Girls camp, seven peaks, and garden

This week Jessica had girl's camp. They went to a cabin near Heber. All the girls slept in one room that had a bunch of beds. Some of the girls had to sleep two to a bed, but Jessica got her own bed. The whole upstairs was one room where they slept, and it had a ping-pong table and an air hockey table. There was also a swing that Jessica enjoyed playing with. There was a jacuzzi, but it was dried up. They made bracelets and hairbands, and they had a devotional every morning and evening. Overall she had a great time.

On Saturday we went to Seven Peaks again. We went early, getting there a little after 10 in the morning. There were a lot less people and it was a lot more fun. Jessica and Katie hung out together for a while, riding a double tube. They played in the wave pool and went on several tube runs. Rebecca was generous and mostly stayed with Matthew. They played in the kids pool, the wave pool, and rested in the sun. Brent and Josh and Dad went on several slides with single and triple tubes, and also some without tubes. Josh and Dad went down one of the slides where there is a steep drop off, and you get air and feel like you are in free fall.

Rebecca and the kids also did a lot of work on the yard this week. They put in 5 fruit trees (2 apple, and a peach, pear, and apricot). We now have a total of 7, and we only have to wait several years before they produce fruit. Rebecca's also done a lot with the garden, planting corn, and she's also working on planting tomatoes, pumpkins, and other stuff. We haven't had much success with gardens here, but we're hoping this year will be different.

Bosleys, Munns, Youth Conferences, and Seven Peaks

We had a busy week, with a lot of cool things happening. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of most of them.

On Monday, Ryan and Darice and their family came over. They helped us put together a trampoline (our old one was falling apart) and the kids got a chance to jump on it. It was nice to visit, and it was nice that they took the time to come over. We were going to do a campfire outside but it was too windy. Instead we cooked the hot dogs inside (and fajitas for the adults). We did let the kids roast marshmallows over the stove, and made smores out of them. It was a lot of fun.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the Munns came over. They were our neighbors until a few months ago when they took a job in Texas. Our kids enjoyed playing with their kids. Katie particularly missed her friend Kassie. We thought they weren't going to be able to come over, and Katie was very sad. But on Wednesday they called and said they were coming over, so that was nice. They came over both Wednesday and Thursday before they had to take off to visit family in northwestern Utah.

Brent had youth conference starting on Thurday, but he didn't end up going that day. We lost track of time until after it started. Since he missed Thursday, he was embarrassed to go on Friday, so that didn't happen either. We were able to convince him to go on Saturday, and I think he had a good time. Several people commented on his good testimony on Saturday night.

Jessica had a Beehive conference on Saturday as well. She spent the entire day with her leaders and fellow Beehives, and it sounded like they had a good time.

Jessica was gone all Saturday, but Brent had a few hours break in the afternoon. We decided to go to Seven Peaks (a waterpark) in the afternoon. We've been trying to get there for a couple of weeks, but bad weather has prohibited it. We promised Jessica we would go back soon so she didn't feel bad missing it.

We recently invested in a waterproof point-and-shoot camera. The Seven Peaks waterpark was the first test of the waterproofness, and it seemed to pass, thus far at least.

Rebecca stayed with the two younger kids for most of the time. They played in the wave pool, and the kids area, and the lazy river. Here they are in the wave pool.

Katie also went down a smaller slide. Here she is just after splashing in.

Brent and Josh spent most of their time on the slides. Eventually I joined them, and we got one ride down together on a 3-person tube. This is a picture of us most of the way through the line, just before we were told "you can't go down this slide with single person tubes", and we had to go backwards through the line to trade in our 3 single person tubes for a 3-person tube.
Overall, it was a really good week. We appreciated the visits from the Bosleys and the Munns. Thanks for coming!

Hawkslandapaloosa

Yesterday was our neighborhood's second annual carnival, Hawkslandapaloosa (we live in the Hawk's Landing neighborhood). There was a 5K race that Rebecca ran in (2nd place for women), and a fun run that Katie ran in (second place as well).

In the afternoon, there were face painting and rock painting, both of which Katie and Jessica took advantage of.
There was a live band (a family band that included someone from the ward). There was also a bounce house. I think only Matthew went in that, and Rebecca and I manned the door to it for a while.
There was also plenty of free food. Hamburgers, hot dogs, sno-cones, and a dessert table. There was also a pie-eating contest, but we didn't get to see it because we were monitoring the bounce house. Josh chose to eat his food on top of the slide.
Brent and Jessica were a little bored, and spent a good amount of time just hanging around, but they hung out together for quite a while, and it's fun to see them enjoy being together. At one point, I found Brent resting behind the bounce house.
Overall, it was fun. The temperature wasn't too bad, and it was partly overcast for a while, which in this case was very pleasant.

Lake Mountain Hike

I guess we haven't done anything interesting since last summer, based on the status on our blog. However, Rebecca and I did something interested today. We climbed Lake Mountain, which is behind our subdivision. It was about a 3 mile hike up, with a climb of about 2800 ft. We went up the ridge, making our own trail. Rebecca and I have climbed partway up for the last couple of weeks, but this time we went all the way up.


At several of the sub-peaks, we found piles of rocks, placed there by previous climbers.


It was cloudy part of the time, which made for interesting light patterns on the lake. This is from partway up the mountain.


Here is Rebecca looking very cute.


Here is a view from the top of the mountain.

On the way down, we walked down the dirt road, and that was about another 6 miles. Tiring, but cool. We've wanted to see the top of the mountain since we moved here, but none of our vehicles can make it up the dirt road. We just had to use our off-roading legs.

St. Louis, Cherryvale, and Home

In St. Louis, we went to the Gateway Arch. It is large. I wish I'd known then how to take panoramas, since I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture without being far away. The older four kids and I went rode up to the top of the arch. There are only small little windows to look out of, but it does have a fun view.





After St. Louis, we drove to Cherryvale, KS, as I have ancestors from there, and Rebecca wanted to go to the cemetary and look at records. The town is small, but the cemetary is large and well-kept and was filled with flowers, probably more than most cemetaries that I've seen.

We all helped to look for gravestones, but while Rebecca was in the town clerk's office the rest of us went to the park. Also of interest is that Cherryvale's sidewalks are all decorated with cherries. Kind of cool.


By this time, our kids (and to some degree Rebecca and I) were getting worn out. We had originally planned to head up to see Independance, MO, Adam-ondi-Ahman, and Winter Quarters, but decided instead to head home. From Cherryvale, we drove to Denver, spent the night, and got home the next day.

Overall, it was a great experience. The kids had a fun time, and we had a good time being with them. It was neat to see new things, and see things in person that we had only read about or seen on TV or in movies. It was fun to see family in their homes and get to experience some of their typical environment.

Virginia and North Carolina

OK, I'm going to finish out our summer trip. After DC, we drove to Williamsburg, VA. In the morning, the kids enjoyed the outdoor pool at the motel.


After that we went to Colonial Williamsburg and walked around. It was very hot, and the kids didn't really want to be there. So we basically walked up one street and down the other. You can pay a lot of money to go inside some of the shops and learn more, but we didn't do that. It probably would have been interesting, but it still would have been hot, and we probably wouldn't have stayed long.

From Williamsburg we drove to Jamestown and took the ferry across the river, which put us in North Carolina, and we drove down to Elizabethtown, where we spent the night.


In the morning, we went to Kitty Hawk along the Outer Banks. There was a large memorial on a hill. We were surprised to find the hill covered with grass, since all the pictures from the time showed sand dunes. We found out that the sand dunes had been grassed over, and also trees planted in the surrounding area, as a protection against erosion of the sand dunes from wind. There is a small visitors center with an accurate, flight-worthy (but never flown) model of the Wright Flyer. There are also markers for where the final, longest flights occurred.

Next we went across the street to the beach. I've always thought of the east coast beaches as not being very interesting. I seem to vaguely remember an east coast beach (not positive where) from when my family took a vacation back east when I was a teenager, and wasn't impressed. When Rebecca and I went to Florida last year, the waves were non-existent. However, this beach trip was fun. I think the waves were slightly smaller than in California, but they were still plenty large enough for jumping in. We flew kites (mostly me) since, hey, it's Kitty Hawk, you have to fly something.

After Kitty Hawk, we drove to Raleigh to see Andrew and Maren and their family. The next day Rebecca, Jessica, Katie, and Matthew drove to see Rebecca's aunt Geraldine that lives in NC, and Andrew took Brent, Josh, and I to his work. It was fun to see some of the artwork Andrew works on. It seems like a fun environment to work in. He showed us the motion capture cameras that they use for creating realistic movements in the video games. And the kids (his and ours) spent most of their time playing Little Big Planet.

Later that afternoon we all went over to Andrew and Maren's friends, the Judds. Andrew and I rode around in the kayaks, and we all went for a ride on their dock, which also doubles as a boat. It was quite hot and humid. We tried playing badminton, and were extremely sweaty after a few minutes.

On Sunday we went to church with them (just Sacrament meeting). They really have a small church. I went to find a bathroom and found that the door on the side of the chapel led outside.

After Sacrament, we drove to Andrews, NC, which is where Rebecca's mom was born. We didn't know where exactly she was born, so we just got to see what the country looked like. It was very pretty, though it was night by the time we got there, so we missed some of the view. These next pictures were taken in front of the hotel in Andrews, NC. The kids are holding stuffed animals that Rebecca's Aunt Geraldine gave them.


The next morning we took the scenic route into Tennessee, as a more direct, but probably less scenic, route was closed. We spent the whole day driving until we got to a hotel that night, just outside of St. Louis.

DC part 3

The last day in DC, we toured the Library of Congress and the Capitol. The Library of Congress gets so many books (pretty much all published books) that they have set up a kids reading room in the basement. We all wanted to stay and read, but we had to leave to get to the Capitol tour (which we still were late for because of long lines to get through security).

In the Capitol, there are a lot of statues of famous people from the various states (generally two from each state). Jessica found the statue of Brigham Young. The other Utah statue is one of Philo Farnsworth, who invented the TV.

We also visited the Senate Gallery, from where you can watch the Senators debating things on the Senate floor. To get in, we had to go to Senator Orrin Hatch's office. I thought this was funny - a sign indicating where wheelchairs could go, but full of posts that would make it difficult to get there. Once we got into the Gallery, there were only two Senators there. One of them was John McCain. They were not debating any particular bill, but I think just making statements to get them onto the congressional record.



This is us in front of the Capitol.