Aaahhh Summer

I'll get to the more important things in a moment, but first an update on gardening and chickens. To the right is one of my new favorite flowers called Mondarda or "Bee Balm". They are usually pink, purple or red and grow quite tall, like 3-4 feet. They are said to require low water (ours just get lawn sprinkler overspray).


Next, our chickens are all producing eggs. The eggs are mostly shades of brown but two of our hens are Americaunas which can produce pale blue or green eggs. We also have one white hen. And yes, we have all hens, what luck! The two that died (one a tiny chick and one juvenile) must have been roosters : ) They run up to us like pets and they do have different personalities. I find them both more amusing and endearing than I'd expected. The boys love checking the nesting boxes for eggs.

My aunt held a family party this year with an inflatable water slide and delicious food and a treasure hunt for the kids. It was basically a reunion on my side of the family. Bennett was "traumatized" when a pile of kids landed on him as they were all trying to get up the ladder to the slide. He didn't want to go down the slide after that.

This putting green was part of my aunts' party. Paxton was under par for the day. His favorite colors are red, white, and blue so we bought this suit for him for swimming lessons. He has always loved the water, even getting it in his face or dumped over his head so he went on the water slide many times.

Bennett really enjoys drawing and coloring. The sidewalk chalk people are his creations. He also loves Gatorade, Hi-Chews, and RAW green beans. Our neighbor asked us to pick and use some their beans since they'd be out of town and he says they are yummy. There's no predicting this kid. He LOVED his swimming lessons though so we will plan on that for the next few years to help him gain skills in the water. He is super excited to start preschool at the beginning of next month.

We took the boys to the Days of '47 Parade this year. Here's Paxton pretending to be shy and Bennett cheesing it up. We didn't have previous seats saved but it worked out fine, and since they don't throw out candy we didn't need to be on the front row. The floats were all well done pioneer themes, and we didn't see any commercial ad floats or even political campaigners...just a few currently in office. President Eyring rode in a jeep with cowboy attire and that was fun to see.

Jared took some time off of work so we went on a little camping trip just past Daniel's Summit. It didn't start well. We were about a mile from our destination when our truck died on Hwy 40. It simply stopped working. We were on the side of the road for a few minutes before a guy stopped and towed us to our original turnoff where there was a large parking lot. Fortunately for us, our next door neighbor was camping only a couple miles away (we'd talked about it before leaving) and we called him up. He then towed our trailer first, then our truck, to where he and his wife were camping. Long story short, we got the truck home eventually thanks to a trip from my parents bringing their truck, another tow by the neighbor, and Jared's co-worker with a flatbed. Sadly, Jared had JUST replaced the fuel pump in the truck a couple days before we left and there hadn't been any signs of trouble. We are grateful for amazing neighbors and friends. To add to the bad luck, my mom came up for a visit on our second day (we figured we'd stay since the truck had to sit at the mechanic's overnight) and her car overheated. It sat for a couple hours and cooled off before she headed home but then it had the same problem again and she didn't even make it to Heber before SHE had to pull off the road.
Cars. You can't live with them and you can't live without them.

But, we got to know our neighbors better and we discovered a new area to camp. Here's Paxton collecting some fallen trees for firewood. He and Bennett still had a great time. When your vehicle breaks down it's really convenient to have a trailer with you for food and a place to sleep!

These last pictures are from a youth conference that I was fortunate to attend this month. It was in Vernon, Utah at a church beef ranch. It was amazing. Apparently there are about 1,000 cattle plus their calves, so around 2,000 head. There are 600 MILES of fence so that's primarily what we went to do, fix fence. The man in charge told us they rely heavily on volunteers to keep things going and he is one of only two paid employees. The entire purpose of the ranch is to feed the poor. None of the beef is sold on the open market, it is all donated to those who need it, whether in a bishop's storehouse or in a shipment that the church sends to a disaster area.

Sadly, I didn't take my camera up to the mountaintop that my group was on where we put up new fence. But here's a pic of me that one of the other leaders sent me. It looks like I'm the only one working, but in fact that little group of people further down the hill were hefting a 70+lb roll of barbed wire UP to the top of the hill. The whole trip was a great opportunity for the kids, and meeting the humble man who runs it all was a priviledge. This rancher is very straightforward in explaining why mending fence matters and his comments held a lot of weight with the youth to help them understand why they were there.

This is also at youth conference, the evening before the work started. We did games - this one is called the human rubber band - and the tents were put up in a big shady grass patch that is just for the volunteers to camp at.

We had a testimony meeting at the end of the day in the hayloft. The kids did pretty well overall, some of them did have to endure some heat and strenuous work, but for most of them it was walking along fencelines looking for weak areas to fix. The farm will take church, school, or any other group who wants to help as volunteers. It would be a wonderful way to spend a family reunion when kids are old enough to help.