Girls Camp

This week Camille and I went to Girls Camp. We stayed in a cabin by Bear Lake, and we had a wonderful time. We have the greatest girls in our ward, and I was especially glad to be able to share it with Camille!

Having fun on the rope swing at Bloomington Lake in Idaho.
The girls all ended up with embroidery floss sewn in their hair.
This is as close to real camping as we got!

I Love the Internet!

How did we ever stay in touch before the internet? Between blogging, email, and Facebook I love the ability to connect with friends and family. Right now I think my favorite is Skype, though. Every Sunday night we get a call from Russia. We get to chat with Grandma and Grandpa for a few minutes and it makes them seem a lot closer. It's great to see their faces and hear their voices every week. We still miss them, but it is great to be able to talk to them and hear about their adventures and tell them about what's going on in our lives.

Cousins!

We haven't seen Niel and Amy's family as much as we'd like since Mom and Dad left. Last Sunday we all got together for dinner and it was great to see everyone. All their kids are getting so tall! We need to get together more often.

Megan and Conner slept over at our house. Camille and Megan had a good time making jewelry since they both missed the Girls Day Out in May when we did beading. Megan made 7 pair of earrings! Camille's either too much of a perfectionist or more creatively challenged :) She made 1 pair and a bracelet!

The next day we went to Willard Bay. The kids had fun swimming, riding wave runners, and being pulled on the tube. It was a gorgeous day -not quite as hot as it's been, but nice and sunny. Everyone got good and worn out.

Fun at Pineview

Cooling off at Pineview Reservoir

Youth Conference

Camille, Scott and I spent last weekend at Youth Conference. We slept at the Olympic Village at the U of U and spent the days at This is the Place State Park and Temple Square and other places learning about the pioneers and having other activities. Everyone, even Scott, surprised themselves by having lots of fun square dancing!

The last day of Youth Conference we had a one day trek. We started at the pioneer village and pushed and pulled handcarts for 5 miles. Very steep and suprisingly tough! It took all day because of all the activities along the way.

Pioneer games before the trek began.

All the Shadow Ridge Ward girls. We owe our "authentic" pioneer clothing to Savers! Aren't we cute?

Jr. Miss

Last week Camille competed in the Northern Utah Jr. Miss Competiton. It's a scholarship program in which the girls are judged on scholarship, talent, physical fitness, interview skills, and self-expression. She kind of got talked in to doing it, and she wasn't particularly looking forward to it because this isn't really her kind of thing, but she ended up having fun and she did a great job. She took first place in the scholarship category and was a finalist in the talent competition. In looking at the judges' scoring we figure she took 5th place overall. She's a beautiful girl, inside and out, and we are very proud of her. We weren't allowed to video the actual competion, but this is a clip of her talent during the dress rehearsal the night before. The stage crew was figuring out the lights, so the background kept changing colors, and my camera kept going in and out of focus, but you can get the idea. All the talents had to be 90 seconds or less.

Raspberries

Matthew and I went down to Mom and Dad's house to pick raspberries a few days ago. We got a lot of yummy raspberries to bring home even though most of the berries Matt picked made their way to his tummy! It brought back a lot of memories and made miss Mom and Dad! The berries made a lot of jam. Mmmm! It's one of my favorite things - especially on homemade bread, which I don't make nearly often enough.

4th of July

We spent most of the 4th of July planting and spreading top soil. We still have a long way to go, but at least we have a few plants in front of our house now, even if they're all really small!

Kevin's friend, Trevor, lives right next door to a house in the Parade of Homes, so they set up a lemonade stand. They have been working pretty hard at it.

Finally, what everyone has been waiting for!

We wondered if we would be able to see any firework shows from our deck. We counted at least 12 separate shows that we were able to watch, from down by Lagoon and West Bountiful to way up north by Farr West or somewhere up there. None of them were super close -Ogden's was blocked from our view- but it was really fun to sit out and watch and listen to them all. It felt eerily like a warzone, and it made us grateful that we've never been exposed to anything like that.
Cleaning up the mess the next day before church.All in all, a fun holiday. We missed Camille, who went to Provo with a friend for the Stadium of Fire, and we had a lot of nostalgic thoughts about last year's 4th, when we were in Hawaii with Grandma and Grandpa and Niel and Amy's family, but we had a good day, and we're grateful to live in such a wonderful country.

This Is More Like It!

Last I checked, summer was supposed to be sunny and warm, not rainy, gloomy and COLD! But June here at our house has had more rain and hail than blue sky. While it has been good for our new sod, it's been bad for getting any other yard work done, and it's been really bad for my kids who have been itching to get outside and play. And since our sport court is still full of scaffolding and tools I got sick and tired of balls bouncing throughout our house, and even more tired of the darn TV! But, suddenly, when we arrived home from Yellowstone, summer was here! It has been actually hot. It's kind of a shock, really. This blow-up waterslide has been in our garage since April and it is finally hot enough to enjoy it. Kevin and Matt and their friends have spent hours on it already. Now I need to make sure I don't complain about the heat! Last night it got a little windy and overcast and I actually heard myself say, "It would be nice to get a little rain!" What's wrong with me?!