Is it OK that this is mostly a place I dump pictures? I haven’t gotten digital prints in a few years, and the prints I do have from the past ten years are in boxes and drawers that sometimes the kids get into. The little rascals like to dump the pictures out, mix them up, and throw them back together so that I have 2009 with 2015. It annoys me, but not enough to reorganize them chronologically. So, the blog becomes a safe place for pictures but also it’s kind of boring because instead of great writing you find pictures with short descriptions. Oh well, maybe this will keep my readers checking back for quality work in between the boring family updates. You’ll never know if a post is going to be insightful and witty or just another news report. Lucky you! And lucky me because I don’t know either. Honestly, I could spend time being a little more witty and creative with my captions, but that sounds mentally exhausting and I just want to do something worthwhile with all these cute pictures.
I plan to write about our trip to Washington last week, but a few other things happened between our Moab and Washington trips.
Raingutter Regatta is one of those fun Cub Scout activities that can get out of control with crazy crafty parents and aggressive competition. Thankfully, our troop’s Regatta was all fun. I threw Sean’s boat together in about 15 minutes, wrote an “S” with permanent marker on the sail and called it perfect.
It wasn’t bad either.
I’m glad the activity wasn’t anything more than a fun race and a swim party.
Gavin is just cute lately. He’s super talkative and has strong opinions. He insisted on wearing Ricky’s socks all day because they were his “basketball socks.”
Ricky left me some nice selfies on my phone a couple of Sunday’s ago. 
During family scripture study one evening, Gavin sat on a stool by the back door and took care of his baby. 
I’m not sure if I have said much about Sean’s swim team experience. This kid can swim! He’s fast. He only participated in two swim meets because of family conflicts, but still ended up with two first place ribbons, a second place ribbon, and a third place ribbon. He has improved a ton since April–swimming every weekday for an hour will definitely help you improve. He hated swim team at first because practices were hard and he didn’t want to go every day, but once he got a “taste of the glory” (Nacho Libre) at a swim meet he loved it.
Here’s a picture of his arm with his swim events written in permanent marker.
Here he is on the block, ready to race:
Cheering on a teammate in a relay:
Having Sean involved in swim team was quite a sacrifice for me The meets were very long and late at night and they fell on evenings when Rick was out of town. This meant I had all the kids with me at the pool from 5:30-9:30 pm. Luckily, we had friends there. 
I think Brooklyn will participate in swim team next year and Andrew has expressed interest. We shall see if I’m ready to make the sacrifices to get them to practice every day and endure those meets. I do think it’s important for the kids to be good swimmers and this definitely teaches them skills.
These last pictures are of Brooklyn and Gavin being friends. These two play together so well. Brooklyn starts kindergarten in just three weeks. Gavin is really going to miss his playmate.
Here they are “making notes” on the office door.
And here they are digging in the dirt with Winter. 
Sometimes they make big messes, but I love that they can play for hours without any interaction with a screen. Brooklyn is especially creative in her play and she’s great and inviting Gavin along.
So, there’s some random “summer of 2018” pictures for you.
Get ready for a Washington Trip picture dump.
The Mergenthaler Family 