Catching Up -July

Where is this summer going?  I feel like it's slipping through my fingers,  and I haven't blogged about much of it at all. And if I haven't blogged about it did it really happen?  Hmmm, yes, I think it did.  

     Mostly we have been enjoying having our kids home this summer -at least some of the time- (I mean they have been home some of the time, not that we only enjoy them some of the time :) -although that might have been a subconscious slip -Just Kidding!  I promise!) and we haven't have any really big adventures.  Lots of sports -camps, lessons, practices, tournaments; -some church activities -scout camps, EFY; work -Ivy Lane for Scott and nannying + Ivy Lane for Camille; marathon training for Camille; and a house quite often overrunning with teenagers have filled our summer.   

     Here are a few pictures of some of the other things we have been up to.

Cabin trip at the end of June -Lisa, Camille and Matt

Wildflowers at the edge of the melting snow.  Other highlights of our evening drives:  Many, many deer, including the tiniest fawn I've ever seen, a moose and a fox.

Riding 4-wheelers

 

This little squirrel found a home in this birdhouse on the deck railing.

 

The water in the creek was so high it was running through the playhouse.

Hiking Waterfall Canyon on July 4

Matt, Grandma and Grandpa made it to the waterfall!

Scott, Camille, and Kevin

Scott decided he needed a shower

 

July 4 fireworks at the church parking lot.  

Since arial fireworks are now legal we decided it was a little scary to light them off in front of our house right by the foothills.

Laying sod at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Our boys and some of Grandma and Grandpa's mission friends helped sod their backyard in exchange for a delicious BBQ steak dinner.  Everyone thought it was a fair exchange. :)

July 24 Fireworks

We saved the real firework show for July 25, apparently.  John and Matt glued all the fireworks to a board and connected them with a fuse so they would all go off in sequence.  We took them to the church parking lot again.

It begins...I didn't get good shots, but the aerials were pretty impressive. 

Pretty funny to see everyone recording the show on their phones.

It seems like wherever Scott goes a crowd follows. :)

Flashback Friday

Happy 4th of July -2002

Fireworks and a New Yard

I'm so glad we are almost done with our landscaping. It has been hundreds of hours of work and we are all getting really tired of it. Especially now that it's getting HOT! Just a couple of projects left, and the maintainance, of course. Whew.

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.