Week one of fun

We are in the middle of our vacation and time is going so quickly. We are having a lot of fun and we love having Mike and Julie and their family visit us.

We decided we should try to make Brookers Founding Flavors a traditional stop. I think we may need to go 3-4 more times just to really make the tradition stick.

We decided to support Operation Underground Railroad in the Bluffdale Town Days again this year. I LOVE this parade. I LOVE O.U.R.., so this is always a great combination. Keiths sister, Karen, brought her family and their jeep and that was our entry. Julie and her kids walked in the parade. What a good family thing to do!

After the parade, we played some games at the park.  The kids LOVE this tradition. I hope town days becomes one of those memories our kids cherish and they bring their kids back to build more memories.

Corrine, Sariah and some of the older cousins saved their "prize" tickets to "buy" a crown and wand for my niece. What cute cousins!

Team old kids. How is this group the old kids now? When did they grow up? I'm so grateful they have been able to grow up together and be such good friends despite the distance between here and Michigan.

This is team "middle". These kids are also growing up so quickly. I'm so grateful they have each other.

 

Meet the "little kid" team. These two girls are it. They are the tail end of the cousins and I am glad they have each other and are such good friends as well!

Don't let their cuteness fool you. They are fierce competitors and can shoot a mean squirt gun.

Hayden still hates it when I take his picture. I still don't care and I'll keep taking pictures.

Kate was happy the guy with the turtle and snakes made it back to town days.

Yuck! I wasn't as happy as she was.

Kate now wants a large turtle and a bearded dragon. 

Maybe I can buy her off with some cotton candy?  Will that be good enough? Please?!

We went to the park late in the evening to watch fireworks. Kate was tired and cold.  We all were, actually.

Andrew humors me when its time to take pictures. I appreciate that.  We did enjoy the show and it was a nice way to end town days.

Sunday evening we had a family BBQ to celebrate Andrew going into the MTC and give family members a chance to say good-bye.

Cousins are such a good thing and good friends.

Have I mentioned that I love our "park" area for family gatherings? I hope we have many more family gatherings there!

For family home evening we went up to Tibble Fork to canoe. It was such a fun evening. The kids were so happy!

Thank you, Gowans, for letting us borrow your paddle boat. It was such a fun way to spend the evening.

Aunt Julie was so nice to take Kate out on the water and teach her how to paddle.  Kate LOVED it.

I can not express how much I have just loved being around my girls this past week. They have been so enjoyable. I just love these girls and they are such a blessing to me. I try not to think about them growing up so quickly.

Jakob and Samuel with a professional photo bomber. Nice.

Aunt Karen was so nice to take Kate back out on the lake.  She was out with Kate for almost an hour.  Kate paddled the boat the entire time and loved every second of it.  She said her gymnastics arm muscles made it easy to power the boat.

I love this picture. I love how happy my girls are to be out with their daddy.

Keith and I also took the paddle boat out. While I don't like this picture, I do like how much fun it was. 

Oh, the fun didn't stop at the lake. The next day, we took Andrew shooting at the range. Corrine and Andrew are such good friends and I love them both so much. I can not believe how much they have both grown up into such good people doing good things. They are both pretty amazing.

Corrine enjoys having the chance to practice shooting her gun with her daddy. She is in her happy place.

On Andrews last night, he requested to go to a movie. We saw "Yesterday". I really enjoyed this movie. Its PG-13, and there were a few questionable scenes, but not so bad I couldn't recommend this movie. If you like the Beatles, you will enjoy this show.

While the older people went to a movie, Keith, Uncle Mike, Hayden, Samuel and Kate had scouts for the evening. They worked on the wood working merit badge. If you are going to do wood working, making swords seems the natural project.

We have one more week of fun and then we will be back into school.  I will admit, fun is hard for me and I do love me a good routine and math pages.  This has been the perfect end to summer and we have really enjoyed having family around. What a blessing family is.  They are there for us in the good times and in the hard times.  What a smart thing Heavenly Father did by putting us into family units.