One More - Round-up Days

For the sake of scrapbooking, I have made a lot of posts lately. It is so much easier to know what happened and find excitement in posting something right after it happens. Shortly, our lives will be filled with a lot of work and I don't know if I will find the time to post as much as I have as of late. We have enjoyed a lot of fun, inexpensive family fun lately. We love that our city is so family oriented and provides the opportunity for families to do to together on a regular basis. It is nice to live in a moderate size city that still has "home town" values. Here are some of the other activities we enjoyed today.



The Shark Slide: a huge blow-up toy where the children get to slide down the shark's throat and out his mouth.

Climbing through the caterpillar blow-up toy.

Bekah absolutely loves to swing. When we set her on the ground near the spinning swing (thus the movement in the background) and she scooted right over to it. The children went on this ride twice. Bekah was upset when we got her off the first time, but was more than satisfied when she was able to ride it a second time.

The children were able to ride side by side on the second swing ride.

Big Parade

"The Night at the Museum" Float - Rexy the dinosaur, Pirates, Indians, Soldiers

Bedtime Stories (pirates)

A Carriage pulled by "horses"

Rodeo Clowns, just like Benjamin yesterday.

A Pirate Ship

Old McDonald and/or Little Boy Blue

Benjamin is looking for one of the boys in our ward in the high school band. He was kind enough to play with Benjamin yesterday while I visit taught his mom.

Benjamin collecting candy.

Grooving with the Cheerleaders. Our friends and Jeff & Shara were able to join us today.

Mom was able to take pictures of Dad today.

Loading Pictures

So I am still learning about how to blog and today I discovered that I can only add so many pictures at one time, but I can do multiple loads on a single load. In other words, I can add 5 or 6 pictures in one load, then add more pictures in a second load. Hopefully, I can prove this theory in the next post. That way I can only have one post for one event instead of multiple posts for a single event. (I'm a little slow. I know.)

Face Painting

We made up for missing on face painting yesterday with the real thing today.

I am Spiderman!

This is Mommy's favorite festival activity.

Aren't we cute?

Round-up Days Mini Parade

This week is the Round-up Days and tonight was the "mini parade." It is kind of like the 24th of July but it is in June because the town south of us about 20 minutes has a huge 4th of July festival and the town north of us about 30 minutes has a huge 24th of July festival. So tonight we packed up the kids and our camp chairs to go watch the parade downtown. Michael had fun taking pictures of us.




Waiting for the parade to start. There was also a face painting activity (Mom got voted to be the artist) and Benjamin wanted to be painted liked a clown.

Hmmm . . . I wonder what this will be like (Bekah's first parade).

This snacks sure are good. I want so more . . . .

Hold on to my hat so it doesn't blow away.

Wave to the people riding floats.

Mini Parade (cont.)

Mom, what's that?

Be safe. Stay out of the road as the floats drive by . . . We came home with a lot of candy and Benjamin had a blast yelling at the floats so they would throw candy our direction to gather up. It was also nice to be by only a few children Benjamin's age so there were no fights over the candy.

Grooving to the bands marching by. This was Bekah's favorite part even though the other parts seemed to scare her a little.

The concerned look of a first timer. The noise was a little much, but the music helped her calm down and enjoy herself. Yeah to the parade coordinator who spaced the bands out so well. We had music for the whole parade.

Wow! That is cool.

Mini Parade (cont.)

What was that? I'm watching the parade.

As long as Mom holds me, I can enjoy the parade. - Bekah

I don't know what comes next. Let's watch and find out.

Was that it? I was hoping there was some more.

She Stands!

Bekah is so efficient at movign around on her bum that she has had little interest in standing up. Then, the other day she decided she wanted Mom to help her stand at the little table and play with the bowls. And, this morning she pulled herself up into a standing position at the couch while trying to reach the remotes. She loves electronics! We are so excited that she is finally starting to find her legs and showing more interest in walking and standing.

Our Current House

Here is the house we are currently renting. It has 3 bedrooms (one of the bedrooms does not have a closet), 1 bathroom, a laundry room, a family room, and a living room. We have a large yard, a garden plot, a clothesline, and a detached 2 car garage. We have enjoyed our time here, and with the upcoming changes in ourlives we will be leaving it behind. I would post pictures of the inside, but right now everything is a mess with the packing and cleaning I have been doing. It is a very unique house that has been interesting to live in.

Bekah's Words

Bekah is 14 months old now and she says 5 words: Mom, Dad, Hi, Bye, & Sheep. When we ask her to say 'sheep' she says, "Baaa."

We have sheep across the street from us and Bekah loves to look at them and watch others feed the sheep. When we leave the front door open she does her little butt scoot to the edge of the door and 'Baas' at the sheep.

Dad was left in charge . . . . .

Last night I went to run some invitations around for the Relief Society Garden Party we are having this week and I left the kids home with Dad. This is what I came home to . . . . .



Bekah had been driving a car . . . .

Benjamin was soaking wet . . . .

Bekah was flying through the air . . . .

Bekah needed a serious clothes change . . . .

. . . . and both children couldn't get enough of playing in the sprinklers and jumping on the tramp.

We are so blessed to have such a wonderful dad for our family. The kids had a blast playing outside and cooling off in our hot weather. The kids had a fun time having some dad time while Dad took their pictures.

A Message from Benjamin

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Michael Hiked Mt. Timpanogos

The trail at the beginning.....

The trail they decided to turn around on. Michael and Jeff decided that this made a great slide to go back down the trail on. They slid down from the top of the snow line to the bottom where the picture was taken.

Michael doing his "king of the mountain" pose. (I have seen this pose before in mission pictures that Michael and Jeff took together. They served in the same mission, but were never companions.)

Here is Jeff looking down on where they came from.

Yes, it is the end of June, and yes, that is snow. Michael and his friend Jeff went hiking this last Saturday up Mt. Timpanogos and found snow close to the top. After 4 or so hours hiking they decided that they did not want to make it all the way to the top and that the snow trail looked really good for sliding down.

Pictures of the Gardens

Michael is all about taking up, close, and personal perspective pictures. Here are some of the beautiful gardens we visited this weekend. My favorite mini garden in the large garden area is the Secret Garden. It even has a covered tunnel that leads to the "hidden" door. I loved teh story of The Secret Garden growing up and always wanted a "secret garden" of my own. This garden even feels like it came right out of the story. It is amazing!



The fish pond off the end of the pier. The fish in this pond are at least 18 inches long and range, from yellow to orange to skeleton black and white. One time we even saw little green frogs sunbathing on the lily pads.

This is one perspective looking over a waterfall. One waterfall has holes right behind it so you can look through the waterfall at the gardens below.

This is the rose archway. They have a large variety of roses growing in this garden and the covered walkway curves in a half-circle around the roses with some roses growing up the arches.

Here is the door to the "Secret Garden."