Before/After #orthodontiaadventures

Maryn's orthodontia adventures started around age 9, I think. After losing her baby teeth, the adult teeth just came in super crowded and we knew she was going to need some interventions.  We started phase 1 in Illinois.  She had braces for a year, and then a retainer.  She, of course, lost that retainer in the school cafeteria because...well, she was only a 5th or 6th grader at that point, and come on!  Why do we give these little kids apparatus that cost hundreds of dollars?!?  Anyway, after losing it we decided not to replace it because we knew she would be starting phase 2 soon.  Sure enough, her teeth shifted and drifted and we ended up basically starting over by phase 2.

After we moved to Michigan, we found a new orthodontist and they worked out her next treatment plan.  She started around Jan of 2014, and she is now DONE!  She wears her retainer at night still, but FREE AT LAST!

I'd say that's a million dollar smile...literally!

The "Ketchup-iest Catchup" of All Time!!

What I really mean by that is...I'm going to dump a whole fricking summer's worth of memories into ONE blog post, that's right, 1!!  I've neglected this for too long, and it's eating away at my soul...so, here it is!!  Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

First off, this was our summer bucket list (created by Avery):

It's a little fuzzy, but each summer we try and identify a few things that we all want to do individually as well as a family.  We got to most of them this summer, which was great! Some of them happened early on in the summer, such as our Idaho vacation (which I already blogged about), and a trip to the AA children's hands on museum. We did not make it to berry picking or Mackinac Island yet, but these are just some things we can carry over to next summer.


1.  Girl's Camp--July 7-11

I was a leader for the first year's and I thought this described a typical first year girl perfectly.  Still young, sweet, excited about everything, and helpful. The girls were trying to win the clean cabin award, and thought that if they left their scriptures open to our cabin's theme scripture it might help our cause. Just so cute!

Anybody who knows me, knows that it had to look CUTE in our cabin! Thanks to my awesome YCL's, I think we pulled it off!

Winning the clean cabin award, the girls went above and beyond for sure!

This was our cabin name and theme for the summer!

My girls!!

This is THE game at girl's camp.  It's called Gaga ball, and here is a pic of Avery dominating the game!

Me and Ave waiting for FOOD! in front of the dining hall (we obviously live in an area where Alden B. Dow has a LOT of influence on architecture!)

Maryn as Ursula in her cabin skit on Friday night

Avery as Kermit in her cabin skit

Such a beautiful view every day, our weather for the week was just gorgeous!

Fantastic week, and something I will never forget!

2.  While the big girls were away, Dad and Parker got to check off one of Dad's bucket list items: going to see a movie at the Clare Ideal theater, getting donuts at Cops 'n' donuts, and grabbin' burgers at a local greasy spoon.

 
3.  A trip to Oswego to check out a castle and have some Louisiana cookin'

4.  Parker takes swimming lessons!

5.  Lazy days in Midland: Chippewa Nature Center

 

And a trip to the Tridge...

Overall, the summer was great!  We spent a lot of time together.  I had to work a lot more this summer, so the girls spent more time at home just hanging out.

Of particular mention is that Mark and I made a goal of losing some weight. We decided to make simple changes to our diet (eating less sugar/salt, portion control, and less junk food), and walking almost every night after dinner.  We started small, but by the end of the summer we had gotten our mileage up to almost 4 miles resulting in each of us losing over 25 lbs!!  I'd say that's a sure sign it was a great summer!  YAY FOR US!  :)

When the Circus Came to Midland

I can't remember where I picked up the free child's tickets to the circus, but someplace around town they were giving them out. When I saw it, I thought how perfect it would be to take Parker to a real life circus!! Especially after her preschool had done a whole unit on it, and she actually got to perform as a clown!  Anyway, it was a done deal! (Maryn couldn't join us because of rehearsal.)

It was...something else!!  Pure entertainment, and a lot of comedy to boot!

Apparently this crew is a family called the Pages straight out of Cuba!  They are all related, and they run a pretty small traveling business.  Dad Pages runs the lions along with his daughter, who also does face painting. Brothers Pages sell cotton candy and popcorn, as well as do the trapeze, the dog show, and ride motorcycles in the sphere of doom.  Daughters Pages sold candy and peanuts, as well as doing the trapeze and the riding horses. Every time there was a new attraction it seemed that the guy selling hot dogs was the featured player!  It was hysterical!

We had a blast! Mostly because of how funny we found the Pages family straight off the boat from Cuba with their traveling crew! 

Idaho Reunion 2015

This was the year for an Idaho trip, and boy were we looking forward to it!  We decided to include the western side of the state on this voyage so that we could revisit our old stompin' grounds in Boise, Twin Falls, and then onto Pocatello and the beautiful Palisades!

We flew into Boise and stayed just long enough to grab lunch downtown in a little strip mall where our whole experience started.  We remembered meeting Janet Holmes (Mark's grad director) before coming to Boise to live for grad school at a coffee shop in the same area in '99.  Wow, seems like forever ago! 



We drove straight through so that we could get to the cabin in the Palisades early enough to see everyone.  It was so awesome to all be in one place at the same time!  The only one missing was Dylan (on his mission), and of course Grandma and Grandpa Brown (but I'm sure they were there with us in spirit.)



One of the days there, we did a family beach trip.  The reservoir was really low for this time of year, so we had to search for someplace that had enough water, but also enough shade.  Crazy to see these cousins playing together after 3 years!

On another day, we did some outdoor games that were fun to get everyone hanging out together.  I'm glad we did, it was fun to see everyone working together!

We had lots of chances to just hang out and visit, cook out together, and go on hikes (where we got absolutely eaten alive by mosquitoes!).  It was great!

I'm so sad we never got a chance to get a picture of the whole group.  We should've asked a neighbor or something.  Oh well, we always have next time! 

After the Palisades, we went back to Rigby and spent the night with Dave and Mel's family.  We also had some visiting time with Dan and Shalee's family again.

That Monday we spent visiting Rexburg.  We walked around campus a bit (but it was sooo  hot), and got some swag at the bookstore.  We got some pizza at the Pizza Cafe and ice cream across from Porter Park, and then headed to I.F. where we had dinner with Aunt Fay and Uncle Bob.

 

We spent Monday night in Idaho Falls with Lesli and Scott Pennock.  That was fun because we have developed a friendship with them from living in Midland together.  It was nice to see their new house!  We made a stop at the new IF Temple Visitor's Center and got some breakfast at Great Harvest.

After Idaho Falls, we headed towards Twin Falls again.  That afternoon we stopped for lunch and did some sight-seeing of our old house and where we used to work, etc.  It was crazy to feel like sooo much time had past, but no time had past.  The girls barely remembered living there.  We stopped off at the Snake River Bridge, which was so pretty, just as I remember it.

After sight-seeing in TF, we headed to Boise.  We had a lot to see and do there, and wanted to get in as early as possible!

We got to hang out with some old friends from our married student ward that Tuesday night.  We swam and had a picnic at their swim club which was perfect because the weather had been so hot.

Such a fun way to spend our first night back in Boise!

The next day we stopped by the old house, which is in the middle of the freaking hood now!  We had no idea we had bought our first sweet little house in such a crumby neighborhood!  It was kind of appalling.

After this, we stopped by the downtown area to go to the museum, the Capitol, and the Boise Train Depot.

We were so sad to have to say good bye to Idaho.  We had such a fun time.  It was awesome seeing family, and it was great to be able to revisit all of these important places in our own little family's history.  Boise is where Maryn and Avery were born, Twin Falls was where they were littles, and Idaho is where we began. 


Until next time...