Bring on Summer!!!

Friday night the girls and I decided to kick off summer with a slumber party out on the trampoline. The girls have been wanting to do this ever since they heard about Cory and I doing it in college. When we were first married we had a "slumber party" with our really good friends, Nate and Cindy, out on their trampoline in Rexburg. It sounds so weird now, but at the time it wasn't at all, it was so much fun! So, I decided to surprise my girls and have our own slumber party on our new trampoline. I had so many great memories from doing this so I was really excited. As we were gathering all of our blankets and pillows, Cory was having all sorts of fun. He was making bets with us that we wouldn't make it through the night out there. We all insisted that we would and shook hands that if we came in early then we'd owe him a foot rub but if we made it all night that he would owe all three of us a foot rub. At this point, I decided that there was NOTHING that was going to keep me from coming inside....after all, my pride was involved now and I'll do just about anything for a good foot rub. So we went out there with all of our blankets and got all settled. I was so excited to sleep under all of the stars, but as I looked up at the sky, my excitement was squelched as I barely saw the north star amongst all of the haziness and clouds. So we talked about the North Star and its symbolism and I was thinking this was going to be a great night. As we laid there talking off and on, Katelund all of the sudden shot up and begged me to let her jump just for a minute. So, I jumped up as well and the three of us jumped and giggled for a couple of minutes. Then I decided to make it real fun and I got all of the pillows and started a pillow fight. It was great. Then we all settled back down. Within about 10 minutes, the girls had fallen asleep. I just laid there wondering what Cory was up to and wishing I was laying next to him. Then I started noticing all the bugs flying around. The next three hours became a feeding frenzy for all of the mosquitos. I tried to ignore it. In fact, I basically had all of the blanket covering every inch of skin on my body, but I was still itching like crazy (I only have like four bites to show for it so it must have been mostly in my head). I fought my urge to go inside every single time I woke up itching, but then after so long, I just couldn't take it anymore. I decided that I would rather rub Cory's feet and crush my pride, then get one more bug bite. So I woke the girls up and begged and pleaded with them to go back inside. After a little coercing, they finally caved. Cory got a great laugh and an even better foot rub out of it, but at least we had a couple hours of great memories from our first (and hopefully last) "slumber party" on the trampoline. Saturday afternoon we all went swimming (thanks to my aunt and uncle who let us use their pool). After swimming and having fun for a couple of hours, I got Makayla and Hailey out of the water to dry off in the sun before we left. As I was sitting in a chair holding them in their towels on my lap and watching Cory playing with the older girls, I said to Cory, "I don't think life gets any better than this." I really don't think it does. It's the simple things in life that bring the greatest joy and make the very best memories. So here's to a summer filled with simple and spontaneous fun with five people that I love more than anything in the world.