Summer Fun and not so fun...2012

We had a great summer...in fact, that's why I'm so late posting pictures, but we put these in a book for a family history, so I thought I'd better catch up.  Life has gotten in the way of documenting such a life. Most of our summer was so much fun, but of course there are the not so fun parts that teach us just as much...

Ward Party...only in our town would we have a ward party where they brought whole animals roasted on a spit from a truck to devour.  It was pretty funny!  Here's Bradley and friends...

Plenty of trips up in our beautiful mountains...

Visits from friends.  Old and new...The VanDyke's from Price...

Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert in conjunction with dedication of our little pioneer park:

Fun with cousins.  Addy and Ashlyn having a bubble bath in the jetted tub.  What a hoot!  Worth all the splashing!

Nathan's birthday party with friends:  We had a marshmallow shooting party, where they got to make targets, play games, make a PVC marshmallow gun and have a war in the yard.  They loved it!

Pageant time Rehearsals and costume fittings...This year we were Pioneers and the kids really got a glimpse of what the pioneers had to endure being kicked out of their homes. We made some really good friends in our "company".

Couples Conference in Moab.  Mike and I didn't get to spend the entire time because of a house fire, which I'll show at the end of the post.  We loved our hike to Arches most.

Grandma visits.  Here are the kids and I with 3 of our grandmas that came for a visit and dinner.  So nice to have them with us!

Mike puttering in the yard.  Nice to have 10 acres to play around with, 

even though he desperately misses our beautiful California yard.

Visits from our dear California friends, The DeLaRosa's, Zufelts, and Haydens...oh how we miss them!

Baseball for Nathan.  This year they won the championship Lion's Tournament.  We loved our coaches and had so much fun.  Nathan has only played a couple years but is getting the hang of it.

More Pageant pictures...Wouldn't we just make cute pioneers?  Bradley was a warrior again and McKenzie didn't have time this year.

Our sweet friends, the Johnsons came out from California and stopped by for the pageant. So fun to see them if even only a few minutes.

Beautiful summer sunsets. Gotta love this view from our front driveway:

McKenzie got a free scholarship to a Julliard Jazz camp and loved every minute.

She also performed in the community orchestra performance on families.

Bradley rescued this poor kitty and nursed it back to better health.  It still has something wrong with it's hip, so can't run very well, but the kids love it and so it stays.

Summer fun with the Reed's.  These are more dear friends from California who came to stay a few days.  We went to the Malt Shop, and spent a day at Palisade Lake.  So fun to have them!  Gotta love those friends that you can just pick right back up after not seeing them for a while.  We feel like our California friends are really family!

4th of July parades and park fun: I didn't get too many pictures this year because I was in charge of the musical program all day at the park, so had to be to that most of the time. But I did sneak away to see my kiddos run races a little.

Often Bradley looks like this with kids on his legs.  It happens all the time!  Little kids love him and he loves to play with them.  Gonna make a great dad one day...

Greasing up the pole for the greased pole climb.

Aunt Judy and Ned and my dear sweet Grandpa King

Summer storms.  I took this of the fields when we were driving on the highway between towns.

4-H lambs.  Never thought we'd do anything like this, but the kids LOVE it.  Bradley, Nathan and Sydney all did it again and showed the lambs in the county fair.

Grandma's tea party for the girls.  What an event!

 

Cute servers!

Even Grandpa showed up in his farm grubbies.  A little neck surgery doesn't stop him from hard work.

Play dates with cousins and friends:

Swim lessons for the younger two kiddos.  Addy was very apprehensive, but caught on by the end of the week. Nathan is just a fish and would spend all of his time in the water if he could.

And to top it all off, (this is the not so fun part)...the kids had a grease fire while cooking when we were out of town a couple of days. New rule- no cooking unless mom and dad are home.  It was really scary- the flames were 3 feet wide and 4 feet tall.  The kids called me from a cell phone when they had evacuated to the garage.  I had them calling 911 but Sydney (13) had learned how to use a fire extinguisher in home-ec this past year and said she felt something telling her to stay and take care of it.  She remembered the extinguisher was hanging in the pantry, and without hesitation grabbed it and put out the fire. She was alone in the kitchen. She was scared, but said, "It was weird mom, like someone was telling me each step I had to do until it was taken care of."  Proud moment for us that she kept herself calm and could take care of things.  McKenzie evacuated the little ones and knew what to do there.  It caused lots of damage and was a real big pain, but we were SO grateful the children were safe.  We knew they were watched over by our loving Heavenly Father that day.  Damage can be fixed, but children are IRREPLACEABLE! My prayers that night were definitely ones of thankfulness.