Fireworks and Camping

I have been meaning to write another post for about a week now because so much has happened, but all that stuff happening has kept me from writing. Because of this it might get a bit long so, sorry. =]

My 4th of July was a lot of fun!! My parents were in Idaho, so I had the house all to myself. I invited my cousins over for a BBQ, swimming and fireworks. We also flew Tiffany in so she wouldn’t miss the fun.
Apricot grilled chicken and potstickers were the main attractions and they were very quickly followed up by lots of swimming (most of us had already been swimming at least once already…I love having a pool in my backyard!!). Fireworks were interesting…It was windy and the lighters and matches weren’t working very well because of it. Not to mention the fact that the fireworks were old and we were using them to get rid of them. We ended up resorting to using sparklers to light the fireworks which worked out really well because it accomplished using the sparklers as well as lighting the fireworks. At some point in the night Kevin got the really cool idea to light sixteen “screamer” fireworks all at once, and we almost succeeded, but in the end we only lit eight at a time. I think that was enough though because they were really loud. After that we roasted marshmallows over the stove and then played Nurtz. All in all it was a pretty awesome night.



I just spent the last few days down at Palisades State Park with my mom’s side of the family camping. The last time they went down there I was not able to go…for some reason that is now forgotten…so I was really excited to go this time. It started out quite interestingly as one of our trailers blew a tire just outside of Santaquin.
Luckily we had a spare though, so it was fixed in just about no time and we were back on the road. The weather was beautiful, the food was good and the lake was amazing. We rented a canoe, swam across the lake and back twice and the kids really enjoyed jumping off the floating platform. The grandkids spent the majority of the time in the lake while the adults spend each morning at the golf course. There were tons of fish in the lake—minnows and what looked to me like koi, but the kids just called them goldfish—and we all enjoyed helping the younger kids try to catch them. The other main game of the weekend was tip the canoe. Jeremy and Brett tipped it on accident and pretty much sunk it the first time, but after that it turned into a game. I think they tipped it at least 8 times before they were too tired to try it again. All in all it was a pretty awesome weekend!!

I also go to talk to my brother on the phone before he got on his plane to go to Toronto!! It was so wonderful and yet hard to hear his voice again. We had a really short chat, maybe too short, but I was having a hard time controlling my emotions, so short was good. We probably won’t hear from him until next week to know for sure where he is at, but he was excited and ready to teach no matter where he will be. Keep the missionaries in your prayers!!