Summer - Week #5

We started off the week with fun visitors - Cooper and Miriam!!  They flew into Utah a week before the rest of their family to attend EFY and Retreat for Girls.  We had Sunday dinner with them before they headed to their camps.  Miriam stayed the night at our house and we drove her to Logan the next morning for her retreat.  It was fun to take her register for the camp; I almost wished I was a teen joining in on the great times to be had.  It was also nice to take my kids around the USU campus and show them my alma mater.  We were going to head over to my mom's house after dropping Miriam off, but Lauren started to feel yucky and we didn't want to pass any sickness around so we hurried home.  Luckily, she didn't get as sick as the rest of us were the week before.

 Enjoying free slushies from 7-11 on July 11th.  We stood in line for 20 minutes... was it worth it?  Not from a monetary standpoint, but it was fun to join in with the bagillion people who participated in the free slushy frenzy.

 Friday night Matt and I snuck out for a date while Lauren babysat.  After dinner, I tagged along in the golf cart while Matt played a few holes of golf.  Last year I'd mentioned swimming at Oakridge - Kim, you'd asked what that was, here's my super late reply:  It's a country club we joined last year.  It's in Farmington a few miles from our home.  Both of Matt's grandparents were members and he had really fond memories of the club from his childhood.  His papa's health has been deteriorating lately and couldn't enjoy his membership anymore so he passed it on to Matt.  I could actually do an entire post on this membership as I've had so many different feelings about it.  At first, I was embarrassed that we were members of a country club, I was annoyed at how much $ it was, and I made snide comments all the time to Matt about it.  I've since gotten over myself and realized this is something Matt loves, he's got a family/childhood connection to this club - which creates such strong feelings and ties, and he works so hard it's nice to see him have a place he can go to unwind.  So I guess I'm converted - we all really enjoy playing there.  Who knows... I may go golfing one of these days and enjoy it... stranger things have happened. ;)  Here are some pics of my cutie hitting the ball: 

We sent Bradley off to Trek this week and he returned home on Saturday around 5:00 PM.  The pic on the left is going, the pic on the right is coming home.  We missed him terribly and I was tearing up on the drive to the stake center to get him... how am I going to be when his mission comes around?!?  He was dead tired and didn't say much until we got some food into him.  He told me that his family complimented him for having a great attitude - no complaining.  I think he also may have gotten an unofficial obnoxious award for singing our annoying family hiking songs over and over and over... 

Written by Bradley:

Trek was really fun. We had to pull a handcart over 36 miles up and down hills.  It lasted four days and was really tiring.  It was a spiritual experience and also a hard one.  The food their was great but everyone was drinking water full of dirt.  One day we had to make butter by putting buttermilk in a cup and shaking it for about 15 minuets.  There was also a hoedown at night which was a little boring because all we did was swing our partner round and round.  The last day two of our family members died and we learned about doing temple ordinances for them so they could enter the kingdom of God. Our family name was the Mighty Mormon Power Rangers.  It was really hard to fall asleep because nobody had pads so we were sleeping on rocks.  I also saw a Black Widow which was pretty cool.  It rained a few days which was nice because it was really dusty and hot the day before.  It usually took us about most of the day to hike 10 or more miles everyday.  I thought it was really fun but I don't know if I would do it again.

The night Bradley got home from Trek we had our season tickets to Centrepoint Theatre; this show was "Fiddler on the Roof."  Bradley was too tired to go so Will took his ticket instead while B stayed home and relaxed in front of the tv with Owen.  Before the show we took the kids to Mikado and Will tried sushi (a salmon roll) for the first time.  He loved it - yea!!!

Miscellaneous crafting pictures...