We took the kids down to BYU to feed the ducks. Those ducks must be so overfed. Brendan kept running around saying, “quack, quack!” and throwing bread at the birds. We saw several groups of baby birds and I brought treats for everyone to eat after the ducks had their treat. It was a fun afternoon.
The year brought another 4th of July (as it always does) and the family gathered in Grandpa’s backyard to slide on the waterslide, hang out in the hammock, throw rocks in the stream, eat good food and visit with friends.
Jonathan invited a few friends and cousins (who are also his friends) to come to Nickel City with him and celebrate his 10th birthday. They played video games (Jonathan’s FAVORITE past time), ate pizza, played laser tag and opened presents. They had a great time.
Every year we go and visit my father’s grave. He passed away when I was fifteen years old due to a heart attack. Every year it seems strange that another year has passed without my father in my life.
This summer we went to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Heber. Brendan thought it was amazing. The kids got free balloons, they ran around in bubbles, watched the expensive train go by, and rode in a free little train car past the expensive train. All in all it was a fun event.
I wanted to update the blog with some of the fun stuff we have done this summer. On Memorial Day we went to Heber to see Thomas the Train. Miles was so excited to see him and Grandma stayed with Avery while I took Savanna and Miles on the 20 min train ride. It was really fun, it went very slow so the kids could put their heads out the windows. We didn’t see much scenery, just some fields and people’s backyards, but it was neat to ride the old train. 
The next week we went to Lagoon. I didn’t bring my camera but we had a blast! Savanna is a very brave little one, having fun on some rides that I thought would freak her out! Miles had a good time too, Charles and Trish came along and took them on the Terror Ride for the first ride of the day. I thought Miles would get scared but Trish said he just jumped a bit at the loud noises and looked around with wide eyes.
We have also been swimming a few times this year. I was curious to see how Miles would do in the water, last year was just learning to walk so he mostly just sat in the pool when we went. He is doing great! It took him a little while to get his feet wet (pun) but now he can keep up with Savanna and they both have so much fun together.
James came home from work one day and needed to change some sprinkler heads and in the process of doing so made some mud, which he decided to splat on Miles. They had a great time with their mud fight. Savanna stayed pretty clean but Miles was caked! 
On the 4th, or I mean 3rd of July, we got up early to go do our traditional Independence Day morning of watching the balloon launch and having breakfast at the park. We were let down though because a cold front came through and it was too cold and windy to launch the balloons! We had breakfast at the park, then spent the rest of the day at home (James put in a new swamp cooler!) before going to the Bayless’ for a bbq and fireworks. I made a festive cake and it was good! 
For the last couple of years James has done a backyard camp out with the kids, I have always been either pregnant or had a new baby so I have slept inside, but the kids love it! The first thing Savanna said when she woke up that morning was “Mom today is the camp out!” Then she went in the backyard and set up chairs around the fire place! When James got home from work we had dinner and then when James went to set up the tent we noticed mold growing all over it from a paper plate of smores left in it from last year! So James ran and bought a new tent, set it up and then built the fire and we had smores. James said it took them awhile to settle down to sleep. Miles just thought it was a game, he would lay down for a minute then get up and say “Morning!” It took some time for him to realize that he was actually going to sleep out there, but he finally did and they all spent the whole night in the tent. 
We have had a busy, fun summer so far.
i made hundreds of them.
colerd mazes. flip-flop
mazes. storey mazes.
backround mazes.
and i loved
them.
We went to the zoo for my birthday this month. It was really nice to have a fun family day. The weather was perfect and the kids were pretty well behaved. They all enjoyed seeing the animals but I think their favorite part was riding the carousel and playing at the playground! It was also the orangutans birthday and we got to help decorate the boxes her presents were in. It was a pretty fun day!
This past Saturday (May 15th 2010) I finally had some time and wasn’t on call for work so I went with my brothers Andy and James to do some recreational target practice.
We gathered up their weapons and a bunch of junk to shoot and headed out of town to the West and found a nice place past a town dump to do some shooting against a nice hill side. Seems we weren’t the only ones either because the ground was littered with shells and brass from previous shooters and we saw a few other groups out doing some shooting as well. We made sure to move a way past anyone else to somewhere nice and isolated.
I don’t own any guns myself so I was basically shooting their guns as I had a turn but there was plenty of ammo and plenty of guns to go around so it was really enjoyable and the weather was great, 70 to 75 degrees all afternoon.
I even got a bit sunburned for the first time this year. We ended up spending almost 5 hours relaxing and shooting and moving junk around to serve as targets (old montors, water bottles, assorted bits of junk and some clay pigeons).
Fortunately I remembered to bring my camera and got a few good pictures and videos.
Before we left, James’s son helped us get the water bottles and stuff ready and loaded.
We put all the stuff in James’s truck and headed out around Noon.
It was a nice drive out. We stopped for some supplies; Andy got a bag of licorice and James got some trail mix. I got some snap peas and carrots. Mmm. The drive was about 20 minutes.
Once we got to where we wanted to shoot it was nice and warm and sunny, just a light breeze.
You could tell it was a popular spot for shooting; plenty of evidence on the ground.
Here are the weapons involved: James’s .22 Rifle with scope…
James and Andy’s 12 Gauge shotguns…
James’s Benelli shotgun…
Andy’s SKS…
Andy’s .45 model 1911…
and James’s AK-47 Pistol…
I took a turn with the .45 pistol first. It was really cool. A very nice pistol.
James took a few turns with the pistol as well. He was much more accurate with it than I.
I was able to pour my wrath and hatred into the PowerMac James got somewhere.
Here’s Andy shooting his SKS and actually aiming at stuff.
Andy did some interesting stuff with his SKS. He was quite proficient with it.
Here is a video of Andy bump firing the SKS.
Heh, this was pretty fun. I got to take a turn with the AK-47. The feel was a bit off at first because I had not adjusted the sling so it felt like it was too far away from my body.
James is a bit more comfy with the AK-47 than I am.
We finished up with some skeet shooting. James and Andy were really good. I did alright at first but I was getting a bit worn out and sunburned at this point so I think we all wrapped up after a few rounds.
At the end of the afternoon we had made a good mess and had a good time.
It was a fun day with great weather and good fun. Hopefully we can do it again soon.
Sis ar great espelshey snakes
and i like them for no reasin
