August 9 - Camping

Our last camping trip before school starts. We hope to go a couple more times, but the kids start school in 10 days. I can not believe the summer is coming to an end. It has gone by so fast. Maisie and Parker have enjoyed their summer. For the most part, they have stayed home and loved being lazy. In the evenings, they run around the neighborhood with all the neighbor kids. They get along so well with all of them. I love that the neighborhood is filled with kids their age.

Eric and the kids went up the canyon earlier in the day on Friday. I drove up after work so I could come home for work on Monday. When I got up there Maisie and I decided to go on hike/walk up a four-wheeler road for 2 miles. I made chicken stir-fry for dinner and then we enjoyed an evening around the fire.

Saturday morning after breakfast, I talked Maisie into going on a bike ride. Round trip it ended up being about 3.5 miles. I was able to push her to keep going until it started to be all up hill. She did a really good job keeping up. Later that afternoon, we decided to go down the canyon and do the Limber Pine Trail which is 1.3 miles round trip and then drove down to Bear Lake for some yummy shakes. We learned from the last time, to get small shakes. Which was the perfect size. We did some exploring around the mountain and checked out where some of the roads go and then went back to camp to try cooking ribs again. This time around they turned out really good and we didn't burn them. The key was cooking them on top of tin-foil, so the grease didn't start another fire. They took a while to cook, but they were really good when they were down. 

Parker jamming out to some music. He loves his music.

Eric practiced throwing a ball back and forth to Parker working on his catching skills. 

Parker couldn't decide if he wanted to come home with me on Sunday or not. He kept going back and forth whether he wanted to stay or go with me. What it boiled down to is he didn't want dad to make him eat a hamburger for dinner. I finally just told him he was coming home with me. We left Sunday about 12:00, so we could go home and shower and get ready to go to my Grandma and Grandpa Hendrickson's for their 60th Wedding Anniversary celebration.

Maisie and Eric came home Monday morning. They got home about 10:00.

Yard Sale!!!!

WoW!!! Yard sales are exhausting. Bear River City had a community yard sale. It was a great way to draw a lot of people to the small town. Overall there were 20 yard sales. I starting going through some of our stuff a couple of months ago with the mindset that if I could get something for my junk then I would get rid of it. Made parting with some of it a lot easier. I ended up with a whole truck busting at the seams of junk that hadn't been used in a long time. By the time I loaded up the truck, I knew that I did not want to bring any of it back with me. So my sister and I combined our junk and had a big sale at her house. By the time the yard sale was over, it didn't look like I had gotten rid of anything. I still had a ton of junk. Someone had arranged for DI trailer to be at the church, which I thought was a great idea. So I packed it all up for the last time, and hauled it to the DI trailer. Overall I sold just under $200. Not too bad for getting rid of some of it, but yard sales are a lot of work and I was exhausted. 

July 28th - Running Goal

I made a new goal to hopefully get me back into exercising on a regular basis. I am going to run or walk at least 1 mile everyday from now until October 31st. Setting small goals definitely keeps me a lot more motivated. 

July 26-28th

I love summer nights. We enjoyed Friday evening with the company of Sallie. We just hung out on the back patio and visited. 

Saturday, it was a nice cool day with a few sprinkles. We planted a couple of new trees and pretty much weeded the whole yard. It was nice to have a cooler day to get some stuff done in the yard. Maisie made some chocolate chip cookies. I haven't made cookies from scratch in a few years. I tried teaching her the order and reason for mixing certain ingredients together. It was a good lesson for both of us. I BBQ'd some yummy hamburgers with mushrooms and onions. Then later that evening we built a fire in the backyard and put up the tiki torches. Sallie joined us for a evening of enjoying the fire.

Sunday, we didn't do a whole lot. Laundry, cleaning the house, and relaxing. We finished cooking the rest of the hamburgers and cooked some yummy zucchini from our garden. Later I went for a short run. It felt really good. Haven't been running in a couple of weeks and it started to sprinkle which felt really refreshing. 

Bear River City July 24th Celebration

Growing up we always attended the Bear River City 24th of July celebration. It is funny how our younger day traditions follow into adulthood. We just can't miss it. It pretty much consists of sitting at the park all day and enjoying a yummy hamburger stand hamburger. Kids run around and play an assortment of games. The day starts with a 5k, breakfast, parade, fishing pond, which results in junk toys, snow cones, bounce houses, races, baby show, auction, real fishing pond (where the kids try to catch a live trout), kids rodeo, and then live music later in the evening. 

Now that grandma has a swimming pool at their house, we usually end up over there after lunch and the kids enjoy swimming and then some sort of pot luck dinner. It is nice that we all live so close to each other and can get together and enjoy each other's company.

July 11 - 15th Camping in Logan Canyon

We have been waiting for this camping trip for a long time. I feel like we haven't done much camping this year and was so ready to get out and enjoy the mountains and relax. We left early Thursday morning when Eric got home from work. I think we were pulling out of the drive way by 8:00 a.m. We got just a little bit up Logan canyon and there was an accident. We sat there for close to an hour and then finally the traffic started moving. We finally got to our campsite at Temple Peak at 10:30. Got our trailer situated and pretty soon there were two more people that were trying to take our camp spot. We were kind of tucked in the trees and you had to look around the trees to see if any one was in that spot. We were so glad we got there when we did. By Friday afternoon, the whole area was packed with trailers and campers. The spot we were lucky enough to get was at the dead end so we didn't have to deal with a lot of four wheelers and trucks driving by. I think it is one of my new favorite places to go. 

We relaxed for little while and then went on a bike ride and a short hike. I am glad we brought our bikes along. The kids had a tough time going up the hills, but it was a great place to explore and ride our bikes around. 

Friday evening my good friend, Michelle and her kids came up and stayed with us for two nights. Saturday morning we woke up and Michelle, Kenzie, Maisie and I went for a hike down a trail. We probably hiked for about 2 miles down the trail and then decided we better turn around. We kept telling the girls that remember we have to go back so don't wait to tell us your tired. Going back up the trail was pretty much a gradual up hill, so they got tired a lot faster. Once I got home and looked up the trail it looks like it is about a 4 mile trail that leads to Temple Fork. One day maybe we will hike the whole trail. When we got back to camp we decided to head down to Bear Lake for lunch. We ate at La Beau's. Yummy food and yummy shakes. Couldn't believe how busy it was. There is a ton of people in Bear Lake during the summer months. And they sure know how to rip you off for hamburgers and shakes. Lunch cost us $35. Michelle decided to take all the kids to the beach. Eric and I were worried about getting back to camp cause we had a friend that was going to try and come up and was worried he might not be able to find us if we weren't there. He didn't end up coming up until Sunday afternoon. Once we got back to camp there was a down pour for about a half hour then it cleared out and was quite cool. We tried cooking ribs on our little BBQ grill, but ended up starting the whole grill on fire. We still tried to eat them, but they could have been a lot better. We enjoyed the evening around the fire and making smore's.

Michelle and her kids had to leave early Sunday morning. It was sure nice having them and the kids had fun playing together. Sunday was a nice relaxing day. Our friend Brett, his wife Laura, and her sister and boyfriend came up and visited Sunday afternoon for a little while. We shot off some guns at some targets. Then they headed off to Bear Lake for the evening. We had been debating on leaving Monday or Tuesday cause we were running low on water. We decided we would leave Monday so we could have one extra day of relaxing and getting things done around the house before going back to work.

We left Monday about noon, emptied the trailer, and then started on the laundry. The one thing I love about having the trailer is we can pretty much load and unload the trailer in about an hour. Makes camping so much easier and nicer. 

Tuesday we took the kids to see Despicable Me 2. It was a pretty cute show. It was really nice having an extra day to relax before going back to work. Vacations just go by way too fast.

4th of July

We decided to stay home for the 4th and enjoy not one BBQ but two BBQ's with Sallie. On the 3rd we had shish kabobs at Sallie's and then we had ribs on the 4th and then enjoyed an amazing firework show by all the Nibley Garden neighbors. Little did they know that we benefited from their fireworks and we didn't have to spend a dime. Honestly, probably the best fireworks we have ever seen and we didn't have to leave our house or fight traffic. I love the 4th of July and think I have decided it is one of my favorite holidays. I am so Proud to be an American. And love spending the holiday with family, good friends, and good food.