July

Since the girls got to have a princess party in June,the boys got to go fishing with Grandpa in July! Actually, these photos are from the fourth of July. We spent the night and let the boys get up super early in the morning to catch our food.

On the 5th of July a man in our ward who lives on the next street up put on a fireworks show. I guess he does this every year, but we didn't go last year because it was on a Sunday. I thought it was going to be a little neighborhood get-together kind of thing. Oh no. It was huge. LOUD music and tons of fireworks. Free glow sticks for everyone. I had no complaints, except that the music, in my opinion, wasn't appropriate for children. That was kind of sad. We ran into a lot of people we knew there, but the most fun was running into the kids' friends.

Instead of a birthday party, Joshua got to invite one friend over for something fun. We went to the new Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. Afterwards we had lunch at a cafe and then got some ice cream.

If you look closely, you can see the boys up there on the rope bridge

Counting the money at the bank.

In a tornado

Then later that day we celebrated his birthday at home. He got just what he wanted, Walkie Talkies!

Everyone got sick in June. A couple of times, actually. By the end of the month - and part way into August, Derek and I just laughed that the definition of a good day had changed into one where no one in our family threw up! Yuck.

This, and similar scenes, are also pretty common in our house.

Lukas went to the dentist for the first time! Or, the press-dentist, as he calls him.

One day we painted, just for fun.

My garden grew and started producing!

I'm not sure what this is a photo of but I took all the time to upload it so I might as well use it.

Instead of going to the parade and to Fiesta Days downtown for the 24th of July, we headed out to Wyoming and went camping. We stayed in an old ranger cabin that was built during the depression - actually I think it was built a little before the depression but then built into what it it today by the CCC during the 30s. Very historical. And very fun and relaxing. Instead of trying to see all the sights in the near vicinity (near being relative) we basically just stayed around the cabin for a few days. Next time we wont try to take our minivan on the miles and miles of dirt roads. It may be only 4 hours away according to Google maps, but they must not be driving a minivan those last 15 miles. try 6 hours at least. There were a million beautiful wildflowers and one day we took a little "hike" to a waterfall and had lunch there. There were almost as many different butterflies as flowers. Derek played with the kids in the water for awhile. That was probably their favorite part. Kaleb spent day one and day two crying the entire time. He decided NOT to sleep, but cry, during the first night. But on day three, right before we went home, he started having a good time.

I started canning. First project: apricots and apricot jam

And, Joshua's artistic interpretation of our camping vacation.