Trafalga

While the boys were at Youth Conference Melanie and I decided to have some fun too. My sister Connie brought down my neices, Emily and Ashlynn and we went to Trafalga.

Ashlyn accidentally got herself stuck under a fountain and she was soaked. Good thing she had her swimming suit on.

Melanie thought she was really clever to let Emily drive while she did defence with the umbrella. The problem was that the umbrella made them a target and they still got quite wet.
Getting the briefing before going into a laser tag game.
Little spiders climbing up and down this big wall like it was nothing.
Melanie and Ashlynn
The frog hopper was their favorite ride. They went on it over and over again until it was making me sick to even watch.




After Trafalga I took them for kids meals at Iceberg (Thanks for the gift certificate, Connie!)

I asked my neices after lunch if they wanted to go down to 7-peaks or if they wanted to hang out at my house. They said, "We can go to 7-peaks any time, we hardly ever get to play at your house." And so that is what we did.

Youth Conference - Bear Lake

Warren, Graig, and Tyler got to go to youth conference last week. Graig reminded me before he left that this is his first time to attend a youth conference (he has always had conflicts with orchestra camp). Next year he may be at BYU so I am glad he got to go this year.

They started off the conference with a trip to the Logan temple to do baptisms for the dead.

Then they were off to Bear Lake. They camped on some property owned by the family of our Young Women's President. It rained on them as they were setting up camp but overall they had pretty nice weather. On Thursday they did a lot of swimming and boating. Tyler said he played "shark" in the lake. When I asked him what that was he said it was when he swam underwater and grabbed the girls ankles.

On Thursday night they did a spiritual hike through Minnetonka Cave.

They arrived home on Friday afternoon tired and sunburned but happy.

We got the van repaired from the trip (flat tire) and took the kids to an Orem Owlz baseball games. After the game they had a very nice fireworks show.

Tyler's Book Club

For the last four summers my wonderful neighbour, Amy, has organized book clubs for the neighbourhood kids. This year it turned out that the oldest group, the one Tyler would be invited to join, would be all 12 and 13 year old girls. She asked Tyler if he still wanted to be involved and he, of course, said "YES!" (He likes girls and book club.)

This week was Tyler's turn to host the book club at our house. He choose to have the club read the book "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. He started off the meeting with a discussion about the book. Tyler is sitting on the couch with Emily. It is hard to see but there is a throw pillow barrier between them.

On the piano bench is Kassidee, then clockwise around the room is Kadee, Camille, and Missy.

After their discussion, they went outside to have a water melon seed spitting contest. It has been a long time since I have bought a seeded water melon.

The final game was "Do you Love Your Neighbour?" which they played for over an hour. There was a lot of laughter floating inside from the backyard.

The Flood of 2011

It was supposed to be the worst flooding since 1983... but then we had a cool spring and the snow in the mountains melted slowly. We did see a little flooding by Lehi Elementary School. This is an area behind the school that is designed to catch excess run off.

As Tyler walked, his flip flops were "flipping" mud up onto his shorts. I had to take a picture.

So far so good as far as flooding concerns in Lehi. There is still lots of snow in the mountains so we will continue to hope for the best.

Freedom Festival Patriotic Service

As part of the orchestra, Graig got to participate in this year's Freedom Festival Patriotic Service in the BYU Marriott Center.

Rehearsing with Benjamin Hale.

Melanie got her picture taken with Miss America, Teresa Scanlan, who was there headlining the event.

Other guest artists on the program include: Daniel Beck, Kerilyn Johnson, The 23^rd Army Band of the Utah National Guard, and Joseph Paur.

This is what Kayson Brown, orchestra director has to say about their performance:

"Wow! I couldn't be more proud of you right now. Sunday was one of the craziest shows I've ever been a part of and you were rock solid! The audience never knew that you had to all of the sudden play underscores at one quarter the intended tempo, skip a measure to catch up to a nine year old who didn't count her measures, or drag a guest artist behind you who didn't have his entrances down! You played in tune, you matched up against the Army Band, you followed even though you could barely see me and your music. It didn't seem to matter what went wrong you were disciplined and followed. I don't think a professional orchestra could have followed and rolled with the punches any better! Wow."

Lehi Roundup Rodeo Days

We love the Lehi Roundup Days parades. On Thursday we found a shady place to watch the horse parade...

The children's parade theme this year was "Memories of..."

Melanie got to walk in the parade on Saturday.

Our ward float this year was an old fashioned ice cream truck. Not only was it the most darling float in the parade (it was the "sweepstakes" winner), it was even animated (it rocked side to side as the float rolled down the parade route). Our family helped with the float by trimming and "fluffing" about 500 pom poms made from white garbage sacks.

On Saturday Lehi sponsors a big party in the park. Melanie, of course, loved the petting zoo.

Tyler and Melanie had fun decorating a pair of sunglasses.

Swim Team

The I/M relay team at the Lindon Meet. Tyler swam the butterfly part of the race.

Tyler has been in the same piano classes with Nathan Huggins since they were four years old. He was excited to be on swim team with him too.

Warming up in the Lindon pool.

Tyler has really enjoyed working out with the swim team each weekday morning this summer. They are 90 minute workout sessions. He burns a lot of calories that he has had to make up for by eating a lot more. Tyler has come a long way with his swimming. He has had to learn new strokes, how to dive and turn, and build up his endurance. He earned this "swimmer of the week" award for being such a hard worker.

His goal for the season is to get a qualifying time (swim the stroke correctly for the whole race) in 6 different races and swim in the County swim meet the end of July. If he does this he will earn a trophy. So far he has qualifying times in 5 strokes. He is well on his way to meeting his goal.

Our Fashion Designer

Melanie and her best friend spend the afternoon designing, cutting fabric, and sewing clothes for dolls. All of the designs were their own, they didn't even ask for my advice. In the picture Melanie's doll is wearing a wrap around skirt that Melanie designed and sewed. They raided my fabric box to find the fabric they needed. I was impressed how well they used the sewing machine. Melanie even got the machine un-jammed without my help.

Best part? When they were finished they cleaned up after themselves.

I'm glad Melanie likes to sew (because I like to sew).

Getting His Wisdom Teeth Out

Just home from the surgery, his lips still very numb from the shots.

Lucky Graigry.

We decided that this summer would be a good time to get his wisdom teeth out.

We were really happy with the Oral Surgeon who did the extractions.

He said that Graig did great through the surgery. To Graig's delight he DID NOT wake up during the procedure (he was worried about that).

When they took me back to see him after it was all over the nurses commented on how polite Graig is. Apparently he told them "Thank you" every time they did anything for him. He was groggy from the anaesthetic but that didn't stop him from wanting to stand up and walk around. When I got him home I put him in front of a movie so he would sit still and relax. He wasn't sad to have free access to NetFlix and my permission to sit around playing computer games.

Notice the cute headband he is wearing. This holds little ice packs right next to his cheeks. What a great idea!

His pain hasn't been too bad. He has gotten along fine with just 600mg Motrin a few times a day. He does have some cute puffy cheeks.

He likes the smoothies from Smoothie King and the cream soups from Zupas.

Less than 24 hours after his surgery he started 4 hour a day violin rehearsals for the program he will be a part of on Sunday Evening. Good thing he plays a string instrument.

Day Camp

As one of the leaders, I helped take the 28 Activity Day girls to Classic Skating in Sandy for our annual day camp. Turns out we picked a really good day to go, considering, most of the school districts in SL County were not out of school yet and so we had the place almost to ourselves.

Here Melanie and Syan are playing on the jungle area...
The big blow up toys were also very popular...

The package we got gave each girl 10 tokens. Most the girls played games that gave them tickets so they went home with some small prizes.
We ordered pizza and soda for lunch...

After lunch they had a "blackout skate" that the girls really liked.
After lunch we took the girls outside to play on the water slides. They had this area all to themselves.
The lifeguards let the girls play in the baby pool since there were no babies around. The girls like that because the water was warm.
Relaxing in the sun...

It was a fun day!