So much to get........

For the non shopper, missionary shopping is actually a very scary thought.  I hate shopping with every fiber of my being.  Add in the fact that Owen is not the size of the average missionary and we have problems.  Friday after football, we went and did some shopping.  I needed breaks though, so we bowled a game, had some lunch, did some shopping and ended with a treat.  We got quite a bit of stuff bought and had an afternoon together.  So I survived even though my head was spinning when we got done.  I mean it isn't just walk in get a shirt and walk out.  There are shelves and shelves of shirts, racks of ties, hundreds of suits, so many shoes.........

Owen is a little swollen in the cheeks.  He had his other 2 wisdom teeth pulled .  He said he couldn't smile because of the swelling.  I don't care though, I will miss all three faces together in one photo.  

Called to Serve

Cincinnati Ohio is getting one heck of a missionary on September 12th.  Owen is so excited, I'm grateful his call came when it did because he needed this jump in energy.  He's been feeling pretty stuck the last couple of weeks, and he was getting discouraged and questioning a lot of his decisions.  He read that call and had the biggest smile on his face and his energy is back.  Fun fact Cincinnati is home to the NFL team the Cincinnati Bengals, Owen's college is the Idaho State Bengals.  Funny how life works out. 

Bear Lake and Minnetonka Cave

One last road trip of the summer.  I checked three things off my bucket list with this one!  I'd never been to Bear Lake.  Everyone loves Bear Lake, and I had never been.  I've wanted to go for years and this year I made it happen.  I booked a KOA and told the boys to take the day off work and we drove up after football on Thursday.  Minnetonka Cave was only 30 minutes from the campground so we went straight there then came back and set up camp.  The cave was awesome.  The best part was that it was 40 degrees.  Everyone wore their jackets, but I was loving my tshirt.  Okay that wasn't the best part, but it sure felt wonderful.  It was actually really cool.  And even more amazing when we got the story of how 24 men developed this cave in 9 months with hand tools and dim light from a lantern.  There was around 440 stairs so by the time we went in and out we had climbed nearly 1000 steps.  We were starving after so we stopped for a snack at a cute roadside shack thingy and had grilled cheese and fries.  I had prepared tin foil dinners to cook on the fire so had a yummy dinner waiting for us.  We should've started our fire for as soon as we got to the campground, but Davis and Gator wanted to explore the campground and find where to rent these fun bikes they were seeing everywhere.  Well, we found them, Davis and Gator had a great time on the Banana Bikes.  Owen was too big so we rented a double bike thingy, ya that wasn't fun.  We took it to the store to buy wood then parked it for the remainder of our hour.  That thing was tough!  Dinner was late, but we were camping and didn't need to follow any schedule so we didn't mind.  Owen added a little time to dinner prep when he about sliced off his finger.  We really should've gotten it stitched up, but we went to the store and bought alcohol wipes, ointment, gauze, tape and bandaids.  We got it cleaned up and a couple hours later the bleeding stopped.  He's good now, but will have quite the scar.  Memories right??  Friday we woke up and went to the lake.  It was absolutely beautiful.  I could visit Bear Lake weekly every summer, it was amazing.  The water was clear and looked blue, and felt so clean and refreshing.  A nice lady we set up next to had rented a water trampoline for her kids, but they didn't even like it, so she invited us to play on it.  Davis and Gator swam out there and played on it for a bit, but all the kids were anxious for noon to roll around.  I had rented a jet ski for a couple hours, and they were excited to play on that.  I was scared to death at first, but I relaxed......a little.  Owen and Davis could've cruised around on that thing all day long, too bad I had only rented it for 2 hours.  They got every little bit of time out of the rental and I feel I got my moneys worth, it was awesome to see the kids have so much fun.  Another thing everyone talks about is the Bear Lake raspberry shakes.  That was our last stop.  Yummy!!  Our trip was so much fun, and there was a crazy piece of mail waiting for Owen when we got home.  His mission call came!!  It is real now.  He's going to open it tomorrow evening.

Gone again

On Thursday, we went up to Wolfcreek for our Stewart weekend.  This was the 4th year we've spent a weekend together thanks to Ryan and Christine for arranging the weekend every summer.  It's kids, messes, food, fun, games, swimming, talking, late nights, sleep overs, family overload.  Thursday we made dinner and the kids remembered exactly where the pool was and had their suits on and were swimming before we even could figure out who was where.  It is hard to sleep away from home I think, good thing the nights up in the valley are so beautiful.  I spent a lot of time out on the patio star gazing and enjoying the cool air and sounds of nature.  We spent Friday at Pineview.  The only way we could talk the little kids into leaving Pineview was to promise they could go straight to the pool at the condos.  Saturday we went on a hike, again the pool was used as leverage to get some of the kids to keep walking. Every year is just a little different with a new baby or this year Jess got married.  Next year, Owen won't be to our reunion.  His call should be arriving any day now.  It seems that is just the point in life we are at now, where things are just changing so fast.  I'm thankful for times like this weekend that we could make time stand still a little and just make memories.

Krissy brought up stuff for a "cupcake wars".  The kids all loved this, and Owen and Davis volunteered us judges.  

Owen found a poker tournament that was on all 3 nights all night long.  I don't quite understand it, but is sure got his attention.  I think it was more or less he could just stare at the TV, and not think about everything coming up.  Anyway, he sure got into in and almost had Chris and Davis into it as well. 

Last ones I promise

My cousin sent over the rest of the pictures she took.  I know I've posted several times with different pictures from the session, but I just have to admit it, I have a beautiful family.  I love these pictures.  Thank you so much Nikki!

Road Trip

I didn't quite think it through when I planned a road trip for early July 5th.  But we got up and on our way by 9:30, and made it to Santaquin before we had to stop for ice cream.  I get a mailer from Tuacahn every year advertising the plays they will be doing.  I wanted to go to Cinderella, but after Gator came up with her plan to read books that have movies, I decided to buy tickets to Matilda.  I invited dad and Dianne and we made a trip out of it.  We got down to Toquerville and dad and Dianne took us to dinner, then we went to the play.  It was an fun evening, and we liked the play.  It wasn't our favorite of the plays we've been to, but like every play at Tuacahn, it was so well done and the little girl that played Matilda was so talented.  It is such a fun experience at Tuacahn, I love going to plays down there.  July is a crazy hot time to go down south to visit, but that is why we planned to go to the reservoir Friday.  We borrowed my aunts kayaks and went to Quail Creek for the afternoon.  Davis freaked us out and went to the other  side to do some cliff jumping, but he was gone for a couple hours so my dad and Owen went out to look for him and when my dad came back alone, I lost it.  I just was so scared.  I had horrible things going through my mind and I just didn't know what to do. It took him an hour or so, but Owen found him and came back with him.  I can't even describe how I felt.  He was just smiling and saying he had fun jumping off the rocks.  It took another hour for my dad to make it back around the lake.  So after the stress and craziness, we finally had about an hour to just have fun.  It was awesome because it really just seemed like everyone got along and had fun together.  No fighting.  They taught Joey to swim, then some thunder and lighting rolled in and we felt it best to not stay in the water.  The clouds brought the temperature down a bit and we had a nice evening eating dinner and visiting at dad's house.  The boys went to a movie in St George, then we all crashed after the busy day.  We got up this morning and left to drive home.  I wanted to take a scenic way home so we drove through Zions and Cedar Breaks.  It was beautiful  We just drove through, we could've seen more getting out at Cedar Breaks, but we needed to get home and this was already a three hour detour.  Cedar Breaks was beautiful because it was both green with lots of trees and wildflowers, but also the red rock and deep canyon.  It was rainy in Zions and it felt so good, I would've loved to spend more time, but I was already pushing it with the kids, so I was happy with what we did.  I didn't have to share them with work, football, or friends for 3 days, I love road trips with them.