Sunday, July 27, 2008

Happy Birthday, Chase!

Saturday was Chase's 17th birthday.  As we had planned a day trip to a family reunion, we took him to dinner the night before.  He chose Red Lobster, as he wanted crab and lobster.  Cathy and Mark came because they were in town, going to the reunion with us.  Chase does not really like cake all that much (I know!), but he does love ice cream.  So we stuck a candle in his bowl and sang to him.  

Happy 17th Birthday, Chase.  We love you!
(thank you to everyone who sent cards/calls/gifts, too)

Monday, July 21, 2008

back to cedar mountain


This weekend was "Duck Creek Days".  See.....they even got a fancy new sign:
So we headed back up Cedar Mountain (along with everyone else within a 250 mile radius).  We are lucky to be able to stay in Steve's parents cabin.  It is beautiful.  Below is Steve's niece, Kendall and her dog, Jovi.  The pic. is a little hard to see because they had run down the shoreline a bit.
Later when we were out on the 4-wheelers, we spotted this buck:
Steve doing one of his favorite pastimes...
Some of the gang:  Daxton, Indy and Morgan.  All striking a pose of course.
It was more fun to climb around the rocks and water than to fish at times.
This is Chase and his friend Chris.  Shortly after this photo Chase stepped back and, at Chris' request, pushed the log out a bit.  Yes, you know what happened next.  Too bad I was laughing too hard to get a pic of soggy Chris.
Chase tamed a wild dragonfly
A little closer shot of Chris
Taylor had her friend Sydnee.  As you can see, Sydnee had a lovely and relaxing weekend.
Taylor dreaming of volleyball
All in all a really fun weekend!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

I'm A Survivor!


We are home from YW Girls Camp.  We really had a great time.  Our theme was "STARS".  We had the girls write compliments about each other on these gold stars and strung them around camp on fishing line.  
Here is Taylor in her tent.  She was one of the oldest girls in our group and an excellent leader....especially when it came to thinking up camp cheers for flag each morning and night.
One of the days we played capture the flag.  The stake had made a bunch of little nylon bags filled with baking flour to throw as ammunition.  As you can see below, I think I won.
We brought up Superman to stand guard over camp.  He was feeling tropical this particular day.
Wow.....they could be twins!
Taylor showed us this cool trick to go along with the whole "STAR" theme...
Then Friday afternoon we were hit with a big thunderstorm.  It was enough to flood camps and tents and end up with soggy sleeping bags, etc.  The stake called down to Cedar City and we made arrangements to leave the mountain.  We grabbed a few personal belongings and drove to a stake center in Cedar.  The members had brought over extra sleeping bags, blankets and had made us hot chocolate.
We had to leave all our muddy shoes outside the building.
We finished our camp inside they gym.  Then each ward was assigned a room.  We went to the Relief Society room and had a ward testimony meeting by lantern light.  Then we had a giant slumber party.  Here are our girls Saturday morning on the church stairs, ready to jump into the cars to head home.  
Now some of you may be wondering how we got all the leftover stuff down from the mountain.  Steve and the kids had spent the night a little higher up Cedar Mountain in Duck Creek.  Steve's mom and dad have a cabin there.  They were planning on coming to camp Saturday morning to help us take down everything.  Well, they ended up with the whole mucky mess all on their own.  Steve and Chase had to pack up all our tents, supplies, coolers, etc.  Hailey and Morgan spent their time picking up trash.   They had to have the site checked by the "Camp Nazi" (a stake leader) to get the OK to leave.  It was a lot of work and we were so lucky they were there to help us out!   We all met at our church in St. George and spread out the remains.  The girls had to come dig through to claim their things.  We still have a pile of lost and found items, but mostly small things.  It made for a memorable ending to a very fun-filled week.  And guess what?  The YW president asked if I would be camp director again next year!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

into the woods

Off to YW Girls Camp with Taylor.  Wish us luck....

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Freedom rocks

We had a fun-filled fourth.  Starting with pancake/sausage breakfast at the church pavillion:
Even the teenagers participated
Then to a park to do this:
and this,
and this.
Of course we had to do this:

After swimming we went to a movie.
Then to another park to watch this:
By the end of the night we all felt like this:
Indy and Morgan all partied out.  Go figure.