Bribes

When we told the kids we were moving to Utah for a new job at BYU, the kids weren't super thrilled. If you can possibly imagine, they were unhappy, especially Reese, to have to move. So we tried to point out the good things about living there, and for Reese, we bribed him. He was in a great spot, and was the most resistant to leaving, so we bribed him with going to BYU's summer soccer camp. It somewhat ameliorated his antagonism, and then when registration started and we saw how much it was, we couldn't back out.
So Reese has been looking forward to camp for six months, and it finally came. He was pretty nervous the first morning, as we were trying to find the right spot to register in the zoo that was the stadium, but we did get to see Cosmo! Cameron and Grace had seen him at their elementary school (there are perks to living in springville) but we even got a picture with him too! That was a pretty great start for them.

Aubree declined joining them; even a cougar costume is a bit too scary.

 Reese loved that he got to eat lunch and dinner at the Cannon Center, which all the kids think is awesome.... all you can eat dessert?! RD met him there the first day for lunch, and said it was a miracle they found each other, it was SO crowded from all the campers. And guess who they saw there?! It was a celebrity day.

When we picked him up at 8pm each night, he was all smiles and cheerful and excited and grateful. From a 13 year old! and stayed that way all week! It was great. He was excited about knowing a kid from his soccer team, his coaches, having fun and improving basic skills, and how well his league team was doing in games. That's totally fun to see.
He was especially excited he was luckily placed on a great team for the league, and they ended up winning the league championship. Nothing like a cool t-shirt to create motivation, right David?!

League Champion! for some reason it's a favorite shirt.

he got sunburned huh?! he's got an awesome farmers tan going.... almost as awesome as our multi-colored walls.