Goar/Richey Camping at Strawberry Reservoir

My sister and I decided to take a family camping trip together this summer. We picked Strawberry Reservoir as our desired spot and loaded up the kids for a weekend of fun. The Richey's gave us a taste of what RV camping would be like as opposed to the tent camping that we're used to. I have to say that after hanging out in their trailer and being able to use a bathroom, wash dishes, sit Michael down on a clean floor, have a bed and a table to eat on, the RV wins out! Hmm, maybe someday.

The kids had fun with their cousins Zane and Maya. Jacob, Zane, and Troy got up early in the morning to go fishing. No fish were biting that day, but they did come back with some crawdads. Maya and Kera took a liking to them and they were playing with them for awhile, until we decided to roast them over the fire. Dave, Jacob, and Zane even tasted them. Poor little crawdads.

We had a fun time together and we want to go again next summer! Some pictures of the trip....

Stay tuned...I hope to be posting like crazy very soon!!

I have really been inconsistent with my blogging these days. I don't know what my problem is. Poor time management I guess. We've had a very busy summer between taking trips to Texas to visit Dave's side of the fam, then a few camping trips here and there, and recently a trip to Oregon to visit my brother and their family. Because of this, the summer has flown by! I suppose it's a good thing. Jacob will be starting 2nd grade in less than two weeks and Kera will be starting preschool in September. Wow, my kiddos are growing up too fast. Michael is finally crawling and now he wants to explore everything. Luckily no major falls or incidents, yet! His favorite thing to go after is shoes! All kinds of shoes and of course he puts them in his mouth. It's quite a challenge to keep all our shoes away from him.
So that's it, a quick update and warning that very soon I will be posting a whole summer's worth of pictures and events.

Primary Temple Trip

We took a trip to the Bountiful temple for our summer primary activity this year. My kids were very excited to see the temple up close. We even got to go inside the waiting room and the downstairs area outside the door of the baptismal font. Even though we weren't able to go throughout the whole temple, the kids had a great time and both Jacob and Kera said they couldn't wait until they're 12 when they can go and do baptisms in the temple. As part of the primary presidency I was able to help plan the trip and drove my own kids as well as a few other primary kids to the temple. Somehow I ended up with 3 crazy little boys in my van. They're cute but they all have endless supplies of energy. It was extremely lively in the backseat of the van on the way over to the temple. I tried to play church hymns really loud so they would get calm down and prepare for the temple, but they just talked louder and got crazier. Oh well, boys will be boys! Here's some of my kids and the three boys we took in our car.

The whole gang

crazy boy #1

crazy boys #2 and 3

Square Foot Gardening

Dave and I have started our first garden here in Utah. Dave gets most of the credit since it was his idea, and he did all the research about square foot gardening. But I get a portion of the credit for helping to make the box, dig the dirt and plant seeds. This year we're starting out small by doing two 4x4 salad gardens. We planted four kinds of lettuce, radishes, beets, swiss chard, bush beans, chives, parsley, onions, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We've already harvested some of the lettuce and radishes. It's so nice to walk out to our backyard when we went to eat a salad and it's all there ready for us. Next year we may add a few more boxes to our collection. Wish us luck!

Scrapbook Album from our Texas Trip

We had a great time in Texas last week. We were able to fly to Texas which saved us some time, but for some reason Jacob got very airsick and threw up on the airplane on the way there and on the way back. It's weird that he got so sick because he's never really had any motion sickness before. Despite the airsickness, the flight was alright. We had to change planes in Denver, then we flew to Dallas. We got to Texas about 7 pm and aunt Jennifer and uncle Kenneth were nice enough to come pick us up. It was a good 2 1/2 hour drive back to Gilmer, where they live. Jacob even felt sick in the car. But when we arrived and he saw grandma, he started feeling better. It also helped that his cousin Spencer was there and they were excited to start playing together. Sunday we were able to go to the Gilmer 2nd ward and see a lot of people that Dave grew up with. After church we had a shrimp boil, courtesy of uncle Kenneth. You boil a bunch of shrimp and corn on the cob, then you dump it out on newspapers and eat it. It was good shrimp!
Since we don't get to see our family for most holidays, grandma thought it would be fun to celebrate easter and have an easter egg hunt. So that's what we did on Monday. The kids dyed easter eggs, and later had an easter egg hunt outside. Grandma put money in each of their eggs so they could each buy presents. Jacob picked out Mario Kart for the wii (his birthday money helped pay for that). Kera got a glow in the dark care bear, and Spencer got a Sponge Bob video game. Then on Tuesday we had a big birthday party where we celebrated everyone's birthdays. We even had a pinata and each of the kids had their own mini cakes (even Michael). Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the cakes because I couldn't find my camera. On Wednesday we took the kids to see Night at the Museum 2. We also took the kids to Kenneth sister's house to go swimming a couple times. Thursday we went bowling. Jacob was a bit discouraged because he wasn't doing too well. Grandma tried to give him some tips on how to hold your hand and throw the ball. I think Jacob's just used to bowling on the wii. He gets strikes on that game all the time. Unfortunately real bowling is not that easy. Especially when the smallest ball they had weighed 8 lbs.
Friday we took the kids to a waterpark called Splash Kingdom. It was about an hour away in a town called Canton, TX. We all had a great time splashing in the wave pool, the lazy river, the kids play area, and for mom and dad the big waterslides. By Saturday we were ready to relax. We took it easy that day. The kids went to a primary activity that morning and made 72 hour kits and father's day ties.
Another hard part about flying to Texas was the time our plane left Sunday morning. We had a 6 am flight out of Dallas. And since Gilmer is 2 1/2 hours away like I mentioned, we had to wake up at 2:30 am and leave for the airport. Not fun! Poor grandma and grandpa had to get up early as well and drive us to the airport. So sorry about that, but thank you for being willing to do it! But despite a few minor travel inconveniences, it was well worth it to spent a week with our family in Texas. Thank you grandparents and Jennifer and Kenneth for a wonderful family vacation. We hope we can see you again soon!

"T" is for Texas It's about that time again, time to take a trip to the heartland and visit Dave's family in good ol' Gilmer, TX. We are packing up (okay, so I should be packing now instead of blogging) and heading out tomorrow for a family vacation to visit Dave's side of the family. Our kids are so excited to be visiting grandma and grandpa, aunt Jennifer, uncle Kenneth, cousins Jessica, Spencer and Seth, and aunt Becky. It's been just about 2 years since we've been back to Texas. The last time we drove there for Dave's sister Julie's funeral. This time we are flying to Texas. We were willing to attempt a two day drive, but we found a pretty good deal on plane tickets, and since we're planning to drive to Oregon in August to visit my brother, we thought we'd catch a plane this time instead.

The weather is gonna be hot, and grandma and aunt Jennifer have planned a trip to the waterpark, lots of swimming, and grandma has promised to have her freezer (or icebox as they say in Texas) filled with cold treats. We know we're gonna have a great time visiting our Texas family and can't wait until tomorrow when we leave. I promise to take lots of pictures and add them to the blog as soon as I get the chance. Later ya'll!