The Rest of July

 Right after our reunion down in St. George, all three of our kids headed off to FSY.  Maren went to FSY in Missouri with her cousin Eliza, and Ryan and Grant went to FSY in Ephraim at Snow College, with friends from our neighborhood.  I dropped the boys off on Monday morning and they were there until Saturday.  All of them seemed to have a great time!  I'm grateful for these programs that our church provides for our youth!

Dustin and I were empty nesters in our house all week.  You'd think we would have had date night every night, but we were actually both quite busy and didn't see much of each other.  We did visit an old neighbor for Family Home Evening on Monday night.

Dustin went with the youth to the Bingham Canyon Mine on Wednesday.

I would normally be there with the youth, but I drove down to Oak City for a Losee Reunion and met my parents and sisters there. (Dustin couldn't take any more time off work, after having been gone the whole week before).  I was family-less, and it was much more lonely without my family there.  I do love spending time with my sisters and parents and their little ones, so it was still a fun couple of days.  Monica and I got the worst sleep of our lives, as we attempted to share a deflating, sagging air mattress and not bounce each other off of it every time we moved.  We finally broke out into uncontrollable laughter at around 5 a.m. because it was so ridiculous.  That woke up my other two sisters sleeping in the tent with us and after a bathroom break, we decided we'd sleep better without any air in the mattress, so we deflated it completely.  We were wrong.  It was much worse to be laying on the hard ground!  Haha!  Live and learn!

Two dead snakes that we found and showed the kids.  One was a rattle snake.

Ahh, camping with babies.

All my cousins that were there before we left on Thursday evening.

Friday night was our Ward Campout.  Dustin and I went up for the evening, but didn't stay over because 1. I didn't want to sleep terribly in a tent again 2. In a couple of days I would be leaving for Girl's Camp and sleeping in a tent again, and the thought of adding another tent night to my life made me want to cry (I'm now understanding why all my relatives got campers when they were in their 40's), 

and 3. Our boys were coming home Saturday morning and we wanted to be home to greet them. 

They made it home!  We missed them.  On Saturday night we had tickets to see the Tabernacle Choir concert.  It was really good!  We had a couple of extra tickets, so we took our friends, the Parks, with us.

They had lots of beautiful backgrounds.

Monday morning was the start of Girl's Camp!  It was SO hot!  We started out with a ropes course in Ogden.  The girl's were awesome at it!

Then we headed up to Box Elder Campground for three days.  It did rain a bit, which helped to cool it down a little.  July was a record breaking hot month for Utah!

Dustin was able to come up on Tuesday night until Wednesday night.  So he got to play at the lake with us.  Maren and another girl came up Wednesday afternoon for a few hours.  She had gotten home from Missouri/Illinois on Monday afternoon.

Another leader, Camille, and I were in charge of the food again this year.  It was a fun Girl's Camp!  We only had 10 girls this year, and we had fun together!

While I was gone at Girl's Camp, Dustin had a grand opening at Pioneer Crossing Regional Park that he was the Project Manager for.  Good job Dustin!!

He even made it in to the newspaper!

Dustin took us all to practice hitting golf balls one night.  He's determined to teach the boys to play, and it is probably a good thing to have at least a little skill in.

We walked around his new park afterward so that I could see it.  It is very nice!

On July 24th-Pioneer Day, we went to the Ogden parade to watch our niece, Abi, in her marching band.  We met Nicole and Lynnette and their families there and then went to Lynnette's house after to visit.  Everyone came up to our house that night for a BBQ, and then some of us went on to Liberty Park to watch a drone show.  It was pretty cool!  We did get caught in a rain storm on the way back to our car, but it was a fun night!

I started a home improvement project this month.  I am painting all the trim and soffit around the house black and re-painting the carport.  I've been doing a little in the mornings, before it gets too hot and it is coming along slowly.

We've had some beautiful sunsets this month!

Playing street pickleball on a Sunday evening, enjoying the view where we live.  What a lovely summer!