Let's go fly a kite

Uncle Matt and Aunt Misty gave Clark a really cool, big kite shaped liked the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean and we finally got around to flying it. It worked really well! Abe and the kids went to the park by our house where there was plenty of room and no trees. I love pictures of kids swinging and flying kites. It just captures what childhood should be about.














Bethany auditioned for the "Mini Company" where she and Elinor take dance classes and she made it. So they came and put this poster and balloons on our front door. She was pretty excited and Faith was excited about the balloons!














Here is our little happy chappy! He is getting more fun every day and has started laughing.
Here is the kid's latest block creation- inspired by Indiana Jones. The round blocks on the top sides roll down and crush whatever is in their way. They also really enjoy building little houses for the girls' pet shop toys (small little animal figurines) to live in. If we only had one kind of toy in the house--we would all choose the blocks! A side note for this picture-- Faith does get her hair done at least every other day-- I guess it wasn't one of those days for this picture!

In other news, Clark has switched to a new piano teacher. We LOVED Mrs. Benson, but it was so hard logistically so we are going to a teacher we knew several years ago when we lived in Draper who now also lives in Riverton.
We recently finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia and we loved them. We're back to the Little House and the Prarie books. I always like reading them because it makes me feel like we live in a mansion and have a feast for every meal! It also makes me really enjoy staying home and just playing together.

I love olympics!

Hello, my name is Betsy Fox and I am addicted to watching Olympics. The kids are moaning that all I do is watch Olympics. That isn't entirely true, but not that far off. I do try to limit it to evenings only (except for the weekends). We had a fun evening on Saturday with our friends the Taylors. We held the first Taylor/Fox Olympics in our backyard. Events included, lawn gymnastic tricks, trampoline water tricks, slip and slide form, and backyard obstacle course. Clark designed medals for all the events and the girls helped color them. We feasted on a yummy BBQ and the moms enjoyed cheering on the kids while the dads were the judges. The kids wanted to moms to be judges to but we told them it is too hard for moms to judge kids!
I am busy organizing a couple of clubs the kids are doing this fall. Clark is in a club called Knights of Freedom with about 12 boys. They read biographies about famous Americans' childhoods. The semester we will read about John Glenn, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. We will host it at our house, but the other moms and the boys will plan the activities.
Bethany is doing a club called Liberty Girls and they read the American Girl books. This semester is Addy. Once again, I am doing the administrative stuff and doing all the registration, but I am not doing the activities or hosting that one. So now is the busy time of getting it all set up.

Pictures and Commentary on our trip to Spokane

Our dear friend, Emily Sanders and me in Pocatello, ID. We stopped to visit them on our way to Yellowstone. The babies are Cannon and Eve, born just a couple of weeks apart. All of our kids are very close in age and really enjoy playing together, but the older kids were away visiting their grandparents so our kids were sad.




This is our family at the Golden Spike where the two railroads- Central Pacific and Union Pacific met up. The kids loved doing the Jr. Ranger program and getting their badge. Faith really likes trains, but she didn't care for the loud train whistles.

Clark, Bethany and Elinor playing on the shores of Yellowstone lake. They had quite a steep climb down and up a very dirty trail. We threw water bottles down to them to fill up with lake water to wash off their feet when they got back up to the top.

















We are at the Grizzly Bear and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. They have several Grizzly bears and a somewhat natural environment (minus the steel fences surrounding them) and a wolf exhibit. The kids did a fun activity called Keeper Kids where they put the bears away in their other cages, I suppose, and then the kids got to go into the exhibit and hide food for the bears. Then the kids came out and the bears went in (the order is very important) and they got to watch the bears find their food.

The first picture is of Elinor and Annie- cousins born three days apart. The second is Bethany and Julia- cousins born one day apart. The kids had so much fun out on a boat on Lake Cour D'Alene. I wasn't there, but apparently there was a small catamaran out on the lake with a skull and cross bones on the sail. It was quite windy so it tipped over and the boaters didn't have the strength or weight to right themselves. Abraham saved the pirates--much to the joy of little 2 year old John, "Uncle Abe save the pirates"!















Clark caught two humongous toads up at Grandma and Grandpa's house. He named this one Strider and brought it back to the hotel with us. Gratefully, he did let it go the next day. Clark enjoyed some hiking around on the land.





Elinor and I enjoyed a four- wheeler ride down and back up the hill. Abe was on another one with Faith and beat us. This was during one of Cannon's few nap times during the reunion.

Mama Mia! Here is our glorious rendition of Mama Mia for the Fox talent show. The sad thing is that while shopping for our accessories in Claire's boutique- things actually started to look cute to us! We were being very silly.
The next picture is of the tweeners being rock stars!















Faith Fox at the park while the dads were playing D&D. She was so good on our whole trip. She wasn't accustomed to being around other little cousins who didn't treat her like she was queen of the universe!- but she was a good sport.






Eight sisters and sisters -in- laws had or are about to have babies within roughly a year of each other. From left to right: Samatha and Joseph (due next month), Mary and William, Betsy and Cannon, Marjorie and Claire, Amy and Jessica, Tiffany and James, Katie and Simon, Lori and Ellori. There was A LOT of lactation happening at this reunion!

Clark and Megan leading the cousins in kid Dungeons and Dragons. These kids would play outside and then run up to the room over the garage and play adventures. Play outside then go play adventures, repeat. All the cousins seemed to get along very well and have a marvelous time playing together.

We thoroughly enjoyed our brief stay at the Moyie cabin with Jesse and Amy's family. Everyone but the wives and babies swam in the river. We roasted hot dogs and made smores. The dads entertained us with a fireworks show.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

We are home again! Our trip to Spokane for the annual Fox Family Reunion was a success all the way around. It was really a three part trip. The first was a trip to Yellowstone (Clark's mothership). The next was the actual reunion in Spokane and the third was an overnight trip to the Moye cabin just south of the Canada border.
The reunion is Spokane really was fun and the kids had an absolute blast playing with their many cousins.There are 44 cousins and one more almost here. Actually, Baden and Mary's little boy was born while we were there- William Bradford Fox.
The highlight of the reunion for me was the sister and sister-in-laws talent show act of a lip sync and dance to Abba music. We went and saw Mama Mia Friday night. This is a movie that I am sad to say has no moral value whatsoever, but I can't remember the last time I had as much fun in the movie theater. The music was fabulous and my fellow sisters were so fun to be with. We quickly ran over to the mall to outfit ourselves at Claire's boutique--feather boas, huge earrings, platform flip-flops, hats, and body spray glitter. Let's just say the tween cousins actually thought we looked so cute and begged for all our accessories afterwards. We sneaked down the hill to the hotel to work on our choreography. Especially impressive since almost all of us had babies to take care of while we were practicing. We just told the husbands we were working on a special musical number. At least Abe was very surprised!
Monday morning our family as well as Jesse and Amy's families drove past Bonners Ferry in North Idaho to a small cabin on a river that Abe's Uncle Chuck now owns. Abe use to go to this cabin with his extended family during his childhood for the 4th of July. So the kids and dads all swam in the river and did a fireworks show. We roasted hotdogs and made smores. All the kids spent a lot of time finding little creatures in the river and tending the fire. We had a really enjoyable time was Jesse and Amy's family.
Tuesday we endured a 14 hour car ride home. We pulled in about 12:30 a.m. That part wasn't too much fun but we made it and the kids did remarkably well.
So now we are happily home and ready to enjoy the last few weeks of summer.