litter born on April 20th, and she started sharing their posts about these puppies that would be ready for new homes in June. I kept seeing them and was like, "Oh my gosh, this one is so cute!" (At the time, his name was Ledger) So I kept commenting on Claire's posts and being like, kind of jokingly, "Oh my gosh, Buy me Ledger right now! I love him!" (Did I actually think she would buy him for me? No.) I even sent Gabe a message though that was kind of joking and I sent a picture of the dog from Instagram and was like, "We might have this dog when you get home." (Little did I know, it turned out to be subtle foreshadowing.)

So a few weeks go by and I wasn't really thinking much about it because obviously we have Zeus, who has never gotten along with other dogs, so I just figured there was so way we could get a second dog. But then on Friday, June 13, Josh had just gotten home from "work" at about 5:00, and he comes upstairs to Caleb's room and says hi, and then the doorbell rings! He's like, "Can you get that? I have to poop." Sure, I think. It's probably Amazon or Morgan bringing us eggs or something. So I go downstairs and swing open the door, and there is a box with no lid on it and a PUPPY inside! I was like, "There's a PUPPY!! What?!" And it was so cute, by my first thought was instantly, "What did Josh do??? We can't have a puppy with Zeus! Is he insane?!" But Claire was around the corner filming me with her phone and they had set it all up to surprise me for me "birthday" which wasn't for another month! 

So, now it's been about six weeks since we got him, and I can honestly say it's been nothing short of a miracle how good Zeus has been with him. We watched them really close for the first couple of days and didn't leave them alone together, but within three days, it was like we pretty much knew Zeus wasn't going to eat him (hopefully). Now they are like brothers and Koda follows Zeus around and tries to bite his legs and neck, and Zeus just tolerates him and shoves him off. Every now and then Zeus will growl at him in warning like, "You're annoying me..." but no actual bites or anything! The other day, a dog actually ran outside from the townhouses and was beelining towards Koda while Josh was walking Zeus and Koda (both on leashes) and Zeus like grabbed this dog by the neck and started shaking it! Josh went and talked to the owner and he was like, "Yeah, sorry my dog is dumb, he needs to learn..." so it was fine, but at least Zeus was protecting Koda! So, that's the new dog! He's already grown so much! He was 10 pounds when we got him, and now he's over 25! 

Father's Day

On June 15th, it was Father's Day and we maaaay have gone golfing together as a family. Here is a picture of Josh with Caleb and Avery! I think the dog was also kind of his present!

Avery and Briella time

I thought it would be fitting to make a note of how much time Avery has been spending with friend this summer, especially Briella! I often call her my "second daughter" because she's with us so much. One day, we went to the Idaho Falls zoo and went and got the Benson Boone "Moonbeam" cookie from Crumbl. It was a fun day, so here are some pictures! 

Avery Braces

I also can't remember if I wrote about this yet, but Avery got her braces at the end of May! She was annoyed at first because she had to have a space maintainer and it made all this extra room in her mouth, so then she got a gap in between her two front teeth! But I already think that's starting to go away now after about a month. You can kind of see it though in the zoo pictures and the Wisconsin pictures because she had only had the braces on for about a month.

July 4th / Wisconsin Trip for Avery and Mom

About a month or two ago, I was trying to decide if I would go to Wisconsin this summer at all. As I was looking at flights, I actually found some decently priced ones that went from Idaho Falls to Madison on July 2 - July 9th, so I was able to book me and Avery for a total of about $200! (I used sky miles and a flight voucher I had from my Delta credit card.) So, Caleb stayed home because he had football and work at the golf course, and Josh was working a big 12-hour shift on the Fourth of July for the Melaleauca fireworks, so they stayed home. 

It was actually really fun just being me and Avery! We did a lot of shopping, watched the fireworks at Lakeside Park, chatted with Gabe on P-day with Jasmine and all of us, went to the inflatable waterpark with Brayden and the Schmidts were all there too, and we went to Mt. Olympus one day! We also celebrated my and Avery's birthdays (Avery is 13!!) and went out to dinner with Grandma Dahlke. It was a fun trip, but only a little awkward because honesty, sharing space with Jesse is not fun. It always feels like kind of an inconvenience that we are there. I have plans for us to go there at Christmas time, and I'm a little worried about it just because they really don't have room. They have two bathrooms and Jesse uses one all the time as "his"bathroom and my mom uses the master as hers. He also uses one of the bedrooms down the hall as his bedroom (they don't share... which is a little weird to me.) So it's like, they really only have on spare bedroom. I think at Christmas, we might only stay there three nights and then head to Wisconsin Dells. Anyways, here are some pictures!

My 41st Birthday

I went to find some pictures of my birthday and there are none on my phone (typical mom life - no pics) so maybe Josh took a couple on his phone, but basically I went out to late night apps with Lauren, Ashley Pendleton, and Claire the night before my birthday. On Friday, my actual birthday, we went to lunch at Cafe Rio and then floated Warm Sough with the Summers fam. Gabe called and we chatted as we were getting the tubes filled up. Cody and Gabe talked in Spanish for a few minutes and Cody said afterward, "His Spanish is real good." Gabe said later, "Cody's Spanish was struggling," lol And I think Gabe now has this fear that he's going to lose his Spanish abilities when he is home from his mission for a few years, so he keeps saying now he wants to marry a Spanish speaking lady and only speak Spanish in their home. But anyways, for my birthday Josh and Caleb went around and had all the special people in my life sign this little notebook for me. It was really nice. I also got the dog... lol so I guess that was my present too. 

Avery's Girls Camp

I convinced Avery (after much persuading) to go to girls camp this summer. She was very hesitant because last summer was so bad, but this time she had more fun. She hung out a lot with Nora and Olivia and Clara. They went up to Ashton and stayed three nights at Rock Creek camp (in cabins, with electricity) and flushing toilets. She did say the power went out the first day when it started raining, but it came on the next day. She got a little annoyed with Abbie Wooley and this girl Evelyn, but I told her having weird girls at church camp was all just a part of the normal church camp experience (I know it was for me!)

Avery's 13th Birthday

For the next 9 months, I can officially say that ALL of my children are teenagers! It's a pretty crazy thing though because one is moved out and living across the world, and the other is just barely getting to be in braces. So much happens during your teen years and so many big life changes! Avery wanted to go to Gravity Factory with just Briella during the afternoon, so she did that and then later on we went to dinner at the Mandarin and then she had Briella and Espyn over for ice cream cake. I really feel like Avery has gone through a lot of mood swings this year. The last year was a doozy, but I think she's turned a corner and is starting to get happier and easier to be around. Last year, she started her first period about a month before she turned 12, and it was like we suddenly were on this roller coaster of emotions with her, but most of the time she was just angry at the world. Luckily, that seems to be getting better. I even went shopping Utah this weekend with her and we had a lot of fun! (More about that in a couple more paragraphs.)

Delta Lake Hike

My coworkers, Nicole Stucki and Melissa Clark, and I have gone out to lunch a couple times this summer, and one day last week, Nicole texted and said, "We are going to hike to Delta Lake on Tuesday. Want to come?" I really hesitated because I had heard that hike was not for the weak, so I was really like, "Is this even going to be fun?" Like, I'm all for scenic hikes that are mid-level easy and you can just talk and walk the whole time. But I was worried this one was going to be pretty hard.... and I was right. Even the night before, I was like, "Do I even go on this?" but I told Josh that if I didn't go, I knew I would have major FOMO when they posted pictures about it, so I decided to just go. It was 4 miles in and 4 miles out, which doesn't sound bad, but it was basically uphill the whole way in and it just got harder and harder. At one point, we were basically crawling over giant boulders up the mountain! Afterward, we went to TJ Maxx and then out to dinner, which is more my speed. I'm glad I did it, but I probably won't ever do it again!

Utah Trip with Avery / Meeting the Spain Moms!

For the past year, I have been chatting with this group of moms on Facebook about our Spain missionaries! We have always said, "We need to plan a time to meet up," and this last weekend, we actually made it happen! I drove down to Utah with Avery for some back-to-school shopping. We left on Friday at about 10am, drove down to Ikea first, then checked into our hotel in Lehu right next to the outlet mall, then went to TJ Maxx, Home Goods, and Ross. Then we went to Zupas and took it back to our hotel and ate in our room and watched TV and spent the night. It was really fun. The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and went and met Michelle (Sam's mom) and Casie (Jack's mom) at Kneaders. We chatted and ate and were there from about 11:30-1:30. Then me and Avery shopped at the outlets and some other places, and then we headed home by about 5:00 and got back to Rexburg at about 9:00. It was a really fun girls weekend and Avery got a lot of clothes for school! 

Caleb's Football, Golf, and more

I haven't said much about Caleb yet in this post, but he's been busy with working at the golf course, practicing for football, and having Lego party nights and air soft fight nights with his friends. He's also been out fishing with Josh a couple times with various groups (his friends, our new neighbor, Mitch...) and so here are just some more pictures of random stuff!

Okay, my hand it hurting from typing, but I think that's all for now! I didn't mention much about Gabe because I have a whole separate blog for him, but he's doing well and is currently in his third area of his mission called Alcazar de San Juan and his companion is Elder Adams. He hit his one-year mark a few days ago, and I think he's really good at Spanish now and is feeling like he knows what he's doing and it's going pretty well. Here is one recent picture of him with Elder Adams! He finds out if he gets transferred this weekend, so we will see if he's in a fourth area soon!