July--Cub scout family camp

First off, before the family camp pictures, here is the trailer Justin bought (it conveniently came with a 4 wheeler not pictured).  The kids are getting good at tying things down and have created their own little play place up there.
 

We have some awesome neighbors we have become friends with who work at scout camp.  They hold a friends and family day and invited us to come.  The girls were thrilled because that meant they got to all the stuff Sam got to do at day camp.  Including BB guns!
 

And Dad had a turn (I had one when I went with the boys the week before).
It's superhero related, so here we have Bat Michelle.
 

They have an awesome obstacle course that leaves everyone very dusty and dirty.  (Think dusty base camp and then crab walk and army crawl and get under the "lasers" kind of dirty).
 

 

We put Ben in charge of keeping the bars swinging as they had to run around them.  He loved it when Justin ran though and just about nailed him with the bar.

And then it started raining and then pouring so we all left.  As we left the canyon there was an amazing rainbow.  This is just one of the many I took out the car window as we drove. 

Garden fun

I just have to show off our garden this year.  We are very excited about it.  In our big box we have green beans, corn, and lots of squash (zucchini, yellow squash, Hungarian squash--it's supposed to be a blue color, cucumbers, and pumpkins).  The squash doubled in size while we were out of town.  There is also one small tomato plant, with very small tomatoes which are super good.  The first one was sampled yesterday.

The other box we have contain broccoli which is very tall but not producing yet (we might have missed the window on that one) and bigger tomatoes. 

One box we didn't take a picture of had our peas in it.  This year was not a good year for peas, it got too hot too early.  It now contains two pepper plants and three more cucumber plants that Justin bought recently.  They are all surviving.  Two more pepper plants are out in the yard as well.  And Hannah is growing her own garden of sunflowers in the very back of the yard.  She even waters them periodically.

Here's to more success from the garden! 

Fourth of July fun

We had a fun trip to Southern Utah over the Fourth of July.  It was a ton of fun and the kids got to play with their cousins which they loved.  There were not a ton of pictures taken but it was a lot of fun.

We went to the Carter Cabin and the kids loved it.  They started building a fort which they said almost kept out some of the rain.  They also all got to go on 4 wheeler rides which was probably the highlight for them.

We left the cabin after the rainstorm and headed to Brian Head for fireworks.  Justin wanted small town fireworks.  It was pretty cool.  It was cold because of the storm that came through and we all got a little wet.  Once the fireworks started the kids loved it.  They had four cases of fireworks and each is set up to have a "finale" type shot, so we to see what amounted to several small fireworks shows.  The one that was Justin's favorite was one of the finale shots that also featured a lightening bolt in the background.  His other favorite was the one that exploded short and pretty much directly over and on top of the front row of spectators (there wasn't much of a drop zone perimeter) or the one that shot off into the nearby trees which the people next to us assured us was okay because that was where the fire station is at.  :)

 

The other big activity was bike riding at Brian Head.  We rode the lift up and biked down.  Well, I only did it once and didn't even ride the whole way.  The boys did a couple of rides without me.  I do not recommend this for one of your first mountain biking experiences.  It was beautiful, when I wasn't going so fast that I could actually see the area I was riding through.  It was also very bumpy and there were lots of rocks on a very narrow trail.  That's my summary.

One more activity, Sam got to go golfing with Grandpa and Dad.  He loved it he told me when he came home.  I was surprised until he told me why, he got to help drive the golf cart.  He played caddy for Grandpa and Dad and has since asked me when he gets to go golfing again.  :)