What I Did On Summer Vacation

Tomorrow is our last day of summer vacation, which is bad and good all wrapped up into one. In addition to going on trek---which I never have posted about---here is the bulk of the excitement I experienced this summer:

1. Attended the Palmyra Pageant in a rain storm.

2. Visited Kirtland for the very first time.

3. Drove to Utah

4. Rescued a 3 week old kitten from a garbage can on garbage day.

Isn't he so cute? He has a little milk moustache from drinking out of a teeny tiny kitty bottle.

5. Visited with many dear friends and family members.

The Griffin cousins

Em, Macie and MaKinna

Silly Elwood cousins

6. Ate out at 322 different restaurants. (OK, not quite that many but close!)

7. Gained 5 pounds (see number 6)

8. Went boating/tubing on Hyrum Dam with the Blotters.

Em seems to be having the most fun!

8. Spent 3 days at glorious Bear Lake with my sisters and brother and all of the kids.

9. After a 16 year hiatus, I got up on water skis again while boating on glorious Bear Lake.

Ok, I must confess. This isn't me, but no one took my photo, dang it, and I was good! :)

I think water skiing on Bear Lake when it's sunny and calm is as close to the Celestial Kingdom as you can get!

10. Attended "The Bandito Rides Again" at the Pickleville Playhouse.

11. Left our beach bag with all of our swimming suits in it at the condo so I drove BACK

to Bear Lake.

12. Because we were already as far as Bear Lake, we visited the Oregon Trail Museum in

Montpelier, Idaho.

13. Helped make a Wii float for the Elwood grandkids for Hyde Park's 24th of July celebration.

The big kids sat in chairs and acted is if they were playing Wii. The little kids were in Mario Karts. Clever, aren't wii?

14. Watched the kids take swimming lessons.

15. Went swimming numerous times at the Logan Aquatic Center.

16. Walked at 7:00 every morning with my lovely Hyde Park friends.

17. Drove to St. George to visit my grandma.

My kids with my lovely grandma, who turned 90 in March!

18. Had a cookout in Logan Canyon. (It rained a total of 10 minutes the whole month we were

there, and 8 of those minutes were during our cookout!)

Chi, Ky and Mugs in the rain.

19. Drove to Idaho Falls to visit my sister.

20. Drove back to Connecticut.

We're Off!

We're off for the yearly trip to Utah to see family and friends. We can't wait!

A Little Catching Up!

Whew, I dropped off the blogging planet, so to speak! Between trying to finish up the school year, the computer going in for repairs twice, and Dennis and I preparing for and going to youth conference for four days, blogging has fallen way down the list. I'm now playing catch up with what's being going on in our lives for the last 6 weeks. We returned from youth conference on Saturday, and it was awesome but I will have to save that post for another day!

Graduation!

Em graduated from preschool in June, and is now ready to move onto bigger and better things. It was a great year!

Mrs. Murphy and Miss Carol--two great ladies

(On the President's Day, when I arrived to pick Em up from school, they were very confused as to who President Hinckley might be? Em kept talking about him being a president and they were a little stumped! We'd watched the movie about him the night before so it must have been on her mind!)
Her good friend Emily

Recital Time!

All three kids had recitals in June. Chiara had a piano recital on the piano, Cardon had a guitar recital at an assisted living home in Glastonbury, and Em had a dance recital. The song she performed to was the Chimpmunk version of "All the Single Ladies." As you can tell from her poses, she really acted the part!

I filmed her playing the piano so I don't have a photo.

This is part of a group shot after the recital!

Work it, Baby!

Verdant Vermont

As we were driving to our camp site in Vermont over Memorial Day Weekend, Cardon explained to us that one of his vocabulary words that week had been verdant. He thought it was a great adjective to describe Vermont, and I have to agree! We spent the weekend with some families in our ward at Silver Lake, a state park very near Joseph Smith's birthplace. It was awesome!

By the shores of Silver Lake


The kids

The teens

The family

A very old cemetery

Verdant

Quaint!

Prayers Answered

This is Sox, our beloved cat. Unfortunately, not the sharpest tool in the kitty shed, so to speak. In March of 2009 he treed himself in a tall skinny pine in our backyard, and after many hours of hand wringing by the family--(OK, not me. I was in NYC with my friends!), our friend, Gregg, a tree cutter by trade/hobby, climbed up the tree in his spiked boots and rescued him.
On Monday, Sox was nowhere to be found and when we called to him, we heard frantic meowing from the trees in the front yard. Sox was stranded on the tiniest of limbs quite aways from the ground. After much begging/crying from the kids, I put on some long pants and sturdy boots and headed out to get the ladder. By the time I had the ladder ready and was headed out into the thick of the forest, here came Sox through the undergrowth. He was down! Em explained that the reason he was out of the tree was because she prayed he could get down. Thank goodness for answered prayers!

He doesn't like to sleep in the garage at night. He thinks he's tough and sleeps outside so who knows how long he'd been stranded?!