Hiking in Zions Day 1

With all of our church camps this summer and baseball, we didn't really have a chance in the 6 weeks that the girls were off track to go on a family vacation.  So we pulled them out of school in August and took off down to St. George.  I'd really been wanting to take them to Zions so I was so happy that we could make it happen.

 We were really excited to take our paddle boards down there.  Jerry and I got up early a couple of the mornings and went paddle boarding when there was no one on the lake.  Literally, no one.  It. was. awesome.  My best time paddle boarding.  Ever.  I loved it.  We paddled fast and all around the lake and even stopped to do some yoga on the paddle board.  It was so fun!

Then one afternoon we headed into Zions National Park.  It is so amazing.  I am absolutely in love with the Utah red rock.  I love when the green of the trees is right in front of the red.  It's my favorite thing.  I'm almost ready to move to the desert.

 These pictures are from the hike up Emerald Pools.  The first and second pool were pretty small, but I bet it would be really awesome in the spring.

 It was hot hiking, but the kids are tough.  They kept on going!

 The third pool was small, but also really amazing.  It was this little green oasis in the middle of this hot hot desert.  It was really cool.  The tall cliffs surrounding the third pool made it even more magical.  It was like this secret little hideout!

 I loved being there all together and getting to show my kids these cool places.

On the hike down we had an awesome view of the other side of the canyon.  It is such a beautiful place!

Kate turns double digits!

Kate was so excited to turn double digits this year!  It feels like an extra big deal!  It's a bummer that she is in school, but it's fun to get checked out and have lunch at in-n-out with mom!

 After we had lunch we went home and I helped her build some of her new lego set.  Matt helped her finish it later that evening.  It was really fun spending the afternoon with her building.  We were chatting about stuff and having a great time.  Kate is such a sweet girl.  She loves to talk and so I love to just hang out with her and let her do the talking.  She cracks me up!

 All she wanted for dinner was to have ribs, so we were all happy with that choice!

 Yay for Kate and yay for being 10!

The kids

When my kids get a hold of my phone, I'm always a little hesitant to look through my pictures.  Sara especially loves to take selfies.  I once had over 75 selfies from her in just one sitting!  I did find these gems and I thought they were pretty cute.  I can't believe how long their hair was.

Abby has never been a good sleeper and towards the end of the summer we started to get in the phase where if she had a nap then she was up way late at night.  But she couldn't quite make it through the day without falling asleep either.  I loved the way Tulo was watching over her as she took a little nap on the floor after a day of playing.

Sara was in charge of family home evening one night and she chose to talk about courage and the story of David and Goliath.  She sat down and wrote this little piece about courage.  I loved it!

Young Women's fun

Sometime at the beginning of this year I was asked to serve in the young women's program in the church.  I was excited because they get to do so many fun things.  We have had a ton of fun with them.  Of course, the highlights this summer were the two camps we did.  First was girls camp.  I turned my phone off as we left the church and didn't turn it back on until we were on our way home.  It was really nice to do that!  But it also meant I don't have any pictures.  We had a great time though.  We camped up Logan canyon which was beautiful.  We went tubing and fishing, participated in "ooga booga" (I can't tell you, only initiate you) and had a great time around the camp.  It was a really good retreat for the girls.  They were very involved in the planning of it so it was really their camp.  One of the highlights is two of the members of the camp committee were young returned missionaries who taught us how to do companion study using the book Preach my Gospel.  It was really cool.  It was a very spiritual experience for the girls and really awesome to be a part of.

The next weekend we took all the girls who turn 16 this year and older on an adventure camp.  They chose to go white water rafting so we headed down to Moab.  We were gone for less than 36 hours, but it was still so much fun.  We got to Moab, hiked to the water hole where some of them cliff jumped, came back and had dinner, then hiked to Delicate Arch in Arches NP.  We got there right before sunset so we had an awesome view.  We hiked home as the full moon was rising which was in the month that we had two full moons.  So that was really cool.

There were lots of photograpers sitting up there waiting for the sunset.  We had lots of laughs at them and how upset they were anytime someone tried to hike under the arch.

Jerry got to come along as a priesthood holder so that was a ton of fun!

Fun group of girls!

Gorgeous views all around.

Getting our duck lips on!

The next day we rafted and had a ton of fun.  It was a quick but awesome trip!  I had a lot of fun with the young women this summer.  It was a sacrifice for my family, but totally worth it.  Everyone survived and we had a great time.

The joy of year round school

When I'm basking in the joy of year round school in October, I always reserve the right to complain about it in July.  So here I am cashing in on my right.  It is so hard sending the kids to school in July!  This year I had even more mixed emotions because Matt is now on a traditional schedule.  It's a bummer to have them on different schedules, but I have also enjoyed having just Matt home, or just Kate and Sara.  So, so far, I'm actually ok with the different schedules.  But still, school in July is hard! You can tell by my poor quality, last minute back to school photos that I wasn't really prepared for this day.  Nonetheless, here are the pictures.

Sara, second grade.

Kate, fifth grade

Abby misses everyone when they are at school.  It is such a good thing that she has Tulo.  They really are buddies.

This was a random picture I took to spite my sister for some reason.  I can't remember why, probably because she always calls Tulo "Buster" as in the San Francisco Giants catcher.  Bleh.  Rockies all around baby!  And on a side note, it is so sad that Tulo no longer plays for the Rockies.  At least the Blue Jays are a good team to cheer for too.  He could have gone to a worse team like the Giants.  I just hope the Rockies can keep Arenado.

Sara has been working very hard in gymnastics all summer long.  She's been working on her back walkover a ton and was so excited when she got it down!

Abby's Fourth of July fun

I love watching Abby turn into her own little person.  She is very funny and fun to be around.  I have loved watching her get a little bit silly.  These videos aren't much, but I want to be able to look back and show her and say, "See how silly and fun you were?!"




And this is just a random one of Abby being silly.

Hiking and Biking

We didn't feel like we had a ton of time this summer so we were just cramming in as many activities as we possibly could.  Six weeks just isn't long enough to fit in all of the things we want to do.  We headed up to Snowbird one night when Matt was at scout camp.  It was a very relaxing evening and tons of fun.

 They have a lot of different activities there.  Kate and Sara did a lot of them.  They really liked the climbing wall.  Sara's on the left, Kate on the right. 

 Then we spent some time hiking around.  It was so beautiful.  Snowbird is one of my favorite places.

 One Saturday we decided to go hiking up to Lake Katherine.  I thought Jerry could take whoever wanted farther up to Sunseat Peak.  It's just over 10,000 feet.  Everyone decided they wanted to go.  It was really cool.  It's not an easy hike by any means.  All the kids were sore the next day.  But it is definitely doable for kids and has a really great reward.  You have a great view of the Salt Lake Valley and Mt. Timp and into Heber.  It's awesome!  I was very proud of them for hiking so hard.  They felt pretty cool especially since there weren't any other kids doing it.

 It was windy on top, but we still took some time to enjoy it a little bit.

 Matt is really getting into hiking.  He really likes it.

 We also loaded up the bike rack with all the bikes and brought the dog along for some mountain biking.  You can't take dogs up the canyons here which is a bummer so I was excited to bring Tulo along.  He paid me back by puking in my car.  Ugh!

 The fearless bikers!

 Abby was much slower but still felt pretty cool being one of the big kids!

 They all worked really hard.  It was a fairly easy trail for Matt and Sara but it was fun and a good way to get them comfortable.

Summer fun

We managed to eat a lot of ice cream this summer.  It was rough.

Spent the day at Cowabunga bay.

And Kate and Sara each donated 10 inches to Locks of Love.  I love their new haircuts.  Especially Sara's.  It is a very cute cut on her.

Tulo has grown and grown this summer.  I started running with him because he's a very energetic dog.  I love it!  He's such a good dog on our runs.  It makes us both very happy.  We don't run far.  I have to be careful with my knee and his puppy joints so it works well for us.  I am seriously in love with this dog, although I do curse him out at least once a day.  He's a handful and is working on obeying but I forgive him pretty quickly!