August Happenings

 August was a busy, fun month.  Besides Flaming Gorge, we finished up birthday season.  One of the best days of the year is the day after Sage's birthday;)  Kate turned 16 while she was at FSY.  Her group did fun things to help her celebrate.  We celebrated Sage's birthday in two parts.  On her actual birthday we had a combined YM/YW activity where we went and did baptisms and then went and played at the park.  A couple of days before she requested that we all play games and watch a movie.  So we did.  And it was fun.  Something tells me this might be the last year she requests family time for her birthday.  Le weep.

School started on the 16th this year!  I swear it gets earlier and earlier.  Zack headed to Utah State!  I was so excited for him, and so sad to see him go.  I mostly cried the whole way home.  I think part of my sadness comes from knowing he's not much of a communicator.  We don't hear much from him, and what we do hear we have to pull out of him.  From what we can gather, it sounds like he's having a great time.  His classes are all easy, except for Calculus 2, which is definitely not easy.  His roommates are pretty good, although details are still vague on basic things like names, majors, and where they're from.  What do guys talk about anyway??  We definitely miss him at home, but love hearing about the great time he's having at school.  

We had our first mountain bike race in Eagle Mountain.  The girls did great!  Kate's an old pro at this, but isn't sure how much she likes it this year.  Sage went from hating it last year, to loving it this year.  I've had a lot of fun being a ride leader with Sage.  Pretty sure it won't be long before I can't keep up with her, so I'm enjoying every second.

In our quest to figure out why Sage's back hurts we found out she has minor scoliosis.  Unfortunately, we're still trying to figure out what to do about her back pain.  Hopefully we'll figure it out soon.

Sadly this was our one and only hike this summer.  Lame.  But glad Sage came with me to Bloods Lake

The only pic of the Heber rodeo.  

Kate got her license!  

This is Kate's car that we recently named Golden Girl

Playing in the creek after mountain bike practice

Sage's birthday

8th grade for Sage!  Last year of middle school hallelujah!

Can't believe Kate's a junior this year

Zack's pile of stuff for school.  I don't think he did any packing before the day he left.

Saying bye to the girls.  Kate's missed driving to school every day with Zack.

Zack in front of his apartment because his roommates were in his room.  His apartment building was built in like 1954 and is being torn down after this year.  It's real old.  He gets to sleep on the top bunk of ancient bunk beds.

We've had some beautiful rain storms this year!

Getting ready to race

These girls have a lot of fun riding together.

They only stop fighting long enough to smile for a picture.  I tell them that some day they'll be best friends.  I hope...

Flaming Gorge

 We made it to Flaming Gorge last month.  This was our first time, so we weren't sure what to expect.  We'd heard good things though.  Last second (like a week before) I decided to see if any of the siblings could come.  It was such short notice I assumed it would be a no go.  But the Johnson's and the Ditto's were all able to come!  Crazy how you can try and try to plan something and never figure it out, but sometimes those last second things just come together.  We were super excited for both boat and family fun.

The camp ground was pretty good.  Lots of trees and close to the lake.  We scoped out the good spots for next time.  It didn't ever cool off at night, but then it didn't get very warm during the day either.  Well, every once in a while it was hot.  Then before you knew it clouds rolled in and it cooled way down.  I've learned that boating requires high heat, otherwise you just don't want to get in the water.  I think we did a little bit of everything.  There was a group that went fishing (no luck unfortunately), hung out on the beach, lots of boating, and some exploring.  At night we loved hanging out and chatting while the kids played games or even did double dutch.  My kids were so excited to spend time with cousins because that doesn't happen very much.  The Ditto kids had never been on a boat before.  They were so excited it made the rest of us excited.  They loved just sitting in the front of the boat and going fast.  It was awesome.  One morning we did an early morning water ski trip.  I don't think I've ever seen water that smooth.  It was amazing and great fun.  We had an afternoon on the boat with the Johnson's when we got to experience dumping rain that turned to hail.  The floor of the boat was covered with hail stones.  It was crazy and we were all soaked, along with all of the towels.  Thus we were freezing because the sun didn't want to come back out.  We did some paddle boarding one evening.  And our family did some exploring up the canyon to try to make it to the big, main part of the lake.  We made it and saw some beautiful things along the way.

All in all it was a great trip!  Flaming Gorge was beautiful, but the weather wasn't great.  We would all love to go again if we can talk Jake into it.  He'll always be a Lake Powell person in his soul, but we did get him to admit that Flaming Gorge is way easier to make happen than Lake Powell.  Easy is good right now, so hopefully that will win out and we'll be back next year.

Surfing in the hail storm

Look at that water!  Glass!

Family fun!

Owen got to surf with Jake!  And somehow Jake can do all kinds of things behind the boat and never get his head wet.  Unfair.

Beautiful view from the campground

A small fire for s'mores even though it wasn't cold at all

July Happenings

 July was full of a lot of things, but nothing super exciting.  The Balls came to town, so we got to hang out and do the flowrider for the first time.  When I say we, I mean my kids.  They had great fun and did pretty well!  Then we had a delicious BBQ at the Johnsons where we all got to chat and catch up.  It was great fun.

On the fourth we decided to risk crowds and go boating at Starvation Reservoir.  Good thing we took the risk because we mostly had the lake to ourselves.  It was amazing and maybe a new family tradition.  We got home in time to do the traditional things: BBQ, neighborhood water slide, neighborhood scones and snow cones, topped off with Memorial Hill fireworks.  All in all a great day!

The kids decided to do their annual sibling campout.  Sage had to be convinced, but finally went.  They had a great time (just don't ask Sage).  Jake and I decided to go on our own camping trip.  It was kind of awesome to camp with just the two of us.  A sneak peak of things to come.  We took the trailer and had great fun.  We ended the trip with paddle boarding on Strawberry.  Amazing.

We had birthdays.  I finally have an 18 year old!  Somehow I got no pics of Jake's birthday.  Which makes sense since he barely lets us celebrate his birthday.  We got Kate her car.  Another Jeep.  Shocking, I know.  Sage is loving biking this year and decided to do a bike race up at Sundance.  She did a great job considering it was a last second race.  And, we had a bit of not fun when we got xrays for Sage and found out she has minor scoliosis.  She's been having back pain for a while and we haven't been able to find anything that helps it.  Now at least we know what's causing it.  Hopefully we can figure something out so she's not in pain all the time.

Flowrider fun with cousins!

It's getting harder and harder to pretend I'm not old...

Kate fell in the pond when she was cleaning it.  I'm sure it was nice and refreshing.

Jake even got on the tube!

Mini cliff jumping

Adult only camping trip

How is he 18?!

Birthday surfing.  

Jake and Zack decided to surf at the same time

Sage intensely surfing.  

Can't leave out the office.  We're slowly making progress.

Kate's car!

Sage was super excited to put scrubs on for xrays.

Bike race!

Jake finally got his birthday present out.

We celebrated Kate's birthday early so she could go to FSY.  Thank heavens she asked for cookies from Twisted Sugar.