A Fun Week with Family

This week was a lot of fun for us. Last Sunday Michael’s dad and two of his sisters, Annette and Mindy, came with us to church and stopped here for lunch afterwards. It was fun to see some of the pictures from their recent trip to Palmyra, New York and for the boys to play some games with their grandpa.

Then late that night after the boys were in bed we went to the airport to pick up my mom and brother. Mom and Matthew got to stay for almost a week, and we had a lot of fun together. And it was especially nice because Michael got time off from work for the state holiday of the 24th of July, so he got to spend a lot of time with us too.

On Tuesday we Mom and Matthew went with me, Kolby, and Eli to swim lessons, and then we all swam together afterwards. Kolby went on the water slide a couple times with Matthew (he hadn’t wanted to go on it in the past), and then after I told him he could go by himself, he spent the rest of our time at the pool going down the slide over and over again. He was so proud of himself and excited to tell Daddy when we got home. (Eli wanted to go to, but was not tall enough, so he played in the water with the rest of us). And that afternoon the girls got to go down to the Family History Library downtown, which was fun, although Mom and I were disappointed that the microfilm we had found did not include the information about our ancestors that we hoped it would. Mom and Grandma and I enjoyed a fun dinner out at one of my favorite Salt Lake restaurants afterwards, The Red Iguana.

On Wednesday we went to the Humanitarian Center run by the church that helps disaster victims and people in need all over the world. Matthew is working on his Eagle Scout project, with plans to tie 50 baby quilts that will then be sent by the Humanitarian Center to those in need, so we went and took a tour of the center, and it was very good. Michael and I both felt like we should get motivated and go volunteer there.

Thursday was the 24th of July, Pioneer Day. We got up early and went down near Liberty Park to watch the parade. We were surprised to see our friends, Dave and Natalie Gordon, who we knew in Milwaukee about 4 years ago before they moved to North Carolina for his residency. They were visiting family here, and it was nice to catch up with them. They are living in Louisiana now and have three kids. It was fun to see them, especially since they were one of the few graduating 4th-year student families who made friends with us when we first moved into the Milwaukee ward (since so many 4th-years have busy work schedules, are often out of town interviewing, and know they are leaving soon so some don’t take the time to really get to know the new class).

The parade was fun, but hot. We finally moved back from the curb to the sidewalk so we could be in the shade of a tree, and that helped a lot. The floats were fun, although Kolby and Eli were a little disappointed that they didn’t get any treats (the parade we always went to for the 4th of July near our home in Milwaukee was fun for the kids because they threw out candy and the boys always went home with little bags of goodies). After the parade we happened to stop at the aviary in the park, and it was a free day for the holiday, so we got to see lots of different birds, including the Bald Eagles (which are Michael’s favorite animals). I enjoyed seeing the flamingos because there was a baby one (which I’ve never seen before) – they look like baby geese – all grey and fluffy – but on tall flamingo legs. We were thinking of going hiking after the parade, but were all too hot and too tired, so came home and put the boys down for late naps instead.

We went hiking the next day. We went on a hike that Michael read about on Stephanie and Mickel Sharp’s blog to Donut Falls up Big Cottonwood Canyon. The hike was nice, and when we got to the base of the waterfall I thought that it looked nice, but nothing especially exciting. Then we decided to take turns climbing the rocks up to the top of the falls, where you could see water was pouring through a big round hole in the rock. And the climb was well worth it. When you get to the top, you come to the spot the water is coming through the rock, and it pours into this cave with a big pool in it. It had a nice cool mist spraying out and it was too cold to swim, but nice to stick your feet in for a minute and cool down. So we were glad we climbed up there, although that part of the hike was too steep for all the little boys. After climbing back down and driving through Guardsman’s Pass over the mountain into Heber Valley, we drove up to Lake Creek, to my grandpa’s ponds. We had lunch, and then walked around the ponds and took a look at the water ways – apparently someone who owns land nearby has broken the pipes that feed the water into the ponds in order to feed it onto his own land, and the upper pond was nearly dry. The water was rushing pretty quickly out of the lower pond too, and we wondered how long it would take before that one got drained also. It’s hard for my parents to do anything about it while living so far away, even though they are paying for the water shares on that land since my grandpa passed away. I don’t know what they’ll decide to do, but besides paying a lawyer to take the guy to court, I think they are just going to end up needing to sell the land to someone local who can monitor it and keep trespassers off the property.

Then we drove back down to Heber, and Matthew wasn’t doing too well. We thought he was dehydrated. We got some milkshakes at a good little place there called Granny’s, and then headed back to Salt Lake. The next morning we found out that both Matthew and my Mom had been sick all night, and Michael felt sick too. Later on Grandma said that she felt sick too. Luckily the kids haven’t shown any signs of catching anything yet – I don’t know if it was something the four of them ate or what – we couldn’t figure out what it was. So it was too bad they were so sick the last day of their trip here, but hopefully their over it by now. Michael is feeling a lot better today.

After I dropped them off at the airport, I took Kolby and Eli to a neighborhood 24th of July BBQ at the Adamson’s house, and after eating and the kids having lots of fun playing in their tree house and on the trampoline, everyone walked over to the Slade’s house to watch fireworks in their col-de-sac. It was a lot of fun, although we were all tired by the end of the night.

This morning Grandma stayed home from church with a bad headache, but she said she felt better when we got home. In my class at church we had an excellent lesson on ‘walking in the light,’ which I really enjoyed. And now all the boys have been fed and are down for naps, Michael is reading after having gotten the roast started cooking, and I am writing this. Tonight we are having some old friends, Emily and Lamar May and their boys, over for dinner. Emily and I met while doing a semester in Nauvoo together, she and Michael and I were friends at BYU, and she was a bridesmaid at our wedding. It will be nice to see them again.