Bear Lake Brawl

A few weeks ago Brian and his buddy JR did the Bear Lake Brawl Triathlon together.
Before the race, they did some stretching.....

And various other warm-up exercises.....

And while the race was going on, the kids took a few minutes to play in Bear Lake again.

Brian finished each part of the race exactly in the time that he had been training for, and finished the race exactly at his goal time!

Brian took 3rd place in the division that he raced, and JR took first (I think) in his division!

Brian is so excited to finally have someone to race and train with after all these years of doing it on his own.

What a beautiful day for a race and to spend at Bear Lake again.

First day of Junior High!

This year Zak is in 2nd Grade,
Les is in 4th Grade,
And Amber is in Junior High! How did she get so old?

Fair Entries: A quilt and a Photo

This year I decided to enter Amber's quilt and a photo that I just took into the county fair. I was so last minute deciding to enter them, that I didn't even print the photo until the day I had to have it in.

I'm glad that I decided to enter both of them though. I won a blue ribbon and Best of Show on both the quilt and the photo! Now I want to make another quilt....!

This is the photo. A lucky shot I guess!
And this is Amber's quilt I made for her birthday!

Downstairs Demolition

While we were gone this summer, we were getting water in the basement along this wall from the sprinklers that we got running the day before we left. After we had been home a few weeks, the kids noticed it, and told us the wall was moldy. Sure enough, the whole wall was mushy, and moldy, and the carpet was wet. We didn't notice it at first, because the water was under & behind the couch. Needless to say, we had to tear out the bottom half of this wall, and I had at least two very willing to help with the destruction!

Hammers in hand..... both hands even.....

The wall was in bad shape, but fortunately it is relatively easy to tear out and fix. Especially since we have the paint and mouldings left from when we re-did the house 2 years ago.

Camping (for real this time)

After we got home from working at camp, we needed to get away from life, so we went camping (Ironic?!) It was nice to be away from the craziness of life. It's amazing how hard is was to adjust to being home.

The kids always like to roast odd things. This night, it was Starbursts that they were roasting!
Zak found some tiny little baby trout in the river and he worked for hours trying to catch one. He finally did. He was very excited.
This is how I camp. Brian does everything except set up the tent, and I lay in the hammock while he does it. After camp, I was so exhausted, that if I got fatigued at all, I would get physically ill, so the hammock worked just fine for me!

We also went for a hike to a beautiful waterfall that we hadn't been to for a few years. The kids loved climbing on the rocks (what kid doesn't?) Every picture we got of Les he was doing the "irresistible man pose" that we all learned at camp. It was so funny when they would do it at camp, and since all the boys that he looked up to did it A LOT, he felt he needed to do it a lot too!

The view back up from the waterfall...

Thinking.....thinking.....thinking!

Zak posed for pics too!

I was back in bed for days after the hike because I was so tired, but we had a good time.

Bingham Canyon Copper Mine

A few weeks ago, we took an afternoon and went to the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine (Kennecott). It was amazing to see the pit from inside. The visitors center is actually inside the pit.
The giant trucks that haul the rock look so tiny down in the mine, but this is a tire from the enormous trucks. It gives a little perspective on how big they really are.

This is just a loader filling the big dump truck. It was a lot closer to us than the rest of the trucks were. Down in the bottom corner, is also a line up of trucks waiting to get past on the blocked road.

They have binoculars that the kids can use to see all the mine a little closer.

And this is a truck full of rock to be refined. See those enormous tires?

I never knew what an amazing operation they had. I grew up less than 20 miles from the mine, and had never been there.

The Paris Ice Cave

On the weekend of the 24th of July, we tried to go up to Minnetonka Cave, but it was sold out by the time that we got there. So instead, we ended up at the Paris Ice Cave. This is a place that I got to rapell into a few years ago, and I really wanted to take the kids to.

When we got there, we saw several places that still had snow. This particular strip of snow is about 10 feet deep, and about 150 feet long. They had so much snow up there this last winter, that by the 24th, it still wasn't completely melted. This is looking down into the cave. It is a cave that has a hole from the top, as well as one from the side. It fills up with snow in the winter. There are parts of the cave that the snow and ice never melt off. Brian is sitting on a very large pile of snow inside the cave. This picture is looking down into the cave from the top. There were staff from another scout camp there rapelling. It scares me as much now as it did the time that I did it.

Unfortunately, because of some bad situations, we left camp two days after this. We loved our experience there, and were very sad to leave. I hope one day we have the opportunity to go back under different conditions. Bear Lake is a hard place to leave. It has such beautiful sun rises and sunsets, the lake is always a beautiful blue, and we will always miss it. But more than anything, we will miss the friends we made there. I will always be grateful to a few who were there for me when I needed a friend. They were true friends. I will also be eternally grateful to those who were such amazing examples to not only the kids, but to Brian and me. Many of the staff were mature beyond their years. They were happy, funny, spiritual, hard headed, tough, and loving. We miss them dearly. (But I may never miss the stupid songs from scout camp. The kids sing them daily, and know them all word for word by heart.!)

The 4th of July

On the 4th of July, we finally had some time to relax and play together with just our family. The kids wanted to kayak. I was sure that the boys were not going to be able to handle it. I was very wrong. They were all over the place, and as always, Les had to prove that he could get anywhere faster than the rest of us.
It was good to get away from camp and the stresses and frustrations, and to have time just for our family.

This is a look back at camp from the lake. When the storms rolled over the mountain, it was beautiful. We hurried to get out of the water, but it never rained.

At the end of the day, we went out on the dock to watch fireworks. Unfortunately, there were none that we could see really well, but it was still fun to watch all of the fireworks all around the lake.

Retiring Our Flag

Every Friday night at camp, as Scouts, we had the opportunity to properly retire the flag of our great country. Brian, Amber, Les and I all had the opportunity to directly participate in the retiring of the flag. Brian and I both had the honor of calling the ceremony, and Amber, Les, and I all helped in retiring the flags.
This is the ceremony that Brian called and Les participated in. Brian is in the top right corner, and you can just see Les to the left of Brian holding the flag with his head bowed.

After reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag for the final time, it is refolded and prepared for the retiring.

Paying final respects to the flag.

This is the ceremony that I had the privilege to call.

The retiring of our great flag is a humbling ceremony. It quite often brought tears to my eyes. We are so blessed. I am grateful to have had that opportunity at camp. I am also truly grateful that my family had the opportunity to participate so many times, and hope they felt the respect for our country and those who have sacrificed and who are currently fighting for our freedoms.

Kids & Scout Camp

The kids loved camp. They took the opportunity to try or help with almost everything. The first week, Amber sat in on the sailing class, and picked up sailing immediately. From there on out, she helped to teach the class, and when needed, she worked with the scouts one on one to help them figure it out. Les and Zak loved the geocaching class, as well as the wood carving class. They also spent a lot of timeout on the lake.

Zak spent an entire day one day digging a big hole in the sand, and filling it with water. Then he would empty out all the water and dig more in the sand. He had a great time, and loved that lots of people stopped to help him!
You know that a little boy is in heaven when he can leave footprints like this wherever he goes!
One night, when we were doing "staff bonding time," two of the boys picked Zak right up to include him. As a mom, I loved that these were two of the boys that my boys looked up to. The staff at camp was amazing with my kids. They were great examples to both the kids and to Brian and me.

Amber had the opportunity several times to participate in Honor Trail. She was trusted with a lot of responsibilities, and she stepped up to all of them. I received many comments from staff and Scout leaders about all of my kids maturity and knowledge.

Another picture from Honor Trail.

Sunrise

The only thing good about waking up at 5:00 every morning all summer long is to see the beautiful sunrise over Bear Lake.

Staff Week at Camp Hunt

We spent most of this summer working at the Boy Scouts camp, Camp Hunt. The first week that we were there was just staff. We were there to get camp set up and ready for the scouts.

The water was too cold to play in, but the kids found plenty to do. On the first day, the kids made bows and arrows. I was impressed. They did a really good job.
They also found animals to play with. There were plenty of snakes around camp, and there was also a cat that had its kittens in the wood pile. The kids checked on them every day!

This is my staff. These girls were amazing. They worked hard and made the kitchen fun!

Rachel, Rebecca, and Michaela

It was also Tuesday of this week that Les got stitches in his finger.

Happy Birthday to My Little Man

So I'm a little behind on my blog right now, but I am still trying to catch up from the summer in so many ways. Hopefully, I will be up to date in the next 2 weeks. But for today, I have to wish my little man a very happy birthday.
It has been 7 years since this little man came into my life. He is an amazing kid. He is smart, funny, witty, comical, spiritual, entertaining, and tender hearted just to name just a few of his characteristics. I love to snuggle up with him and let him read to me. He is very good at creating or just being creative and silly. I love you buddy.