Cousins Birthday Party

 On the 24th of July we went to Cowabunga Bay, a water park in Draper, to celebrate Myles and Sophie's birthday party!

 We hadn't been there as a family so the kids were excited to try it out and play with their cousins.

 Chan's Mom and Grandparents were there too!

 Here is a shot of Sophie! She was having a blast!

 Brianne loved it! In fact she ended up staying a bit longer to really get in all the play time she could!

 Myles had a blast too! He was all over the place! I think this might be a favorite place for him now!

The boys had fun too! We were able to get lunch and eat cake and spend some time with Brooke & Mark as well as Annie and Gerardo. It was a fun time!

Youth Conference

 After we got back from St George we had a bit of down time. I went out to visit Chan at the airport and to get a tour of the new restaurants we had opened and the ones in construction. I also went out to help do a bit of decorating in the new human resource offices. Anyway, the kids had some down time too and spent a few days just hanging out. Then at the end of the week Carter had youth conference. On Thursday, as a Ward youth, they went downtown to see some church sites and then hiked Ensign peak. When they got to the top one of our ward members gave a small lesson. It was a fun day and a great way to kick off conference.

 The next morning they left early in the morning and headed up to This is the Place State Park. They came with tools in hand to do some service and were put to work weeding and trimming around one of the old homes there. Once they finished their service they went back to their camp area that had been set up by the Elders quorum. They took a tour of the area, participated in many activities and some even included some foreign exchange kids from France! That evening they had a small devotional and talked about people they looked up to in their heritage.

 I went up to help serve them lunch on that day so I got a few photos of Carter playing a pioneer stick game with his leaders and friends! It was fun to see and great to see how many of our youth had gone to participate. On Saturday morning they did a one day trek and had to dress as pioneers and everything. It was a neat experience and one I am sure Carter will remember forever.

This is a shot of Carter and his friend Laura at the top of Ensign Peak. I am proud of Carter for going, it was tough for him given he was one of only 2 weeks he had off of football, but I know he is glad he went too!

Carter was also asked a week ago by our Stake Presidency to be a youth counselor for a special needs mutual here in Sandy. He will do it for one year and have a "buddy" that he is assigned to. He is very nervous but excited to take on the calling. I am sure proud of him and what a great young man he is becoming!

St George...again!

 After Carter played in his scrimmage at Snow Camp we took him back to his dorm to shower, clean up and check out. After that we piled in the truck and headed south to St George! We figured it was our last chance to get out of town for a bit before football and school kicked in. We decided to do a bit of shopping for school but also take some family pictures and go to Zions National Park!

 The kids had not been there yet and with all the trips we've done down there we've never taken them over there. Now remember, it is summer so it was WAY TOO hot in our opinion to hike (and Carter was pretty sore) so we just decided to go up to the entrance of the park.

 We got out and looked around in a few shops, checked out the view from where we were, snapped a family photo and decided to go out to eat! Tammy had been talking about this place called Oscars for 

quite a while so off we went to check it out!

 After our yummy lunch we took off back to St George. We had fun hanging out together, watching some pretty amazing rainstorms, playing with the dogs, doing a bit of shopping etc.

 On Sunday morning I asked the gang to get cleaned up so we could go up to Sugarloaf to get some pictures. It's my favorite picture taking spot! And thanks to Tammy for taking the pictures! They turned out awesome!!!

 This one made me giggle a bit because it looks like Chan is wearing a rock hat!

 I love this one because it shows just how goofy our family is! We really are dorky!!

 This is my favorite!! I am blowing this one up to hang in my family room! I love it!

 This ones pretty great too! After our family photo shoot we decided to drive out to the new St George Airport. We've been wanting to check it out and it is VERY nice! It even has a really cool observation area on the second floor. We enjoyed seeing it and the drive :) (I spared you those pictures because I already posted so many others!)

 Here's our family shot at Zions. After seeing the airport we went back to Tammy's and my Aunt Kay came over to hang out and have dinner with us. We enjoyed visiting with her very much and the timing turned out well too because we found out that day that my Uncle Bill wasn't doing well. He had been doing chemotherapy for cancer and had taken a bad turn. So I was glad I could be there for Kay and give her a big hug.

 I know I say this often but I am so glad I have Tammy in my life! She's such a great friend! I WUB her! I got to see her new classroom at school and even help decorate a bit! That was way fun!

 Chan and I enjoy going to St George because it floods us with college memories! It was such a fun time!

 It's hard to believe that Carter is almost old enough to GO to college.... yikes!

 Tammy and I at Zions :)

 Will has said on several occasions he would like to go to Dixie college too! That would be fun!

 Brianne feels the same way and she even added that she would live with Tammy! Which was perfectly fine with her! :)

 We had to go onto the campus this trip because I have been meaning to go and get a shot of my hand print I did while I attended Dixie. I was a student body officer in college and was over communications. I LOVED it and we were invited to put our hand prints in the newly placed sidewalk! I was newly married so I added Chan's name too! :)

 Here's a picture of Chan and I in front of the Fine Arts building where I worked in the box office. I loved that job!

 This is the fountain in front of the fine arts building. I walked by here a million times. Such fantastic memories here! And I love that you can see the "D" on the mountain!

 Tammy and I are dorks and had to get this picture of Carter and the mountain in the background... it's called Molly's Nipple... yeah I know... I told you we were dorks!

Here we are at Oscars! It was once again a wonderful trip! We had a blast, as usual, and this time got in some fun sight seeing! I'm sure we'll be back again soon!

Snow Camp 2012

 After a few days of being home from Lake Powell I was already packing more bags for Carter to go to Snow Camp. And as usual I took him to the grocery store to buy special treats etc for him to take along. This was an exciting year for Snow since Carter had been working so hard in the off season. He left on a Sunday night and we went down on Wednesday night and stayed in Ephraim so we'd be up early and get to his scrimmage in time. When we arrived at Snow College the next morning we could see some Alta players already out warming up so we parked and were trying to find Carter. We realized fairly quickly that the boys we saw were the JV team, but we didn't see Carter among them! A GREAT sign! We ran into Carter and Nate (pictured above) shortly after and they filled us in...

 Carter and Nate had been roomies, along with a few other buddies, but he and Nate were not dressed yet so we asked them what was going on. He said that he and Nate had made the varsity team!! YAY!!! All the hard work had paid off! He is in the starting line up for the offensive line- he is number 77 in his practice jersey.

 It was thrilling to see him play with all the "big boys"! And their team played very well.

 The coach for the O-line is Coach Coggins and I am thrilled that Carter gets to learn from him- he's a fantastic coach!

 Carter had a very fun week! It was the first year that the boys got to choose who they roomed with, so of course it was a dorm of buddies! They did some goofing off, but all in good fun! I knew he was excited to go and before he left he never seemed nervous. But I knew once he got up Monday morning for the first practice it would hit him, so I wrote a note to him in a card and stuffed it in his equipment bag. He found it that Monday morning and was grateful because I was right and he WAS nervous! Once he got out there and showed what he had the nervousness slowly faded and he did great!

 Chan and I couldn't be more proud of Carter! We are so excited to see how this year plays out on the field!

Way to go Carter! We love you!!

Lake Powell: Day 4

 I apologize that in this post my pictures are a bit out of order, so I'll follow the pictures on this one! On day 4 we got an earlier start because Gramma and Papa wanted to take the kids on a hike. So we got some breakfast in them and sent them off!

 Chan got these pictures with our camera and a very long lens! They were up pretty high! We stayed on the boat and I vacuumed and Chan got ready to put the remaining gas in the wave runners for our trip back to the marina.

 Once they got back from their hike we went out to Padre Bay to bob in the water and swim. This is my FAVORITE but Carter is not of fan of swimming in "the deep" so it took him a minute to get off the ladder and into the water!

 I talked Kathy into letting me take an action shot of HER and she did awesome! Isn't this a great shot! She is so fun!

 Here she is with our kids :)

 Chan took Will out for a ride and Carter rode along with them- they went to check out the bay.

 Gamma and Dakota after he got back from his wave runner ride with Papa!

 Gamma and Papa! We are so grateful they invite us to go boating! It's the best!

 Here's Papa's action shot! He got pretty fancy!

 Chan took Brianne out for one last ride too!

 Then it was time for one last run on the tube! This is Will and Brianne again!

 I am always so impressed with Kathy and how she rides backwards to spot! That's a tough job! She tells me that she's been doing it long enough that she knows exactly what Chan and Tom do and how they turn. Pretty neat!

 Here's Carter and Will! This was pretty funny because their weight is so different!

 Here's Papa watching as the tubing goes on!

 Dakota ended up switching with Kathy to spot and on the last run with Carter and Will Chan slowed on a turn and it yanked him and Dakota in the water! Thankfully they got back on and were fine- and smiling about it! (and don't you just love Chan's striped shoulder sunburn! We had some pretty funny nicknames for it!)

 Carter and Will thought it was pretty dang funny! They survived being tossed out!

 This was amazing.... when we were at camp you could take this very small canyon with the wave runner and go WAY in and it got more and more narrow as you went but at the end this is what was there. SO COOL! It reminded all of us of that guy from the movie 127 hours!

 Here's some more pictures of the hike. This one shows how great our camp spot was! We were sheltered so great and had lots of great swimming room. And you can see their great boat! We love it!

 Gamma and Papa climbing up the hill.

I loved this shot of them! This was truly the BEST trip EVER!! we had such an amazing time and I can't wait to go back! There is no better way to create family memories! Our family will have stories to share for years to come and hopefully we'll be able to make many more memories there in the future! Thanks again Tom and Kathy for a fabulous trip! We love you!