365+1 Week 24

Photo's #162-168:

"Best part of your weekend" Well other than our camping trip already documented- Seeing Eva in her new favs for her cute little tootsies to ride in as we headed off to church was pretty grand!

We have started doing our "Summer Stations" after our morning chores and daily routine.  On days when we have no plans and nothing scheduled, we rotate through 6 different stations for 30 minutes a piece after lunch is cleaned up.  The Stations that we have settled on are as follows: art, piano, Computer/Webkins, reading, puzzles, learning (ie. math games on ipod, phonics reading cards, etc.). Today the art station was water colors. In the past it has been play dough, markers and coloring books, and finger painting. So far so good- it eats up a lot of time in the "I'm bored" afternoon and it is totally quiet!! Not to mention that we have been doing so much better on keeping up the piano practicing- last summer was terrible!  Hildie you're a genius!

On our way home from story time Abby looks out the window of our car and says "Mom, look at that cool rainbow!"  I in turn say "there couldn't possibly be a rainbow- it hasn't rained in days and it is 85 degrees outside."  She disagrees and makes me pull the car to the side of the road, lean over to her passenger window and wouldn't you know it- a totally cool horizontal rainbow in the clouds!! Awesome! Who else saw this that day?

After going to several dance performances this last couple of weeks the girls have been totally and completely inspired by the movements, music and showmanship!  They began practicing and putting together their own performance- including MANY costume changes, group, and solo performances MC'ed by Abby herself and music selections by all the girls.  Paul and I were given hand drawn invites and programs- but the piece of resistance was upon arrival to the performance hall (ie. our front room) our phones were sequestered as to not distract ourselves or others during the performance!! I'm not sure what this says about us exactly but I do know that we are KICKING ourselves for not recording the dancing on camera for future blackmail!!


My family was having a reunion this week.  Three of the 8 children live out of state and were traveling in.  This was the first time in over two years that we have all been together at once! All the siblings, all the spouses, all the children! I was so happy to see everyone and spend several days camping with many of them down at Bear River on the south end of the Nebo Scenic Byway Loop.  Being that I have great photo's from this three day adventure of nearly all the 43 people that were in attendance I had much trouble nailing down just one photo for each day.  It wouldn't truly show what fun we had together- so this is the best I could do! I am still sad that I can't share all the goodness here- it would just be too overwhelming, I guess it will just have to go in the scrapbooks instead. :)

This is all the pop-ups lined up together (there were several tents as well)- and it wouldn't be complete without some card playing by the youngins!!

The next day we drove the loop up into Payson Lake to do some rafting, lounging and outlook jumping.

Yes that is Abby on her first ever jump- it was pretty high and I was so impressed with her bravery!!

On Saturday we did some hiking and then packed up and went over to my brother's house for a family picture taking adventure followed by a fun BBQ  and lots of playing in his backyard.

I also have to include this photo's of my sister and sisters in law- all due within a couple of weeks of each other this summer (they didn't want me to take it, but they WILL thank me later right!),

and this fantastic picture of my Brother and his little boy having the time of their lives!! (we were laughing so hard at this shot, joking with each other that it should be put up on the church's website promoting happy families!!)

And our night ended with the spectacular Cedar Hills Fireworks celebration shooting off right behind my brother's house! (Thanks Rand for the low light photography tips!) Thanks family for a wonderful time spent together- I hope it isn't that long before we can do it again!