Family Fun!

Sisters are amazing. Sure we have our ups and downs with them. But this was definitely an up!

Sylvia invited us over to her house to go swimming. Of course, we took her up on the offer. Genevieve brought her amazing son Josh (, and Kaytlyn took all her younger siblings.

There is not much to say... Everyone was in the pool the entire time. Except for Emma who is sick. She sat on the side of the pool, and would throw things in for her older siblings to find.
Josh and Mia had a great time in the hot tub. Josh would lean back with his life jacket on, and let the jets in the hot tub spin him around. It was so fun to watch him. Mia would come along the side of the hot tub and take the bubbles out and put them in the pool. She's a cutie.

JUMP! Most of us got our own jumping pictures. Check them out!

And that's that.

Bell Tower

Dad took Mara down through Emma to hear the Bell Tower Choir. We could have just sat in our back yard and listened, but I'm glad that he took us over closer.

Maria, Emma, Gabrielle, and Mara stood on the over pass for quite a while at the beginning. Afterwords they sat in the van to read.

I loved listening to the bells but I found it hard to concentrate on something I couldn't really see happening. As I sat on the grass in the parking lot I noticed these cars. About 7 minivans in a row! Obviously, we live in Utah. (:

Oh how lovely. My wonderful parents! They are so adorable! I just don't know what else to say!

So let me explain about this video... I promise we are not that bad of singers!
This was Mara and I goofing off while listening to the Bells.

Six Flags Magic Mountain!!!

At the beginning of June my wonderful family, along with a family friend went to where we call home. Whittier California. Here are some photos from our fun packed trip!

Minutes before we left the Monsivais family got together to take a family picture. In this photo is my dear sweet Abuela. Her two sons, My brilliant father and My adorable mother, My Tio Victor and Tia Jessica, as well as their two boys. And me with 7 of my siblings.

While everyone was getting outside Ita, Gabrielle, and Emma where standing together. They are all so gorgeous!

It took a few minutes to get everyone out there and ready. So Joshua decided he'd let Karla practice taking pictures. He showed off his cherry red muscles for about 3 minutes.

Very simple explanation, Peter sitting around before we left. What a handsome boy!

The last day we where there we went to the beach as well as the 99 cent store! We only had a few minutes to go get some snacks and such, and of course, goof off.

Six Flags Magic Mountain in California!!
We all had such a terrific time! Here are some photos of our wonderful day at the park.

Peter, Joshua, Maria and I waited in line for about 30 minutes for the ride "X2". We went on it right after lunch. I'm so glad I thought to bring my peek with me! I was burning up in line, and would have lost my mind if I hadn't of!

Gabrielle does really good with Roller Coasters!

Gabrielle and Emma spent a lot of time together, Emma is a total chicken, and Gabrielle can be quite brave.

Emma really enjoyed the small, slower rides.

Mara ended up spending time with Mom, Dad, and Emma after a while. Looks like they had fun!

This was "SUPERMAN" Peter, Kaytlyn, Karla, Joshua, and Maria went on it and said "It wasn't worth the wait!" You are set into a roller coaster cart and shot at 100mph forward, and then up into the air, held for a moment, and then you fall backwards.

Emma loved this swing ride. After lunch she made everyone go on it with her. Of all the rides, this was the one that made Kaytlyn and her best friend Karla sick.

As I mentioned, Mara hung out with Emma. And Emma is one of the biggest scardy cats you will EVER meet!

My Father and Emma. And no way! Emma was brave enough to take her hands off the holding bar!

Here is everyone on the swing ride that Emma made us all go on after lunch.

Dad took Emma on the bumper carts.

Dad, Gabrielle, and Emma on the trolly.

Dad, Emma, and Gabrielle on the merrie go round.

Gotta love 'em Parents.

As we all should know, last Sunday was 'Fathers Day'. As I went through my pictures on the computer I realized I have pictures from Fathers Day. Hope you enjoy!

Fathers day was a pretty bright day. It was Sunday so we spent the morning at church. After church we all did our own things, weather it be watching a church related movie, reading, taking a nap, or helping with dinner we where all pretty 'busy'. Time flew by as mom asked for one of my sisters to get everyone in for dinner. We said prayer and, of course, started at the food.

Joshua's birthday was on June 17th, he is now 14. For his birthday dinner he chose to have "Fajitas". (YUM! My all time favorite!)

David and his fiance came over to eat, as well as bring Dad a Fathers Day gift. They got him a small duffel penguin bag. That when you squeeze it's nose it makes noise. We all got a good chuckle from it.

Nearly everyone in the family stopped by either on Sunday, or the Friday or Saturday before. Even Anthony and Missy came over with their 4 kids. Parker and Carson were very talkative and as always all 4 of them were fun to have around, as well as the fun sweet spirit of Missy and Anthony.

Everyone seemed to have a good time with each other. Genevieve played with all her nieces and nephews as well as spending time with the older kids too. We got a real good laugh after telling her a joke and waiting for what seemed a long while for her to figure it out. She's such a fun person!

As I mentioned Joshua's 14th birthday was on June 17th. His birthday Sunday ended up being on Fathers day. When it came time to sing to him and have him blow the candles out it seemed as if Genevieve's son Josh was more excited. He plopped himself on a seat right next to the cake and attempted to blow out the candles. He's such a cute kid!

Joshua was laughing so hard he couldn't seem to get enough breath to blow out his candles.
Hyrum kept bugging Joshua, by blowing in his face trying to distract him. And it worked. It took Joshua quite a while to get all 14 candles blown out.

Summer Job.

I am always so worried that my summers will be "boring", or that I will "waste time". But this summer is different. I was offered 2 nanny jobs this summer.
One is three days a week for the First Counselor in my Bishopric who has 4 very intelligent and adorable children. I love spending time with them, I don't see it as a job. But more like a hang out. We go to the park almost every time I am with them. They love to act out plays and be outside.
The other job I have is once a week for a Sister that was my Beehive leader. She has 2 of the most adorable girls I have ever encountered with. They too, love to walk to Wasatch Elementary and play at the playground. I love the time that I am able to spend with these 6 children. It's been such a wonderful experience. Even though it's only a few hours each day it's already helping to prepare me for being a mother myself. I've been able to connect with each of the kids, the parents of the little boy on my lap in the photo have been so worried to leave him with anyone. But every time I've gone to watch their children they've told me they are so grateful because he never cries with me. I love these children. They are so sweet, and truly children of god.

Park City!!

Last week Genevieve and I spent a few hours together shopping. But that wasn't enough. So yesterday Genevieve took Maria and I to Park City. It was quite the ride there, with confessions and random stories. We spent 2 hours walking in and out of stores trying to find something cute to get. Apparently it wasn't a good day to go shopping.

"We only got one shirt! And that wasn't because it was cute, it was cause it was cheap!" -Genevieve.

It was an interesting shopping trip, complete with laughing and of course a picture of us in sun glasses! On our way home we stopped in Heber at "Granny's Drive In." Famous for their Shakes. Soooo Delicious! Along with a side of Fries and Fry Sauce. mmm mmm mmm good!

Every time we go shopping, or Genevieve and Mike are busy and need someone to watch Josh, he comes over to play at our house. He is soooo much fun to have around. He has been raised extremely well. He is very polite, and makes everyone laugh. I'm so glad he is my nephew! When he is over he'll watch movies, play outside with the kids (like basketball). One of his new favorites is playing "Jelly Car" on the computer. He has also sat around and watched youtube videos with Maria, Joshua, Kaytlyn and I.
We love having Josh around!

Summer Time Updates

It's been nearly a month since we got out of school for summer.

Gabrielle and Emma Just finished Summer School yesterday. Everyday they spend hours playing with the neighbors children. Each morning both of the girls are up around 6:30 or 7 watching Television or something along those lines, and are usually dressed at about 8:30. They are becoming really good at providing for themselves. Gabrielle and Emma make delicious brownies!

Maria is quite the mellow one I suppose. She has been sick for a bit now. Usually getting up for scriptures at 8, then laying in bed for a while after words. She seems to be online a lot during the day, as well as occasionally getting her job done.

Joshua is a teenage boy. Always doing pretty much whatever he would like. I'm guessing one of his favorite hobbies is annoying his sisters. As I've mentioned before he takes advantage of being nearly 8 inches taller then me. He loves to tell me what to do, and what's 'right and wrong'. He has been spending a lot of time with neighborhood friends and down in his room with the video game systems. For his birthday Kaytlyn and Peter gave him a new basketball. Nearly every morning you can hear him shooting hoops in the backyard.

Mara has been done with Simulators for a week now. And will be starting rang on July 6th. My sweet mother has been taking Mara out driving for about an hour or two each morning to get hours in. Sounds like Mara is getting to be a professional! Mara has been put in charge of getting everyone ready for scriptures at 8. Her and Maria have been doing puzzles lately. A few days ago they finished a thousand piece puzzle in a few hours. Mara spends hours watching television, goofing off online, sleeping, or hanging out with her Best Friend Zoe.

Kaytlyn and Peter have both been working quite a bit. On their free time Peter seems to be out with some friends from work, or with Joshua playing games. He has been to the movies quite a bit lately as well. Kaytlyn seems to enjoy spending free time with her best friend Karla, watching Gilmore Girls, reading, or going places with us kids, she took the younger kids bowling a while ago.

Samuel works from 6pm.-4am. (shiv! -sam.) When he gets home he either stays up to watch a movie and play games, or just goes right to sleep. He's usually up around noon and after that is back to games, movies, or the internet until work. The other day he brought a girl over to finger paint. It sounded like they had a great time. It was sooo cute!

Mom and Dad have both been working. Because mom has been taking Mara driving in the morning, she has to stay at work later. Dad is usually home around 4:30 just in time for dinner. Today Dad stayed in Provo. He is at the Law School Library studying, or so I heard.

Family Time.

To start with, I love this picture of us all eating ice cream. It's just so... Us. Monday night is Family Night as we all know. For dinner Joshua made everyone hamburgers. We ate together as a family on the top level of the backyard. It was so gorgeous outside, the sky was such a perfect blue, with a splash of purple. As soon as Maria and I where done with our hamburgers we started to play "HORSE" with a basketball. Maria said I lost, but I disagree... hehe.

After shooting hoops for a while with Maria and Joshua I decided I was in the mood for ping-pong. I played for a couple minutes against Maria and Peter before we went up to the school. My sweet Mother took Peter, Mara, Joshua, Maria, Gabrielle, Emma and I up to Wasatch Elementary School to work on Joshua's Eagle project. I think we got quite a bit done.

After we finished up at the school we walked home and were only there for a few minutes before we all got into the van to drive over to Maceys (the grocery store). They were having their yearly "Retirement of the Flags" type of deal. They had about 8 flags that one by one they set on these two tables and burned. It was nice to be able to go and hear what they had to say. Here is a video, not the best, but this is what I got recorded;

After the ceremony Mom took us to get ice cream cones.
Gabrielle asked for a medium sized cone, usually the mediums are given to you in a cup. But they didn't do that with Gabrielle.
She stood for nearly 35 seconds trying to put money back into her wallet. I watched just waiting for her ice cream to fall off the cone in her hand.
After about 7 seconds I warned her it would fall. She seemed to ignore me. Until 42 seconds had passed and her ice cream fell off right when I was going to turn and talk with Joshua.
I saw it in the corner of my eye, and not expecting to catch it, I still stretched my arm out, and to my astonishment my hand was freezing! Chocolate stained my hand with stickiness.
In panic, still in shock of what had just happened, my arm shook as I tried to fit it back onto Gabrielle's cone.
Everyone was laughing, they were so surprised that of all people I, Leah, had caught it. I am still surprised I caught it as well.

After that the night was pretty much over. Just a car ride home, trying to see who could eat their ice cream the fastest. When we got home everyone was just relaxed, watching movies, television, reading, and online. Monday was a good day. I love Family Night.