Kraft Kamp at the Hive!

This week; I signed up Reagan and Hannah to three days of making crafts at the scrapbooking store I go to in Brigham City. They have had a blast making all the things so far. Here, they are making coasters to hold their drinks on. Corkboard had to be applied as well as they were laminated before they took them home.

Here; Donna (the owner of the shop) is helping them to decide what fabric they what for their flip-flops. The end decision was....every color that was available! That way their flip-flops match every outfit!

Taking it totally serious!

Two happy girls; and the end results on the flip flops. Besides the funky shoes, they have made a travel game folder, a recipe book with no-cook recipes in them as well as their coasters. We still have one more day of Kamp; so we can't wait to see what's next!

The workings of a yard and playground at Bear Lake

We have gone 3 years without much of a yard at our cabin. Only dirt. We weren't sure if we wanted to be mowing grass and watering everytime we were there. But we did know that we were getting tired of the kids having no where to play but in the DIRT! So we are trying to improve that situation. First up; are slides, next swingset and firepit. Even though it was really wet and muddy last weekend; we couldn't keep the kids from trying out the slides.

I think we have the beginning of a winner!

A run at Bear Lake

This past Saturday June 12, Bear Lake held a Marathon, a half marathon and 10 K walk.
Jolene and Erik decided to run the half marathon. (13 miles) Jolene had been training since January and when her partners backed out; Erik stepped up to the plate and ran it with Jolene so she wouldn't be alone. The rain held out long enough for the race.

Here they are with only 2 miles to go. We were waiting at the Pickleville playhouse to see them.

Turning into the city park where the finish line was. It looks like Erik would win it ahead of Jolene, but he did let her finish the line ahead of him. (what a great big brother)

A few sore knees later; but so glad that they had done it! We were all proud of them too.

One of the "perks" of being a grandma

One of the funnest things about being a grandma is getting invited to see the kids school programs. Here is James (Jennifer's son) graduating from pre-school at West Weber Elementary

So it is now on to Kindergarten next year! He is one excited boy!
Reagan (Jennifer's daughter) loved the first grade! A full day including lunch was way fun. She had a darling year end program all about "Under the Sea" and everyone went home with these cute t-shirts. So it's on to second grade and she is excited!
The craziest thing of all is that Jennifer's oldest and my oldest grandchild will go to Jr. High next year! Kenidee is so grown up all of a sudden; and it is so much fun to see her experience more"grown-up " things like Young Womens and going to the temple for baptisms for the dead.
Do you know how you know that you are getting old? Your kids start getting old! (That applies to grandchildren too.)

Hike to Ensign Peak with some Senate wives

Yesterday, during Intrum Day for the legislators, a few of us Senate wives decided to hike Ensign Peak, (which is located just above the capital) It had just stopped raining and was a muddy mess!

But after much slipping and sliding in the mudd we made it. What a fabulous view of the Salt Lake Valley. This was the same hike that Brigham Young took to lay out the city in 1847.
Salt Lake is below us. We have Georgia Knudsen, Anna Kaye Waddoups, Janis Christensen,Lane Hinkins, Merilee Stowell, and Me. Erin Maddson is taking this picture. We then met up with about 5 -6 more wives for lunch. All the pages (which are ladies that help out during the session) came too. Which made for about 25 of us for lunch at a little quaint cafe called "Em's". I'm just sooo glad that the weather held out for us.

A weekend for repairs!

After 3 years of having our "Maintance Free" cabin at Bear Lake; we noticed that our hardy board was chipping. It was supposed to have a 12 year not touch guarantee. We paid the extra money so that we would NOT have to repaint every 3-5 years! So we were given 5 gallons of primer and 5 gallons of stain. That was our warrantee after the first year. So we bought a power washer to remove the chipped stain. The picture shows that it stripped it almost all off. While we were waiting for it to completely dry, Scott tried to repair a broken window thanks to a crazy golfer hitting a range ball down the wrong way on the golf course. What was supposed to take about 1/2 hour, ended up taking 3 hours to repair. They had given us the wrong size window and Scott ended up breaking the new one also by trying to "shove" it in the opening. So time wasted and we have another broken window!

Matt and Irene came up to help us. Thank goodness that they did! Here they are applying the primer with the help of a lifter that we rented for the weekend. The sprayer that we had bought didn't work; so every coat of primer and stain had to be hand applied.

The stain needed probably 4 or 5 coats to make it as dark as the original color! We ended up only applying 3 coats before we ran out of time. We clocked 17 hours of use time on the lift.
While Matt and Irene were up on the wall, Grandpa and Owen went looking for golf balls. In just a short time they had collected over 35 balls! Thanks again Matt and Irene for taking your ENTIRE weekend to help us.! Next weekend....another 2 coats of stain will have to be applied! All to a wall that was supposed to be hands off!

New toys for a larger playroom

Having thirteen grandchildren; I was in desperate need of a larger "playroom". So I cleaned out an extra bedroom and bought some new toys. Cameron (Erik's boy) enjoys a new kitchen set.

Kate the doctor (also Erik's daughter) plays with the "new Dr. outfit." She looks just like what her mom Kelli looks like at her work.
Cameron the construction worker. Ready for the "repairs" needed at our house.
Hannah (Erik's oldest child) poses with an awesome shopping cart that seems to be the favorite new item in our toy room.