Bear Lake

In August, we spent a weekend at Bear Lake with some friends in the ward. It was the end of the season, so the weather was a little cool (but not too cool for raspberry shakes). We lucked out, though, the day we spent at the lake beach . . . sunny!


Jax, Lily and Katie


Abby, Jana, Jake and Jonah


Henry and Riley

Sam and Meg

Allison, Jana, Katie and Kathy

Nathan, Tyler, Tate, Greg and Jory making a mountain out of a molehill!

Deer Creek

Back in the Spring, our ward had a silent auction to raise funds for Youth Conference. We won a day on the Abrahamson's boat. We tried to go one day in July, but the keys to the boat mysteriously disappeared, so we rescheduled.

It was windy and the water was way too choppy, but we still managed to have fun!

36

Nathan got a skateboard for his birthday. He tried it out to see if he still had moves.

Gillian was more a fan of the skateboard than Nathan was. It's been sitting in the garage ever since.

Girls Camp

I finally pulled some pictures from Gillian's camera. Here's the ones she took at Girls Camp in July:


Rachel and Sammie


Maddie and Sam

That's disturbing.

Where'd the Summer Go?

Is is possible to be busy doing nothing? I think so. It must be, because that's exactly been the case around here this summer. Since we got back from AZ, we haven't really done anything super exciting, but our days are still filled with the usual summer past times: sleeping in, swimming, playing with neighborhood friends, vegging on the couch watching TV, getting books from the library and letting them sit in a pile in the corner until it's time to return them, playing lots of Wii (Henry got two new games for his b-day), Happy Hour slushes at Sonic, movies, and staying up until 9:30 or 10:00 waiting for the sun to go down. Speaking of, this is what the sky looked like last night over the mountains at sunset:

Samantha and Gillian went to Girls Camp 3 weeks ago, and Elliot attended his first Cub Scout camp - super fun for them! I dropped Sam off at another camp early this morning. Lucky. Oakcrest camp is just for girls who are going in 8th or 9th grade, and she was way excited to go.

Oh, yeah - there was the Fourth of July. We went to downtown Provo with Sommer's family for the Freedom Festival. Now I've done it. Don't need to do it again. Then we went to Bridalveil Falls in Provo Canyon for a picnic and to let the kids play in the water. And of course we saw fireworks.

Red, white and blue cake. . .

. . . followed by sparklers.

We do have some more exciting plans for August, however. We will be going to Lagoon when Samantha gets back from Oakcrest, and then a weekend at Bear Lake with ward friends. Grandma and Grandpa AND Nana and Papa are coming for a visit, and Nathan and the boys have a Fathers and Sons outing. So, when it's all said and done, I think it will have been a favorable summer. And school will start again - hoorah!

Arizona

After our visitors left, I packed up the kids and headed to Arizona for 10 days. Sommer did the same. We did plenty of fun things, including finally getting to really see baby Duncan, playing at the park and the splash pad, going out to dinner in Scottdale, lunch with Granny, a birthday party for Henry at Peter Piper Pizza, going to the pool, and a Jackson family party. I only remembered to pull out my camera a couple of times to take pictures:

And we managed to survive the heat. Barely.

Schools Out! Time for...Visitors!

Nana, Papa, Aubree and Olivia came for a visit. They arrived on the last day of school - what a way to kick off the summer! We took them to Slab to see Eric and eat the best pizza in the world. We also visted Temple Square in Salt Lake City and had dinner at Ruth's Diner in Emigration Canyon. We spent Sunday afternoon in Millcreek Canyon and drove back to SLC to see the temple light up when the sun went down.

Aubree was really intersted in the temples. We put our pajamas on one night just to drive to the Draper Temple after dark.

We were happy to learn that Aubree had been taking the missionary discussions and was wanting to be baptized. We're so proud of you Aubs!