Ensign Peak

When my nieces and nephews were in town a couple of weeks ago, we hiked up to Ensign Peak. Ensign Peak is where Brigham Young hiked to two days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley. It was there that he mapped out the city and decided where to build the Salt Lake Temple.

Here we are at the beginning of the hike at the base of the peak. Our good friend, Marilyn Jenkins, joined us for the hike. We all had a good time.

Kayden at the top of the peak taking a much needed drink.

The group of us at the top over looking the Salt Lake Valley. It was a beautiful view. However, I don't think that Brigham Young saw the haze that we did that day.

The cousins by the monument.

After we finished our hike, we stopped by the Salt Lake City cemetery. McKay has a special place in his heart for the prophet David O. McKay (seeing how he shares his name). We found his grave marker, along with many other prophets' burial sites that day. It was a great way to spend a summer day!

Bridal Veil Falls

We have stayed very busy this summer and enjoyed every minute of it. Last week, when my nieces and nephews were in town, we went up to Bridal Veil Falls with Grandma Haacke to cool off and enjoy the scenery.

At the beginning of the trail to the falls. It was a beautiful walk.

The cousins from Idaho Falls with my boys. What a great shot, they were all looking! It is so beautiful there.

Kayden and his rocks.

McKay is so innovative. He was building a dam with rocks. This boy is always building something.

Joshua at the base of the falls.

Jaxon and Samantha (my niece) climbing up the side of the falls.

Fly Butterflies, Fly!

McKay received a butterfly habitat for Christmas last year and we have been waiting for the opportunity to use it. So this summer we adopted five caterpillars to watch them grow into butterflies.

Our caterpillars that we received in the mail. They were hungry because all they did was eat (and poop).

We were sad we missed it, but they formed their chrysalis while we were out of town visiting family. We pinned the chrysalis onto the side of the net so the butterflies would be able to get out.

Finally they all emerged and it was time to set them free. (I just have to point out one thing here in this picture besides the butterflies: McKay's hair. We had a little mishap the last time we did buzz cuts. He had a nice bald spot on the top of his head for a few days.)

Finally the butterflies came out of the net and flew away. This one paused to bid us farewell.

This one needed some extra help in leaving. He stayed at the top of the net until we bent it down so he could get out of the door. I guess it was a "failure to launch" as he did not want to leave home.

McKay and Josh showing us the empty chrysalis. It was a fun couple of weeks watching the life cycle of a butterfly. Hopefully our butterflies made it out of the neighborhood without any mishaps and are off flying with happy memories of their youth.

The Bear

I keep forgetting to post that McKay received his Bear award in Cub Scouts. He earned his award in April, but did not receive it until June's pack meeting. Way to go McKay!

Here is Jeremy and McKay receiving the award from the Cubmasters.

I was late for pack meeting, so Jeremy received the Mother's pin in my place.

My Handsome Family

This is us at Brady and Kelli's wedding. (Brady is Jeremy's brother.) That is one good looking family!

Weekend at Snowbird

Jeremy's family has a week time share up at Snowbird that we get to use a couple of days of each year. We enjoy going up to relax, swim, and have fun with all the activities that snowbird has to offer. This year was no exception. We had a great time!

We rode the tram up to the top of the mountain. At the top you could see all of Salt Lake Valley on one side, and Heber Valley on the other side. It was beautiful. Salt Lake Valley is behind us in this photo.

We each took a turn riding the mechanical bull. Jeremy was a champ and "walked away on his own terms" so he wouldn't receive any unwanted injuries to his hands or anything else for that matter.

This was my first experience riding the mechanical bull and I must say I was laughing the whole time. It is quite the experience.

Josh was a bull riding champ!

Jaxon did really well staying on the bull.

McKay was very professional. He even stayed on when he lost his grip on the straps. It looked like he was laying on the bull and hanging on by the horns. Quite funny and impressive!

McKay (in white), Kayden (standing in front), and Jaxon (blue shirt in back) plus a mystery kid in red jumping on the bounce house.

McKay jumping on the bungee trampoline. Here he is doing a back flip.

All I could do was jump really high. I attempted to do a couple tricks but I nearly landed on my head. Jaxon is on the right of me doing a back flip. They make those tricks look so easy!

Josh was even able to do a back flip.

McKay and Josh climbing the rock wall. McKay was able to reach the top and ring the bell. Jaxon was a little nervous about climbing the wall, but still did great. Josh climbed up to the middle of the wall and then panicked about how he was going to get down. It was a new adventure!

Kayden and Jeremy riding the lift up to ride the Alpine Slide. This is one of my favorite pictures of the weekend.

Jeremy and Kayden getting ready to take their turn on the slide. McKay is just in front of them.

McKay just finishing his ride at the bottom of the slide.

Jaxon taking on a curve.

Joshua and I riding together on the slide. We were whooping and hollering the whole way down!

Jeremy and Kayden riding down together. Kayden was a lot of fun to ride with. He would yell "Weeeeeee!" most of the way down the slide.

The best part of the weekend was when it was all over and done, our boys expressed their thanks and remarked on what a fun time we had together as a family. I love creating memories.

Fourth of July Weekend

Happy Independence Day! We had a great weekend. We went up to my brother Paul's house on Saturday (4th of July) and stayed for the weekend. He claims that Idaho Falls has the best 4th of July fireworks west of the Mississippi. We wanted to check it out. We had a great time. When we arrived, we had a lunch BBQ of hamburgers and hot dogs. My niece, Samantha, made this yummy jello salad in the shape of the American Flag:

After the BBQ, we rode my brother's wave runners on the Snake River that is right behind his house. I forgot to get some pictures of our ride, but it was fun. It decided to rain a bit during our ride, even with the rain pelting our faces, we had a good time. However, at the end of our ride, my eyes were extremely puffy and itchy. I was allergic to something that runs along the river banks. It wasn't too long before Jeremy's eyes had the same reaction. We were fine after some allergy medication. (I bet you're sad that I didn't get any pictures of that!)
Later that night we went down town for dinner and fireworks. Melaleuca (the company my brother works for, who also put on the fire works show) sponsored a dinner and some entertainment before the firework show:

My sweet niece, Alexa, at the dinner.

After dinner they had as much ice cream as you wanted, but we didn't tell Kayden that. He loved the ice cream!

Lachlan (my nephew) and Josh entertaining themselves after dinner.

Jeremy was entertaining the kids, and me, with glow sticks while waiting for the firework show to start.

Kayden having fun with his glow sticks.

Lachlan and Josh now entertaining themselves with their glow sticks. They can be so silly!

McKay and Marissa (my niece) waiting for the firework show to begin.

My brother, Paul, hanging out with Bryan (above, also my nephew) and Jaxon (bottom) before the fireworks.

McKay takes after his dad.

Jaxon does too.

I must say, even though I don't have any pictures of the fireworks, they were amazing! The show lasted for thirty minutes and was beautifully choreographed with music that was played by a local radio station. I couldn't believe that the fireworks just kept on coming and coming. It was wonderful! It was much better than anything the Stadium of Fire has put on.
The next day we enjoyed being together as a family. My brother pulled out his rifle and target and let the boys each have a turn. I even got to shoot the gun, but the only thing that I was able to hit was the river behind the house. If firing a gun doesn't say family togetherness, than I don't know what does. :)

Paul and Josh shooting the gun together.

Later, Sunday night, we set off the fireworks that we brought up. A storm came in right as we started, but we stayed under the porch while watching the fireworks and were still able to enjoy them, even though they weren't nearly as good as the night before.

Everyone watching the fireworks under the porch.

Lighting off fireworks in the rain.

Monday morning, we did some floating down the river. I went in the tube twice while Jeremy took the kids in the raft and pulled McKay and Marissa on their tubes behind him. Even though the river was quite chilly, we still enjoyed it.

Samantha and Bryan (left) in their tubes and Jeremy in the boat with the little kids with McKay and Marissa on the orange tubes behind the boat.

Once I got to the dock, Kayden desperately wanted to get into the river. I plopped him into my tube, but that wasn't good enough. He wanted all the way in. I dipped him in and let him kick his feet and then he was good. He loved the river, a little too much that it got scary. We had to watch him like a hawk. We all had a great time and the cousins love being together.

*What did you do for the 4th of July?
**Did you go see fireworks or light some off?