Utah Day 2: The Bird Refuge

On our second day we headed to the Bird refuge in Brigham City.  We stopped at the visitors center and let our wild and crazy crew loose.  We had Gina, Kirk and their family in a car, Mom, Dad, Debbie and her kids in a car, and then Cindy and her kids and Me and my kids in a car.  We were quite a group entering that visitors center, but the kids were pretty good.  They had lots of interesting things for the kids to do at the visitors center.  They enjoyed it and we had to drag them away.

Looking through binoculars at the birds

Jillian and Shaylee

Jillian and Jaron

The kids loved these binoculars

Stevie, Jilly and Jaron

My doll baby with her constant companion, doggy

Annika and Stevie

Annika

Jilly and Jaron in a duck boat

My mom came upon this adorable conversation between my 17 year old nephew and my two year old daughter.  Too cute!  Summer decided to also join in the conversation at the end.

After the visitors center we headed out to the actual refuge.  It was WAY out there, but we saw some great birds.  There were some pretty cool birds.  We also had bees that would land on the windows and just stick there.  The kids were freaking out!  So Cindy told them to study the bees and that got them really interested in looking at what the bee actually looks like.  Shaylee ended up writing a story about the bees when we got back home.  She cracks me up.  Our car got a little wild.  We had Jillian, Maycee, Kenyon, Annika, Jaron and Shaylee in our car and Jillian and Maycee we found out do not do well in the car together.  I actually had a laughing attack while driving because our car was just pure mayhem.  I had to stop the car, so I could get control of myself.  I think Cindy and the kids all thought I had gone nuts.  Anyway, we had a great time.

Some of the birds we saw.  Kenyon took these pics cause I was driving.

Once we wound our way around the refuge we headed into Brigham City to the new temple there.  It reminded me of a mini white Salt Lake temple.  It was beautiful and it had a gorgeous tabernacle across the street from it.  From there we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's.  We had a very fun day.

Brigham City temple.  It is so beautiful!

The tabernacle

These two pictures are stolen from my sister's blog.  I can't find my pics of the temple and tabernacle.

Utah Day 1

Our first day in Utah, we spent the day hanging out and relaxing after our very long drive from the PNW.  I always just enjoy visiting with my fam while the kids play with their cousins.  That evening we headed to Pleasant Grove to check out the rodeo for Strawberry Days.  I have never been to the rodeo and wasn't super excited  about it, but my mom grew up going to rodeos and so I was trying to keep an open mind.  We picked up Pete's mom and had dinner then went and met Paul, Inger and family at the rodeo.  They saved us some good seats and we were able to see really well.  I enjoyed the rodeo and Shaylee even got in on the action and chased the money cow with her cousins, Hannah and Easton.  My favorite part of the rodeo was the Bronco riding where the Broncs come out of the gate and the guys have to stay on them for a certain amount of time.  It was exciting, but not nearly as scary as the Bull Riding.  One of the rodeo royalty's family was sitting next to us, so when she came to see them she autographed a picture for Shaylee.  The kids really enjoyed themselves, but it was super long and I was driving back to my parents by myself, so I was getting nervous with how late it was getting.  We headed out as fast as we could and dropped off Pete and his mom then headed up to FH.  We didn't get there until about 11:30.  It was late, but well worth the fun we had at the rodeo.

It was a bit chilly, so we snuggled together to stay warm

 

Mommy and the girl!

 

Brandon, Inger Paul, Makenna and Hannah

Paul, Inger, Shaylee Hanna, Makenna, Kaitlin and Kenyon

Daddy and his boy!

Let's Skip School....

And Go To Grandma's!  Woot!  Our school only has school for two hours on the last day of school, so we skipped and headed to Grandma and Grandpa's that day.  We got there on the evening of June 18th and were met by a houseful of people.  My two sisters who live in Utah were there with their families and Gina, my sister who lives in Oregon, was there with her family.  It was a wild and crazy night with so many cousins and so much fun!

Daddy has his pet...

And mommy has hers!

These girls were twinners when they got in their jammies!

School's Out! School's Out! Let's All Scream and Let's All Shout!

It was a great school year for all of my kids.  Brandon had a very successful first year in Middle School.  He was not a huge fan of his Humanities teacher or his Science teacher.  He really enjoyed band and being an office volunteer.  He made some great friends and really enjoyed his after school activities.  For some reason I didn't take a picture of Brandon on the last day.  I guess because he was at a different school and I didn't think about it when he got home.  I've got to get used to having my kids in more than one school.

Kenyon had a very intense year academically.  He was in an accelerated math class plus his Excel class and all of his regular classes he really struggled to keep up with all his homework, but he persevered and found out that he can do hard things. 

Kenyon with three of his good friends Alex, Cynthia and Andrew

Kenyon with Mrs. Strawn his math teacher

Kenyon with Mr. Nadal his Science teacher

Kenyon with Mrs. Tendler his home teacher she taught him reading and writing

Shaylee also had a wonderful year with two of the best teachers around.  Her teachers truly loved her and helped her so much to become a more confidant person.  She made some good friends and enjoyed going to school every day.

Shaylee with Mrs. McNutt and Mrs. Dana

Jaron's first year of school was amazing!  He went into kindergarten a timid and shy little boy with very little confidence in his reading and writing abilities.  After his first report card, I was very nervous about where he was headed academically.  With a lot of work at home and school Jaron blossomed the last two thirds of the school year and became a great reader and writer.  He is ready to take the first grade by storm next year.

Jaron with Miss Price (she has taught all four of my kids kindergarten)

We are now very excited to have a fantastic summer!

Community Service and a Party

On Sept. 22, our ward was doing a community service project in soccer and baseball fields that are across the street from our Chapel.  We love to have our kids do service for others, so we always take the opportunity to contribute when there is a service project going on. 

 

 That same day, Pete's group at work had a party.  So, we headed across the river and downtown to a park and ate lunch and enjoyed the beautiful weather while chatting with all the fun people that Pete works with and their families.

Our Garden

Our garden produced lots of yummy and BIG veggies this summer!

One last outing...

Before school starts!  On September 4, we headed out to our favorite place on the coast, Pacific City and Tillamook.  We first stopped at the Cheese factory and watched the making cheese then we ate some samples, Yum!  And of course we couldn't leave the factory without getting an ice cream cone full of yummy Tillamook ice cream.

 

 

Then we went on to Pacific City and drove out on the beach like we normally do, not noticing that no one else except four wheel drive vehicles were on the beach.  There was a reason for this, the sand was super soft and not packed down at all like it usually is when we go out there.  We got Stuck!  And I mean really stuck!  We had people trying to dig us out, pull us out, push us out and everyone gave up when the van's wheels just dug in deeper except Pete.  He was determined to dig us out, we had a nice couple who stayed and the husband got under the van with Pete to dig and the wife kept me company as I tried to keep the baby occupied.  She was so nice and really enjoyed talking to her.  She is from Australia and met her husband there when he was visiting.  She fell in love and came back with him to the states and married him.  I was so anxious about the van, it was nice to just chat with her and keep my mind off the van and Pete digging it out.  Well, after probably a half an hour of digging they finally got it out of the crater it was in.  Hallelujah!  I was so relieved!  So grateful to our super nice friends who helped us out.

The rest of the time we were able to relax and just enjoy being on the beach and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  The kids love to dig in the sand and play in the waves.  My boys always want to climb the huge sand dune.  I love the Northwest.

We found this lot up for sale on our way home and man if we had the money I would have bought it in a heartbeat!