The Keyes!: Mother's Day, Camping, and Finishing Soccer

Soccer pictures this season happened on the day of the first game, when Kim was not available to help. So I didn't get to take the kids' pictures and team pictures like I normally do. I made up for that over the following weeks and got pictures of the kids.

Here are Nixon's pictures

And Henry

Here is Henry's team (with one kid missing)

And Mason

The three boys together

And all the boys together

Nixon missed the primary activity where the boys made Mother's Day gifts so I took him in on a Saturday after soccer so he could paint this pottery heart for his mother

This is what it looked like before it was fired in the oven

On Cinco de Mayo we had dinner at our friends' house and Henry enjoyed their karaoke machine

And Mason loved the pinata

We have some new flippers

We had a family home evening the next night on baptism since Mason turns 8 this year. For dessert we dunked fruit in dips.

Lyza needs new glasses and is having a hard time deciding between these two pairs

Kim attended a field trip with Nixon's grade to a local forest that had a fire last summer

They learned about forest fires and what it looks like after a fire

Beach day

On Mother's Day weekend Kim had a friend from out of town that was visiting that moved away a few years ago. She was able to spend the weekend with her and other friends.

Friday night at the cabin she got a great view of the Northern Lights (I was in bed and didn't see them :(

Saturday morning we had soccer games

Nixon got a goal (not pictured)

Mason stopped some goals

And Henry got a goal

It was a beautiful day

After soccer Kim went back to the lake to have lots of fun

I wanted to see the Northern Lights the next night. There was a nice sunset.

The Northern Lights weren't very good that night so this is the best I got

Mother's Day started off nice with Nixon singing a solo in sacrament meeting and Mason also sang (Henry didn't feel like joining them)

Nixon did so well!

Then we got some after church photos with the woman of the day

Then we gave her presents

Mason is such a charmer

This is what Mason made for Kim at his primary activity

And there is Nixon's final product. We think it is so funny how Nixon and Mason both chose the exact same colors independent of each other

The kids and I made this video for Kim

We went for a walk together

The kids tried to catch blue tailed skinks but the closest they got was one of their tails

The following Monday Kim and Lyza left for a three-day, two-night, camping trip to Shoshone Mountain Retreat with the 6th grade students from Lyza's school.

Here is Lyza's bunk. She slept in the upstairs room that was referred to as "the orphanage" a large room with rows of bunkbeds that slept about 30.

This is the group that Kim and Lyza were in. This picture was taken after completing some geocaching.

They did all sorts of outdoor activities and were really busy the whole time. Here is Lyza trying out the shelter that she made.

They got to have lots of fun. Here they are playing gaga ball.

I took Henry shopping for a new hat and this is what he chose

They got to do camp fires with lots of fun repeat after me songs. I think this was one of the highlights for Lyza.

Lyza got an award for her leadership skills.

She really showed leadership when she wrangled her unwilling group to put together a skit

Here is a picture of Lyza's group at the top of the helicopter pad where they hiked to one day.

This activity they had to work together to move a ball with only short sections of pvc pipe that was cut in half. They had to get the ball from one point to another without touching it. The leaders were not allowed to help so the students had to work together as a team to figure it out.

They eventually figured out how to work together

They got to look for bugs, which is Lyza's favorite activity of all time

Playing some field games

Tuesday night the boys had a bike obstacle course for their primary activity

Henry got to tag along like one of the big boys

More evening fun at camp

Arguably the best part of camping

Lyza even tried some rock climbing

And archery

They had assignments related to each activity so there was still some school type work they had to do.

The 6th grade class split up the week so everyone went either for the first half of the week or the second half. On Lyza's last day she got to see one of her good friends who had just arrived for her turn at camp.

I think Lyza had lots of fun at camp. She was exhausted when she came home since she got over 20k steps each day. I am sure she would tell you that her favorite part of camp was getting to spend lots of time with her mom.