Wow it has been awhile! We've been crazy busy this month with lots of mini vacations and family reunions. Unfortunately for some reason though, I didn't take many pictures! But here's some we do have....
For the 4th of July we went to Salt Lake after going to the parade in Rexburg. Mitch was very disappointed because there was no chocolate milk handed out at the parade. (The Rexburg parade is famous for the free milk thing) In fact, I think "very disappointed" is an understatement. We'll have to send those milk people a letter or something to avoid the whining for next year's parade!
Anyways, we went to Salt Lake with Mitch's family to watch a firework show done by his cousin.
IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME.
There were soooo many fireworks, and the show was in his backyard so we had better-than-front-row seats! It was also extremely entertaining to see what fell on who...some of the firework debris landed on people. So fun! All of the Sommer side of Mitch's family was there and it was fun to see them! We stayed the night at Mitch's aunt's house and we went to the City Creek Mall the next morning. Talk about beautiful. It is definitely one of the prettiest malls I have ever been too. And it is huge.
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| City Creek Mall in Salt Lake City |
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| Another picture by the same fountains! There are some really cool water features at this mall! |
Mitch is not here at the moment to verify this, but I think it is safe to say that his favorite store in the mall was the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. They had some amazing chocolate covered pretzels and some incredible caramel apples. The caramel apples weren't just caramel though, they had tons of flavors. I think that time we got a Snicker one and made Mitch's little brother Kyle get a Reese's one so we could try it. Mitch liked them so much he made me stop there when I went to Salt Lake on a day trip to take my cousin to my grandma's house! I think his exact words on the phone that day were "I wouldn't be offended if you stopped to get some caramel apples...." or something along those lines. It was pretty funny. So remember that--if you ever want to get Mitch a present and can't afford a gun, order some caramel apples from this Chocolate Factory.
Not to drag on this apple thing, but when we returned from Salt Lake we were at Mitch's house and he convinced his mom that he needed some more caramel apples. So we went to the store and got ingredients to make our own. They were pretty tasty themselves. :)
Then I asked Kyle if he wanted to go swim in the ditch....before I could say anything else he was out the door. Feeling obligated to chase after him, I found him here:
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| Kyle in the ditch |
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| Yes, I thought it was hilarious. |
So that was the beginning of July.
We got back from that trip only to turn around and head to Paul, Idaho for a family reunion on my side. It is my mom's family, so my Grandpa named it Coray Day when he started it before I was born. (Coray is my mom's maiden name) I finally remembered to take my camera to something, but I still didn't take very many pictures...haha whoops. This family reunion was at my aunt's house where my Grandma lives now. We played lots of games, including the famous Coray Day Bingo and we busted open a homemade pinata as we do every year. Each family takes a turn making the pinata...its always a fun activity. These pinatas are not ordinary. They're ridiculously creative and usually quite indestructible. Except now we're all getting older, so I didn't even get a turn to hit it (I actually was kinda pleased with that). We go in age order to hit it, and I think it got to my 17 year old brother before he destroyed it. Fun times! This year it was a dragon pinata! We also watched a movie, played Frisbee, constantly ate food, had a water fight, played Farkle, talked about memories...etc!
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| Family playing games and visiting! |
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| Mitch riding the go-cart. |
This year we even pulled out the go-cart. My uncle got it running early in the summer and holy smokes, this thing brings back memories. Uncle Shannon and my cousin Shannon built it years and years ago. I think every time I went to my cousins' house we rode that thing...I have lots of memories of going around their pastures singing Faith Hill's "The Way You Love Me" at the top of my lungs with my cousins by my side. They were singing too. In fact, they were the ones who introduced me to that song. One time we even put on rain coats and rode around in the mud and other presents left by the cows after it had rained pretty hard. Gosh I loved my childhood.
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| Zane and Daniel getting the go-cart started |
Obviously this thing went a lot faster when we all weighed 50 pounds and it was brand new...but it was still so fun. I'm going to make Mitch build me one!
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| Everyone watching the go-carting |
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| Shaleece cruising around...we both used to fit in there :) |
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| Boston and Conner...Generation #2 for the go-cart |
These two are so cute! It is so weird that so many of us are married now and some of them even have kids of their own!
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| Tolen with the horse...they got along pretty well. |
So that was a really fun week. Oh back up for a minute... at the end of June we had a family reunion for Mitch's Mom's dad's side of the family at Heise Hot Springs where we played mini golf and ate lots of food and had an auction and I met a lot of Mitch's family that I'd never seen before. (Holy run-on sentence.) That same week we had another reunion for Mitch's Grandma's side of the family in Rigby. I totally forgot my camera for both of these reunions! That one was great too! We had a water fight and ate lots of food and did some crafts and visited with people and played frisbee and set up a volleyball net and had a duck race and jumped in a bouncy house.
FAMILY IS JUST THE BEST!
Reunions are awesome. It is so important to remember where you came from and the people who helped make you who you are!
On to our next adventure...
FISHING!
I don't remember if we wrote about it, but Mitch found us some awesome fishing poles that were on a really good sale. We've been using them lots this summer. A couple weeks ago we went up to the river by the place with Square Ice Cream cones...haha I don't remember what its called right now. Up by Driggs I think....with Jared and Whitney! It was such a pretty evening! There was lots of fog and it wasn't too hot!
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| Jared and Whitney |
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| See.....fog. |
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| Beautiful! |
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| The Falls |
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| Mitch and I view #1! |
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| Mitch and I view #2! |
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| Whitney and Jared! |
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| Haha Jared cracks me up. |
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| And again. |
Unfortunately nothing was caught this trip...but it was still awesome! We went to get square ice cream afterwords...but we were a little late. The town was closed.
I'm almost done with this post, I swear.
This last weekend we went up to the Ranch and stayed there overnight. We watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics in the trailer and then Sarah and Ryan came up to join us! We played cards and talked and just had some fun. I need a new word besides fun...but that pretty much just describes our lives.
The next morning we went FOUR-WHEELING!
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| There's lots of sand out on the trails...and it was SO HOT. |
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| This lake has gotten sooooo low! All the dirt you see used to be covered. |
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| Mitch and Ryan and Sarah....she's behind Ryan, I promise! |
So I obviously remembered my camera this time...but then, after this last picture, we were descending down the hill...and the pictures had to cease.
My camera fell to the ground in the sand and was temporarily out of order! Luckily Ryan and Sarah saw it drop and picked it up, and luckily no one ran it over with a four wheeler. As a result though, no more pictures of this weekend.
After the four wheeler ride we went to the lake by the camper and rowed to the other side in a row boat. Mitch and Ryan swam around and tried to find a place to jump off of some cliffs. It was pretty entertaining watching them. There were lots of little tiny dead fish floating everywhere...so Sarah and I stayed in the boat and worked on our tans haha.
Sarah and Ryan had to leave shortly after our little row boat ride, but its probably a good thing because it was getting way too hot to be out there in the desert. I got a text from my dad while we were cleaning up saying they were going boating...
.....so obviously we went with them!
We went to Ririe Reservoir and the water was completely perfect. It was soooo smooth and there was NO wind. Which is pretty rare for this place. Mitch skied several times and had some really, REALLY good jumps (I wish I had my camera!!!!) and I wake boarded a few times! We taught three little kids how to wake board too. It was awesome, I was really proud of them for giving it a try. 2 of the 3 were girls, and they both whined while we were putting the board on them and kept saying they didn't want to do it...but with both of them, as soon as they tried once we couldn't get them to stop! It was awesome! The little guy who tried had never been before either, but he wasn't scared at all. Haha, in fact he didn't really show any emotion. He got up on his first try and was definitely a natural!
Gosh I love wakeboarding. And boating.
It was such a fun weekend! One of those weekends you don't want to end...but once you get home you just crash cause you're so tired.
Ok, one more thing, then this extremely long post will be done!
Yesterday we had a lesson on Family History at church and we learned how to do Indexing. We were challenged to do two "batches" each by the end of August. All throughout the lesson Mitch kept teasing me that I'd have to do his because he has no time. And then after church he continued to bring this up, and I continued to refuse. I downloaded the program right when we got home, but then we left to have dinner with his family and I forgot all about it. When we got home, Mitch got onto it and before I knew it he had some 50 names done. He did a lot of Spanish ones and some English too. He had his two batches done in five minutes. I was quite surprised at his diligence in Indexing because of his teasing all day...but go Mitch! He surprises me all the time.
Really I'm done now.
Summer is THE BEST, we're definitely having fun, we're healthy and happy and life is just too good!!!!!!
