Abundant Recompense Copy

It's hard to believe, but Bryn is an eight-year-old! Her birthday was on the 27th. The waffles tell it like it is. It was a great day. She and I went on a date that morning, then Dad surprised her and showed up with 8 balloons at lunchtime.  After lunch it was all business for me and the kids because we had a party to set up! Everybody helped out and we had a lot of fun getting ready for it together.  It was a water party, and so we set up the slip-n-slide and wading pool, and put a sprinkler under the trampoline. That's all it took for Bryn and her friends to go to town. They had so much fun playing together!  After about an hour we had presents and cake and ice cream and followed it up with a water balloon toss and more playtime. After her friends went home, Bryn and the other kids played with her new toys for awhile, and then some members of the Primary presidency came over to talk to Bryn about her baptism, which is coming up on Saturday! They went over the covenants ...

Nate and I woke up early one Saturday in June, picked up a niece to babysit, and hiked Adams Canyon. Hiking just the two of us was delightful, and we got up early enough to beat the heat. The only downside was that somehow we ended up right behind some enormous cheerleading group, so we had to wait several times for them to move along. It was nice to enjoy each others' company, be able to chat without interruptions, and to be on a destination-oriented hike. That same day, we went to see one of Nate's coworkers who is pretty recently retired. He invited us over to see his llamas. The kids were in heaven. They got to feed them and pet them and chase them around. This visit somehow morphed into a soon-to-come vacation! So stay tuned for that. We are really enjoying being so close to the mountain. Great hiking is five minutes from our front door. One evening we drove up to the trailhead and decided to hike briskly for about fifteen minutes and then turn around and come back, just t...

In May we found ourselves with Grandma and Grandpa all to ourselves for a day! Woohoo! They were up for an adventure, so we headed to Salt Lake City to visit the Tracy Aviary. It had been a long time since we'd been there, and it was a lot of fun. Look how close Bryn is to this owl! Teeny tiny ducklings! Awww! This Andean condor was born the same year as my dad! There was a fun play area by the condor. Pelicans! We got to see a group of people feeding them. They'd throw fish at them and it was crazy to watch them catch the fish in their beaks. A golden eagle. Bald eagle. Look at the size of those eggs! These sandhill cranes were so cool to watch. They were guarding the eggs carefully and even used their long beaks to flip them over a couple times. Checking out the flamingos. They had some really cool solar "trees" that collected energy from the sun, and also provided shade by the flamingos. They had a fun area to explore and play on giant logs. We also enjoyed just sp...

During this past school year, Leah has been in ballet. Every Thursday morning she and Asa and I headed down to her class and while she practiced, Asa and I would visit the doughnut store or go to the park or the library. She really needed something a little extra in her schedule this last year before she started school, and ballet was a great way for her to get out of the house, practice listening to a teacher in a classroom setting, and learn something totally different. The girl loves to have things on her calendar. Heading out the door for practice during the winter. A sneak preview of the beginning of her recital dance. The recital was in June, and they did The Secret Garden. The different classes were different types of flowers. Leah's group were the Green Shoots. The costume was adorable. Her recital was actually pretty awesome. They did it in the auditorium of the college nearby and had live musicians accompanying a lot of it. Grandma and Aunt Bri and Uncle Mason came to wat...

Well I officially cannot keep up. Our summer is going well. We're having some lazy days and some crazy days. We've gone on a couple small trips, our bodies are getting nicely bronzed, and that about sums it up. Here's a collection of pictures from the past few months. Here's Addison presenting his "all about me" poster to his class. I got to help out at field day. Love these cute little guys! We planted some flower boxes, and also our garden. Unfortunately we had a late frost and lost about half the flowers and all our tomatoes. So we did a redo (at least of the tomatoes). Addison's cabbage, Leo, that he got at school. We have enormous earthworms at our house! Heavenly Father has really blessed us this year already in the garden department. Our garden area is a hill, so we build raised beds in order to create a flat place to grow stuff. We wanted to expand and add a third planter this year, but had no funds to do so. After thinking and praying and scouting...