Class Reunion

After hours of making decorations and working on a slide show during the road hours of our trip, (not to mentions the hours and hours planning and tracking people down) James helped me tons wrapping it all up and running around making it all work.  I had a blast seeing old friends---what a great group of people!

 

 (Look at that awesome back drop James made happen!)

Even friends I didn't actually graduate with.

My pride and joy at the family picnic.

Vacation - Utah

We enjoyed the 24th of July visiting with all the family that came for the barbeque.  Sariah got reacquainted with her "girl cousins" and played and played and played some more.  They all had matching dresses made by Grandma

 Emy, Alice, Grandma, Abby, and Sariah

 

Of course we had to hit the newly remodeled Bean Museum and very quick walk through the Museum on campus featuring costumes from different movies.  (I thought it was fascinating, but nobody else seemed as intrigued.)

 

We were treated to Macey's cones (in the parking lot) which were melting faster than we could eat them.

 

 This is right before Rex and Lyle's ice cream slid right off their cones to the gutter.

 

 

A real treat - the dollar theatre where the arcade was as big a hit as Rio 2.

 

And finally, Bryant couldn't resist his scorpion sucker from the Bean Museum Gift Shop any longer.

 

On our last day we headed up to be with the Cave cousins.  We lucked out and were able to go to the John Rowe Moyle homestead and be a part of a great pioneer experience.

 

  Making Candles

 

 Making Rag Dolls

Inside the Indian Defense Tower

 

Lyle on stilts

 

We got back to Cave's just in time to miss a torrential rain storm.

 

Talmage couldn't resist this puzzle at the Provo DI.  He did the whole thing in a few hours minus the missing pieces.

 

One last picnic on the way home.  The entertainment at the intersection.



Vacation

So off we headed to Rexburg for Vard's graduation.  The kids had it declared the "best vacation ever" before we ever got to our first destination.  We saw a semi in a big ball of flames, an Oscar Meyer Weiner truck followed by a truck that looked liked a peanut, then about Burley we hit a lightning storm with rain and wind and then these rainbows amidst the windmills.  It really was beautiful. 

 

We packed as much fun as is humanly possible into the next day.  Started out swimming at the hotel (with a little bathroom excitement for James when both Rex and Lyle needed to go at the same time and I wasn't there yet), then off to the splash pad at the park, a picnic, and a ride on the carousel---a big hit.

 

 

Up next was the sand dunes with Uncle Vard---Wow!  Everyone got a few thrills on the sand quads (I thought I might die a few times riding with Vard) and played in the "lake" all afternoon.  We had a weenie roast and crashed back at the hotel with the kids watching Bolt.  What a day!

The next day was more hotel swimming, DI shopping, a tour of BYU-Idaho campus, and pizza on the grass outside the Spori Building.

 

 

Ironically, graduation was going to start way later than we expected so we made Vard throw on his cap and gown for a picture before we hit the road to Santaquin.  Congrats Vard!

Summer Round-Up

I don't know when life isn't "busy" but this summer seems to have been super busy.  Here's the Round-up since the Fourth of July.

 

July 11th was moving day, however, we couldn't move in without a final hurrah.  The night before the carpet was to be installed (which was the day before move in), James was doing touch up paint when he stepped in a puddle in the laundry room.   He soaked up water and concluded it was something to do with the condensate pipe so he shut everything down.  I was saying my prayers when he got to Mom and Dad's that night about midnight, and I looked up to a face that was almost in tears.  It felt like a punch in the gut. 

 

We didn't change our plans though, the repair is yet to come.  Now we're calling this place "home."  It's felt like a cross between staying at hotel, playing house, and camping. (We are still trying to find all our kitchen gadgets in the garage of boxes and had to eat spaghetti one night without any sauce because we couldn't find a can opener.)  Rex and Lyle still ask when we load up in the van and we are elsewhere, "Are we going home or to our new house?"

Then, not skipping a beat, our washer came out of storage not working and of course I was packing to go to on vacation for 10 days.  Never to disappoint, James got it working again with a part off $40 part which he got for $5 off Amazon.  You da man!

Our first dinner was exciting and a little surreal.

Quail

Somehow watching two family of quail in the institute parking lot while we waited to pick up James, reminded me how I've been meaning to play a lot of catch up with our family's summer.  I love how quail, despite all their scurrying about, here and there, always stick together as a family---father, mother, sister, brother.  Hyrum and I were together after his swim lesson and he kept telling me, "Mom, you should take a picture."  I told him some things are better enjoyed in the moment with your own eyes. 

While James was away for 50 hours we had a tornado of a windstorm that picked up a piece of plywood and slammed it into his pick-up denting the door and shattering the window.  Our water heater has been having issues.  And, at 4 o'clock this morning a woke up to a torrential rain storm and helplessly watched the rivers of water cascade off the roof into the window wells.  I'm glad he's home.  Even if nothing has changed, it's comforting.

Hyrum had his kindergarten assessment yesterday.  Sariah got her school supply list (a very big deal).
Talmage went paintballing for the first time on Tuesday with boys from the ward for a birthday party and had a blast.  Bryant is sulking because he is the only boy in his primary class.

At this moment, James is pounding away in the basement trying to finish up closet shelving so we can paint this weekend and hopefully have kids in rooms and beds by the time school starts.  Every night, it's 10 o'clock before they all fall asleep on the living room floor.  Not a good routine.