Speaking in Church, Old Time Pictures, Fishing, Lagoon, Camp K, Recipes

I am behind in updating the blog.  This seems to be a continuing theme, unfortunately.  Oh well here's part one of a two part catch up.  In keeping busy this summer we have done a lot of things.  Some of those things is trying out new recipes.  Josh loves to cook so he is always finding new recipes to try.  We have tried out a Swig sugar cookie recipe and a home made Twix bar recipe.  The sugar cookie recipe turned out, but the Twix bar not so much.  I cooked the caramel layer a bit too long so it was too hard.  However, I am sure if we made it again it would turn out perfect.  We did manage to eat part of it despite the hard caramel.

Last Sunday Josh and I were asked to speak in church.  I thought I was lucky because I got out of speaking about girl's camp for July 31.  That luck ended when one of the bishopric came to our house and asked Josh to be a youth speaker and me to be a main speaker--DOH!!  I HATE public speaking of any sort so it really stressed me out.  They asked Josh to speak about perseverance and my topic was about pioneers since we had to speak on July 24th which is Pioneer Day in Utah.  Luckily, I have some pretty awesome ancestors that crossed the plains with cool stories that I was able to share.  Even though I HATE speaking I was glad for the opportunity to do some family history and learn more about my pioneer ancestors.  They really did have to sacrifice a lot to come and establish Utah.  I did learn that a lot of my ancestors settled in Manti, Sanpete County and St. George, Washington County in Utah.

Two weeks ago Grandpa T took Josh, Daniel and Sarah fishing.  He was going to take just Josh and Daniel, but once Sarah heard they were going she really wanted to go, too.  Luckily, there was enough room for her, too.  Grandpa T picked up the kids at the crazy hour of 5 am.  He took them up to a reservoir and they spent the morning there.

 They caught their limit pretty fast and were home by lunchtime.  Sarah was quite the trooper.  She didn't even bat an eye when she had to get rid of the fish innards while Grandpa T cleaned the fish.  They had so much fun.  They can't wait to go again.  I now have 6 pretty big trout in my freezer that I will be cooking sometime soon.

 Two weeks ago we met up again with the Einzingers to go bowling with my free coupons.  It was pretty crazy with 9 kids, but we all had a fun time.  I love that I had 9 free coupons so we didn't have to pay anything to play.  Wahoo!   I even got to hold baby Drew for a few minutes.  I love baby cuddles!!  You forgot how small brand new babies are!! I miss having a little one.

 We did make a family Lagoon trip for an afternoon.  Noah is loving going on most of the rides.  It's fun that he is getting big enough to go on most rides.

Daniel and Sarah took a turn on the carousel, too.

Our allergist had a swimming party a week ago at Roy Aquatics Center.  We had a lot of fun swimming and going down the slides.  I love that they show their customers/patients some appreciation.  Wahoo!  Daniel is still on the waiting list for the oral immunotherapy program for cashews, pistachios and sunflowers.  The program has gotten so popular that there is a year long waiting list now.  That is crazy!!  Josh is still getting his allergy shots every month, too. So we still see the allergist quite regularly--haha!

Two weeks ago Josh was able to attend a summer session of his Improv class.  It was for 4 hours over two days.  He loved it.  He is getting excited for school to start again so he can go regularly.

Daniel is still loving scouts.  His last activity they toured a house that was being built and got to see what goes into building a house.  Daniel can't seem to pass up a photo opportunity as you can see: 

 There have been many new homes being built by us so they had lots of choices in which house to tour.

 Matthew had his second week of Camp Kostopulos last week.  He has been looking forward to it since he finished his first week a month ago.  This week they got to concentrate on taking care of the horses.  It was the horse camp week.  While we were checking Matthew in Noah was just hanging out watching the river below the bridge.  It is really pretty up Emigration Canyon.

Here's all the kids saying goodbye to Matthew:

 Matthew was glad to see us when we came to pick him up at the end  of camp, though.  He did get a picture with his leader named Honeybee.  I am so glad he gets to go to Camp K.  It is really the highlight of the summer for him.

 After picking Matthew up from Camp K we got home and decided to go to Lagoon for the afternoon.  We were also able to get our old west family pictures taken.  They started out with serious faces for two pictures:

 Then smiling faces for the next two pictures:

 Then silly poses for the last two pictures:

 I have to say the last picture is my favorite.  It is really what our family life is like most of the time--haha!  They were supposed to be black and white, but they ended up giving them to us in color.  Oh well it is still fun to see how mismatched we all were.  Crazy times!!