Weekly Review

What a week! 

On Saturday, July 9, John took the young men in our ward (Jack and Jeffrey tagged along!) on a prep hike in the Uintahs.  When I look at the pictures I am chilled to the bone.  When they look at the pictures they are psyched to go again...

They had a lot of rain the first night, but were fine after that.  They didn't catch many fish, seeing as how the lakes were frozen over.  Good thing John took tons of bacon and pancake mix! 

Sunday we relaxed at home so we could be ready for our visitors on Monday.  Our good friends (our first in Ridgecrest!) came to play.  Shar had gone to USU once upon a time so we took a trip to Logan.  We ate lunch, well, Shar and I ate lunch at First Dam.  The kids were much too busy trying to catch ducks or feed the ducks or make boats out of huge leaves or whatever.  Anything but eat.  We stopped at Aggie Ice Cream where we were sticky from top to bottom after eating yummy ice cream cones, then explored the campus which is beautiful, but has changed so much since we went there.

That night the kids played, John read a book, and Shar and I chatted it up.  We are currently serving in the same calling so we compared notes, talked about everyone we knew (in a good way), and just had fun!

The next morning we started the celebrations for Jeffrey's 9th birthday nice and early.  He opened gifts, then they were off to play again.  I cut them short so we could go and get a good spot to see Moroni being hoisted on the high spire of the temple. 

 We got a great spot thanks to the advice of my sil Dawn who came up to watch the show.  We were even more glad she came when she whipped out this baby for us to huddle under when the rains came down.  (She didn't even get to use it!  Smart girl brought ponchos too!)

After the rain it got hot, hot, hot.  It also got windy (and whiny).  They couldn't put Moroni on at noon as planned because of the breezes, and the kids didn't want to stay.  Too bad.  We got some food at the grocery store we were next to, played some games, and made it over 2 more hours until Moroni was securely in place.  Surely a once in a lifetime experience!

Bless the dear lady next to us who had the genius idea to buy popsicles and share them all around...

(this is one of my favorite pictures...thanks Dawn!)

BUT!  There was more to our exciting day...

Shar got guilted in to staying a little longer so the boys had a great time playing in the creek.  My friend Diane and her three kids showed up for a quick visit on their way to Providence so we had a housefull for a few minutes.  Luckily, it wasn't too hard to say goodbye to Turners since we'll see them soon!

Meanwhile, down the street you could catch another big and exciting show when the Junior High gym went from this:

to this:

like this:

(Again, thanks to Dawn for all the pictures!)

Well...by this time all of our friends had left, but Dawn and her kids and now her husband were in town watching the gym come down.  You might say her son is a bit of a big machine addict and just wouldn't leave.  So, we added a few ingredients to our taco night dinner per Jeffrey's birthday request, and had the Layton Agren's for the party.  (See that most awesome cake above?  Didn't taste very good that night.  Kind of dry.  But, over time the frosting, which was amazing, and the cake met in the middle and we devoured it!).  Anyway, that night we were so tired we couldn't see straight. 

Did I call this post a weekly review?  But we're only to Tuesday!  Wanna go some more?  Well...Wednesday wasn't too busy (thank the heavens) but Thursday we had more friends stopping by so we cleaned the house and went to Park Day.  We just finished lunch when the Tree's called to say they were on their way.  They are also friends from Ridgecrest, especially Jack and Jasmine who even had a combined party for their 5th birthday.  They have both sure grown up a lot!

Friday was a sit around day which triggered my body into thinking I could be sick.  I really didn't have time for this!  Saturday morning I sucked it up, took a tylenol and a nose spray and we all went with another family to clean the church.  I did the bathrooms (gross...there's something about having to clean your own that is less gaggy than cleaning up other peoples stuff!).  Anyway, we left after that to run errands from here to Salt Lake, then ended up in Alpine at my Uncle's home for a swim party.  Too bad he and his wife weren't there...they are in China on a mission!  But we had fun anyway.  I have a great picture of Jeffrey going off the diving board with flippers on.  So cute.  I'll try to remember to add it when I get it off my camera! 

Sunday I took the most delightful nap after church and now am facing another week!  What will it bring...