Square Foot Gardening

I have been having so much fun with my Square Foot Garden and it is producing so well. I have a constant harvest because everything is planted at different times. I also get to be a little creative by adding flowers to make it more like a patchwork quilt. My best growers so far are the radishes and the lettuce. We've had some great salads. I just wish my tomatoes were ready but I guess we'll have to wait a while.

Tie Dye

We've been having a busy and fun summer. Yesterday we made tie dye shirts and it was so fun. It was kind of like Christmas since you never quite know how each shirt will turn out. Then you take off all the rubber bands and open it up and voila - a fun, crazy shirt.

Memorial Day Weekend Camping

We decided to go camping at Tanner's Flat Campground just up Little Cottonwood Canyon. It was a beautiful site although we did have a little rain and even some snow the first day. We camped Friday and Saturday night and early Sunday morning we left our camp, drove home, took showers and headed down to Provo so we could go to my nephew's homecoming talk. It was great to hear him speak and then we went to brunch at his house. After that, Joshua went to a missionary farewell for a friend and then we all headed back up to camp until Monday afternoon. Luckily it was only about 15 miles away from our house so it was easy to come home in the middle of it (it was nice to take a shower too).

When we got all loaded up to come home on Monday, I drove the van with Rachel, Rebecca and Adam while David, Josh and Tanner rode their bikes home. It was a great ride down the canyon and a lot of downhill with a little uphill here and there the rest of the way to our house. I was their support vehicle in case there were any problems. Thankfully there were no problems and we all arrived home safely.

The kids all agree that it was a great trip. Rachel's favorite thing was the fire. Adam's favorite thing was the creek (not the big river but the little creek on the other side of our campsite). Rebecca's favorite thing was sleeping in the tent. My favorite thing was no TV, no phones, just the beautiful sights and sounds of the mountains and my family. It was our first camping trip without Jared and we really missed him. We look forward to some good camping trips with him in a couple of years.

I know I included a lot of pictures in my little slide show but you can scroll through them quickly.

Digital slideshow generated with Smilebox

Our "S" Week - Shots, Soccer, Snow and Sheep

Shots - Adam had to go to the doctor this week for his check up before kindergarten. He was very excited until Rachel asked him why he was going. He told her it was for kindergarten. Rachel exclaimed, "Adam, you have to get shots!" I was trying to keep that part a secret until we got there. He was a little upset about that and asked if we could just skip the shots. No such luck. He was very brave though and hardly shed a tear. He had to get 4 shots including the tetanus one that makes you sore for a few days. He limped around for a day or 2 and ran a fever for 24 hours but he is fine now.

Soccer - Tanner tried out for a few different soccer teams and made the one that he really wanted to get on. It is called Inter FC and he is just thrilled. It's a premier team and should give him some really good experience.

Snow - David and the boys went on the Father/Son camp out last night with our ward. It was very well attended with about 70 people there. They go to a very nice camp that has cabins and a covered pavilion as well as good bathrooms and showers. Joshua said it is really fun but not really like camping. Adam could hardly wait to go and has been talking about it for weeks. The strange thing is that they woke up to an inch of snow. Yep..... snow. It rained here at home all night and I could see new snow up on the mountains so I was very glad they were in cabins and not tents. They had a great time.

Sheep - I took Rachel, Rebecca and Adam to Thanksgiving Point today for the Lamb & Wool Festival. It was really interesting. We got to see some of the new baby animals including a colt, a calf and some new little lambs and kids (those are goat babies). We also got to watch a sheep being sheared. It was very interesting how calm the sheep remained and we decided that maybe it feels good to be sheared since they said it didn't have to be sedated.

Adam's First Soccer Game

Our kids usually wait until they are about 7 to start playing organized soccer. Poor Adam has been begging to play and we keep telling him to wait one more year. Then our neighbor started a little neighborhood soccer team. The neighbor is a cute little 10-year-old girl and her friend. They are each a coach of a "team" which consists of 3 little boys each. Some of the boys are 5 like Adam and some are 8 or 9. The teams probably aren't very fair but the kids sure seem to have fun. She even got orange shirts for one team and yellow shirts for the other team and sewed their names of the shirts. Adam loves his "jersey" as he calls it. Their first game was yesterday and Adam made 2 goals. The girls set up a field with cones in their backyard and Rebecca, Rachel and I went over to be spectators and cheer the boys on. It was really fun and I loved watching these young girls trying to coach all these little boys. They actually did a great job!!

Timpanogas Cave

In all the years I spent at BYU and all the times I have come to visit Utah I never went to Timpanogas Cave. After living here for almost 2 years I decided it was time to go see it. I took Rachel, Rebecca, and Adam. David and the boys were at a Youth Service Project and I just couldn't find a time when we would all be able to go so we went without them.

It was a beautiful day. Perfect weather because it was sunny but very cool still. The hike was awesome and the caves were spectacular. Much better than I expected. We lucked out and had a tour guide all to ourselves. Usually there are about 20 people per tour but we got there and they were ready to go so it was just the 4 of us. I would definitely recommend it and I am taking the rest of the family as soon as they have a 4 hour window to go.

A nice ranger took this picture of us.

Lots of my pictures turned out pretty good but they don't really capture how awesome it really was. Here is just one of the many I took.

Opposite Day

We got home from church and Rebecca, Rachel and Adam disappeared upstairs. A little while late they came down lookin' like this:



I'm not too sure I should make this picture public but it was so funny.