4th of July

Happy 4th of July!  In typical PNW fashion, the weather was cool, mid sixties, until the sun finally came out.  It was great!  Randy was in charge of the annual church breakfast which meant there was a ton of food and a ton of leftovers.  The decorations were on point so everyone knew as soon as they pulled up to the park that Randy Ball was in charge.  Randy had a "founding father" recite the pledge of allegiance and then one of our talented teens sang the National Anthem.  Good times were had and Parker was awesome for inviting a bunch of his friends.  They all had a great time.

I sliced two crates, not boxes, crates of strawberries.  

Kristina, our office manager, bought decorations for the kids to decorate their bikes with for the bike parade.  The prizes were bags full of swag.  Kristina knows not to do anything halfway for Dr Ball.

Notice all the bunting by Randy.  He says we can use it for our house (insert eye roll and laughing emoji here).

After the breakfast we braved the boat launch and it turned out no one was out on the lake.

The best kind of boating is when I can read a book

Marcus spent the 4th of July in Paris with our good friends, the Walker's.  

We literally had hundreds of sparklers because Randy bought a ton and so did one of the other dads.  We finally stopped helping the kids light them and just walked away.  They figured it out themselves and no one got hurt, although a few small fires were stomped out of the lawn.

Our backyard is seriously magical with the lights and the kids playing and the s'mores being roasted.  

We had a little pre-firework show in the front yard that was actually crazy.  I ever knew fireworks could be so big, loud, and smokey.

Our trees are starting to get too big for perfect viewing but it still beats fighting the crowds and parking to watch the show from anywhere else.  There were so many kids/adults/teens on the roof this year that they didn't fit.

The state of my laundry room is how I gauge the chaos level of my life.  This was an all-time high level.

This and That

Henry is a chess player when I turn off the internet.  Parker enjoys playing chess with Henry when I turn off the internet.  What that actually means is my boys do things together but only when there are absolutely no other options so I have to take a picture to document it.  

I helped plan another big stake event and had an ice cream truck and a shave ice truck come.  Henry was so excited for free food he was literally counting down the days and made sure Randy could take him to the party since I went early for set up.  

We had about 250 people there, and the forecast of rain miraculously didn't happen.  Praying for sunshine while Utah is in a serious drought is so ironic. A World Cup game was happening at the same time so I had our tech guy stream the game for all the teens who were forced to come to the event instead of watch the game.  Felt like a win.

I need to add balloon arches to my skill set because it would come in handy.  I didn't make this one but I helped pop all the balloons afterwards.  The people in the chapel were watching the 2-hour long performance of the Tabernacle Choir performing at the Hollywood Bowl.  

Meanwhile Marcus was in Spain with an old family friend.  These two rode the bus to kindergarten together in Okinawa.

Parker is playing football and Henry was excited to wear his helmet, even while eating.

Henry worked so hard to make a big domino run.  I don't know why I'm sharing this on the blog but whatever.  A day in the life of us I guess.

Summer 2026!

Summer started out with bang!  Just kidding.  It was so anti-climatic it kinda freaked me out.  The boys didn't want to do anything.  No bucket list, no trips to the lake, no hosting a party in the backyard.  Nothing.  So I took a picture of Henry and a couple random neighbor friends eating popsicles as they tried to figure out what to do.  I think the friends decided to just go home :)

The next day I got out the slip and slides.  They are so old and barely hanging in there and it takes about 30 minutes of sweaty labor to get them set up.  Henry and Jack helped me, like literally helped me and suddenly my love-hate relationship for the slides was mostly love.  Henry's buddies had never been on them before and they were in heaven so all was well with the world and the start to summer.

Marcus made some travel plans while he was in England so he could travel Europe on the weekends.  His itinerary made me so jealous!  So as I post about our family summer events, there will be random pictures of Marcus visiting various countries.

Day 3 of summer looked like Henry falling asleep on the couch.  That's one tired/bored kid!

Henry and his buddies love tubing and have as the summer has progressed they've gotten brave enough that they actually get tossed in the air and brag about not letting go, even if their arms get nearly pulled out of their sockets. 

While nothing was happening here, Marcus was kayaking in caves in Portugal.

Henry got invited to a whiffle ball-themed birthday party.  They played the boys walk-up songs and they had the best time.  Major Sandlot vibes.

This picture is significant for two reasons: first, Henry is wearing a tie.  We are trying to make him do hard things.  Second, he's eating a Lunchable which all have my boys loved when they were little.  They're not even good but whatever.

A new Ball family tradition: Sunday sandwiches after church.  And they are goooood!

Ethan came home for a week and rented a Tesla.  I guess you can do that for free once a year.  Anyway, they are pretty fun and now I know why I hate Tesla drivers.  They aren't even driving their car!

Ethan was kind enough to let Landon nervously drive the Tesla.  The smiles were big!

We took friends out for a date night on Lake Union and it was pure magic.  We had a delicious dinner at Duke's Seafood and talked for hours,  There is no better place to be in the summer than WA

while we were on our date night, I turned off the internet and told my boys if they wanted dinner they had to get off screens and go swimming at Pine Lake.  This was the photo they sent for proof.  I think it's about the only time all three have them have been together this whole summer!

Henry got more x-rays to check his growth plates.  The 'roids are working!  (That's slang for growth steroids). Henry has grown four inches this year and has moved up from the front row for class pictures to the second row.  So he's short but not the shortest.  All his brothers are jealous of his daily "butt shots."

I happily worked my tail off in the kitchen at the open house for my friends.  It's so awesome when your two best friends have kids that marry each other.  The place was packed!  I wish I'd gotten a picture of all of us working in the kitchen, sampling food (the caramel cheesecake will never be forgotten) as we discussed GLP-1's and peri-menopause. 

Dragon Boat Racing

I am a dragon boat racer!  But not the serious kind.  Although I do I have a 2nd place medal to show for it so maybe I should get serious.  There is an annual dragon boat racing competition every year and a friend randomly got asked to provide a team for a sponsor who was willing to pay all the fees and provide shirts.  So that's how I got to be on a dragon boat on Lake Union with a bunch of inexperienced rowers.  I knew about half the ladies and we had as much fun hanging out together between races as we did rowing together.  

The guy on the front row, bottom left was our coach.  We failed terribly in our first race but he didn't give up on us and we did some fake rowing for practice.  It must have helped because we beat some of the other teams that had men on them, which is a serious advantage.

Here we are in the waiting tent chanting "Annihilate!" to strike fear in the hearts of our opponents.  We were laughing too hard for anyone to take us seriously though.

The winners got to walk through the tunnel of paddlers.  Seeing how serious people took this event made it all the more fun/funnier to us.

I'm on the right, third person back, in the brown LA hat and loving every minute of it.  FYI, one boat capsized and all the swimmers had to be rescued by a nearby pontoon boat.  How embarrassing for them.  We the fact that we all stayed in the tipsy boat for three races felt like a win too.

My National Champion

The BYU men's lacrosse team are the 2026 MCLA National Champions! The tournament was in Richmond, Virginia and unfortunately Randy and I didn't go.  We will probably regret that for the rest of our lives but oh well.  We weren't the only parents who weren't there and since Marcus is the oldest, he's used to doing things like this alone.  

We loved the family FaceTime call with him after as he showed off his medal and hat.  The ring comes in the fall.  The playoffs were exciting but nothing compared to the excitement of when they won their conference game against UVU, and I was there for that one.

Marcus and his teammate JP, who is also from Sammamish and played Skyline lacrosse 

We are all so proud of Marcus's hard work.  Getting up at 4:30am for practice is no joke.  Spending days traveling and missing classes and tests is no joke.  He juggled school, lacrosse, and his social life like a champ.  He was also never home!  

Marcus flew home a week after the big game and spent less than 24 hours with us.  Luckily he was able to pick Henry up at the bus stop (all the boys love doing that) and had time to play lacrosse in the backyard.

Henry got to wear the champion hat

Burnley Soccer Stadium

And now Marcus is in England doing a paid internship for Burnley Football Club!  That's kind of like doing an internship for an NFL football team in the USA.  It's a big deal.  He's living the dream!  Well, my dream anyway.  If I could hop on a plane and spend a few days roaming the English countryside with him I would do it in a heartbeat.  But I'm settling for all the videos, pictures and FaceTime calls.

Here's the locker room.  Definitely giving off Ted Lasso vibes for sure

The staff got to play football on the field before they ripped up all the turf.  Don't worry, before Marcus was a lacrosse player was a all in for soccer.  He said his skills came back, pretty quick!

Don't worry, Marcus even found a lacrosse team to play on.  How cool is that?  It's box lacrosse so it's a little different and really physical and he loves it!

People always ask about his social life so I'll tell you about this funny conversation I overheard.  When he was asked if he hoped to meet a girl on his internship he said "No way because I don't want a wife with crooked teeth.  But when I get back to Provo I'm gonna be ready with guns a blazing!"  I died laughing.  I've never seen Marcus doing the dating scene without his guns blazing.  He's ready to find the one!