Happy Father's Day!

I sure lucked out with a great dad - and my kids (as you can tell from all these photos!) sure lucked out with a great granddad! Happy Father's Day, dad!

Another Week

The highlight of the week (at least for me and hopefully everyone else!) was our little backpack trip up to Blue Lakes. Ben wasn't super excited about our destination because it's quite a popular trail. But, we hadn't done it in 6 years and we never have made it up to the Upper Lakes. So I thought we could leave Friday after work, backpack to the Lower Blue Lake and camp. Then Saturday morning we would hike to the Upper Lakes, and then back down. So that's what we did and I think it turned out pretty great. The crowds were more sparse on Friday, but I think that was due to our timing: we started hiking at 5:30pm. There weren't many camping spots near the lake, but we did find an obscure one that worked out great. Hiking back down on Saturday was crazy - so many people! The traffic (of people) was horrible. :) But whatever. It's beautiful there. I would say there were about 100 cars in the parking lot and beyond. Yeah, a bit busy for sure! But Ben survived it thankfully and I won't pressure him to go for another 6 years or so . . .

At the trail head ready for the hike! 

This waterfall was beautiful - too bad my picture ins't so grand. Our camping spot was actually pretty close to the fall.

Huffing and puffing it up the trail. The first couple of miles (it's only 3.3 miles to the lake) is pretty tough! Everyone did great, but Lucy struggled the most. I was thankful for her rest-stops. :) The girls were really excited about this trip and packed their bags all on their own. So awesome. I think they over-packed and had more weight than necessary, but they did great.

A couple of hours later we made it to Blue Lakes! But it wasn't so blue at this time of day, ha. But seriously awesome nonetheless.

We finally found a campsite and the girls took a rest on a log.

Cute girls wearing their Christmas jammies - all ready for bed. Lucy brought up the 3rd Harry Potter book and so we all crowded in the kids' tent and I read one chapter. Then bedtime! It was a chilly night, but not horrible.

After a hearty breakfast of instant oatmeal packets, we were off to hike to the Upper Lakes - sans backpacks, yay. It was a beautiful hike!

This was the Upper Lake (there is a Middle Lake, I guess). The lake isn't quite as gorgeous as the lower one (in my opinion), but it was still so beautiful up there.

Proof that I was there. :) Quite the peak behind us.

Fun stream crossings on our way back to Lower Blue Lake.

Ahhhhh, there's that blue color! Amazing.

Lucy and Ben tried to recreate the spot where this picture was taken 6 years ago. :)

  The flowers were lovely!

 The end. The boys went ahead of us for the last half of the hike. It was another great adventure in the awesome outdoors!

Highlights of the Week

So another week has come and gone . . . We did get together with the youth in our ward for some kickball. I don't know if it was completely within the guidelines, but I think it was! The bishop gave me permission, too, so I think it's all good. The kids were THRILLED to get to be together again. It was so fun to see them, too!

It was a perfect evening for kickball. I think we all (except the out-of-state cousin there in the red) need to practice our skills a bit more. But we had a really great time.

 The girls are doing Brain Chase for their very first time. Their electives include engineering (the above photo was part of their "assignment"), a bake-off, and art. It's fun and gives them a little to do and work on during the week.

 Our first produce from our garden - a zucchini. Cool!

 Emmy's entry for Brain Chases' bake-off competition: cookies with a surprise and/or fun presentation. We decided to make-up our own kind of cookie - pina colada. We chopped-up dried pineapples and added coconut, too. Then topped them with adorable umbrellas. Yummy, cute, and fun.

 This is what Bella does while we do our chores . . . What a lazy and adorable dog.

Here the kids are all eating the delicious fries that Miles made and brought home from work. :) He had some super spicy (firehouse) sauce with it that the kids all loved. I liked it, too, but am just too wimpy for it.

Miles get his motor for his bike and has been working on setting it up the past couple of days. There are some kinks that always need to be figured out when doing such projects. Like the muffler not fitting . . . Ben tried bending the metal piece but it didn't do much. So Miles heated it up today over our stovetop and now it has a 1mm clearance, per Miles. I think he hopes to try it out this evening after his chores are finished.

The kids had a fun Friday. We went and took friends to Taviwach after lunch. 4 kids + 4 friends. Each of my kids had a friend, so it worked out perfectly. The kids played for hours. Then everyone came back here. They all played on the tramp and then had a blast playing Secret Hitler. The girls then went over to their friends' house and played and came home at 10:30 - their latest "late night" with friends. :) The boys' friends stayed here for dinner and a movie. I "made" them watch a movie called Breaking Away. It just looked like a fun movie for teen boys. Different than the trash movies these days. :) I think they all had fun watching it.

Ben got tested for Covid antibodies - it came back negative. As well as every other employee at the Surgical Center. Interesting. (Plus, the 200+ tested at the hospital for pre-surgery requirement were all negative as well.)

That's that!

Family Pictures 2020

Well it had been three years since we had gotten family photos done and so I thought we were due for some updated photos. Pre-Covid we had a YW activity where another young mom from a different ward came and taught our youth some photography. So I decided to ask her to take our pics and she did such a great job.  The pictures are all out of order, but I am just going to post a bunch. So enjoy!