Long Time No Post

So I haven't posted since summer started but that is just because we have been too busy and having too much fun! Here is our summer synopsis and hopefully more details will follow.

The first two weeks were spent with swimming lessons in the morning, lunch at the park, free swim in the afternoon and Saftey Town in the evenings. It was insane and exhausting but a lot of fun too. All the girls passed their swimming levels so we were excited about that. We had a fun garage sale with our friends the Ruesch's. It was our block sale so a whole bunch of houses on the street were doing it. It was alot of fun, not very profitable for us since I spent more than I made but I got some great stuff too! (Kyla's birthday present for $2.50) The next weekend we went out to the Howell Balloon Festival and had a great time watching the hot air balloons take off. The girls especially enjoyed the booth from the Nature Center and watching the opossum eat a rat!

The third we of summer we had a little downtime while we got ready to head west. We did go to the village on Monday and the zoo on Wednesday and had a lot of fun with that. Friday we left for Utah much assisted by our friends the Lawrence's who made us rolls and muffins, tended our cat and guinea pigs, lent us movies and books. (Not really sure how we would have done it without them.)

We made it to my brother's house in Midway, UT about 8:00 on Saturday night. Just in time to eat some yummy food and watch fireworks from their front porch. It was a lot of fun and super cold, kind of strange for the 4th of July.

We headed down to the Ranch that night and were surprised to find Grandma, Esther, Ryan, and Ben and then Amanda and Jake came up too. We played as hard as we could all day Monday and we pretty beat from the zipline, swimming, four wheelers, etc.

Tuesday we spent with my parents on an outing to the Grand Canyon. The kids had a great time. They were more excited to see rocks to climb on than the beautiful canyon and were super excited to find that the pinyon pines were about the right shape for climbing.

Wednesday was Kyla's birthday. Daniel and I took her out for breakfast at Houston's which was a lot of fun for her. Then we headed to Hurricane to stay with cousins.

Thursday Daniel got sick which was unfortunate but probably good that we took some forced downtime. That evening was Kyla's birthday party with cousins. We all went out to sheep's bridge and swam in the virgin river. My girls loved catching the tadpoles and other critters. Then we headed back to Nate and Candy's for dinner and an ice cream bar. Kyla said that instead of a cake she wanted and ice cream sundae bar with lots of toppings. It was super yummy and fun.

Friday we visited with Amanda briefly and then headed to Moccasin. The girls had a great time watching and feeding Grandma's toads on her front porch. We saw some of the most interesting, scary looking bugs. I decided next time we head down to So. Utah we have to start a bug collection. We will have to get one of the those giant grasshoppers from my parents house too!

Saturday was the Heaton Family Reunion in Moccasin. It was a lot of fun hanging out there. We took a wagon ride up the meadow and hiked up to look at the spring. We had a hot dog roast in the was and then thankfully headed back to the church where we could get out of the heat, sand, and stickers. The kids had such a great time doing crafts and shooting off rockets all day with cousins. Thanks Aunt Carolyn!

Sunday Grandma drove Daniel to the airport and we hung out in Moccasin with Matt and Amy's family, Nate and Candy's, & Ben and boys. It was quite the party.

Monday morning I headed with the girls back to Kanab to get my sister and parents and head up to the ranch. We stayed at the ranch till Thursday morning. It was so nice to have Candy and kids and Grandma there. We couldn't get the generator started the first night but it was fine the kids had fun telling ghost stories and silly jokes. We had a lot of fun on the four wheelers, in the pond, and on the zipline. Unfortunately, the deer flies were really bad so we didn't venture far from the cabin and even then most of the kids looked like they had the chicken pox. I dared the zipline a couple of times and the last time I went down and dropped off the bar it flipped around the cable, unclipped from the carabinger and dropped into the pond. I was sad to have lost it at the bottom of the pond. I tried to dive down and get it with goggles but only got to the top of the weeds. I am glad we were able to spend a little bit more time up at the ranch this year and I think that it went pretty well, although I don't think that I could have done it without my sister and Grandma's for support.

Thursday we headed to Kanab with Kirse and Savannah packed in the car with us. We had fun there but mostly just hung out. We went in to town to do some laundry at the laundromat and inbetween loads we were going to go to the park. On the way I saw the old library that has been converted to the Kanab Historical Museum so we stopped and spent an hour looking at the cool stuff. I was glad the girls didn't throw a fit since we changed plans on them. That night we made a cake out of twinkies, strawberries, and whip cream for Kyla so we could sing to her and Grandpa and Mormor and Aunt Kirsten could give her their presents. Her cake actually turned out really cute and with the strawberries and whip cream the twinkies were actually pretty good.

Saturday Kirse, Dad, and I took the girls up to Orderville to watch the Junior rodeo. It was fun for the girls to watch the horse that they get to ride in Kanab compete in a rodeo. It was hot and dirty but so we didn't last too long. We went back to Kanab and took the girls to the splash pad and the city park. They had so much fun and we were the only ones there, it was great. On the way home Dad took Kirse to go show her the "beach" on Kanab creek. I got a call on my cell a few minutes later that they were stuck and needed me to come and get them. Dad ended up getting a friend with a tractor to come and pull him out. Oh the Fun!

Sunday we packed up and headed to Tooele. The girls were so excited to be at Savannah's house that we didn't end up going out and doing a lot. We did spend the good part of two afternoons at DI (and $140) Yikes! I love that place too much. We also took the girls to the little train museum there in Tooele and they had a lot of fun there.

Grandma Cynthia and Morgan were brought up by Amanda so they could drive the long haul with us to MI. We left Wednesday morning and drove all day through Wyoming, taking highways up through the corner of the state to get us to Mt. Rushmore. That evening after driving through a somewhat scary storm of wind, rain, thunder, and lightening we unexpectedly came upon the Martin's Cove church site. I had to pee at the time and was excited to see friendly missionary faces. We had fun. The girls got to pull handcarts and get little souvenirs. Really would be a cool place to visit when you have a day to walk the trail and explore the whole thing. We really enjoyed the drive up through Wyoming and like spying all the antelope. It was so green and open. That night we drove pretty late through small towns and highways to end up in Custer, SD close to Mt. Rushmore.

We stayed at the Bavarian Inn and were up in the forests of the Black Hills. The area around Mt. Rushmore was totally not what I expected and Mt. Rushmore was a lot smaller than I expected. It was so pretty up there as we were driving on these winding, narrow highways up and down the mountains. The girls were begging to get out and climb some of the rocks and would have liked to do much more of it. Nora found a mountain goat at Mt. Rushmore. I am sure out of the thousands of people that were there that day only a handful of them saw the goat. We tried not to stay long because we really needed to be heading on down the road. We made it into Minnesota that night with a short stop at the Corn Palace somewhere in South Dakota.

Friday we woke up and drove and drove and drove. The kids did really well, we only stopped twice the whole day. Unfortunately, we got caught in a beast of a storm on the edge of Lake Michigan while we were driving through Indianna and into Michigan. It was blowing and raining so hard we really couldn't see the road. Semi trailers kept flying past us so we really couldn't see. We finally pulled off and stopped at a Motel 8. I really didn't want to stay another night but Daniel said the storm was going to keep at it till 1:00 in the morning. By the time I had got us checked in and back out to the car the sky had lightened quite a bit and the kids really wanted to go home and not stay in a hotel. The lady was so nice to refund my money and we headed slowly home. It rained on us the whole rest of the way but got lighter as we went. The girls were so excited to not have to be in the car anymore and Daniel was glad we were home. I think I am going to post what I have so far and then I will continue to catch up with the week Grandma and Morgan spent with us and the girl's summer camp week.