Camping With Jensen

Also way back in June, my sweet and adorable and well behaved nephew, Jensen, stayed at our home for 2 weeks. He was such a great addition to our family.

We took him camping with us he was such a good helper and absolutely delightful.

Here he is helping Kielle get a drink of water:

Here he had to have a walking stick like the big kids:
Aww..Ada loves him so much


Me & the boys:
MMM...Roasted marshamallows!
We had such a great time camping. This was also up Hobble Creek Canyon. Same campsite as a previous post even. We have loved having our camper. It has made camping more enjoyable and easy for us. We have camped three times this summer which is more than our usual once and defintely more than our not at all last year! Did I mention how much fun we had with Jensen?

Our Little Cheerleader

Way back in June, Tessa went to a 2 week cheer clinic. She was signed up to go with her best friend , Sage, who was a no show on the first day. She refused to participate that day. So we opted to watch and we wrote down all the cheer moves and dance moves they were supposed to perform at the end of the 2 weeks. Even after Sage showed up on day 2, Tessa never really got too into it. The only way we could convince her to perform at the cheer specatacular was that she would get to be with Sage. Amazingly enough she actually got really into it at the performance. She was so cute! She had a really fun time!

Wall-e

Going out of order but that's OK. Our Wednesday Activity for our at home vacation week was taking the kids to see Wall-E. Everyone enjoyed the movie. I thought it was one of those deep message ones that I could watch over and over again while analyzing the various social messages it sent.

Seven Peaks II (Ode to Summer)

We usually only go to 7 peaks once a summer because the kids get free reading passes from the school. But the Library gave them free passes as part of the summer reading program too so we HAD to go again. We went on the Thursday of our at home vacation week. Aaron was actually sick but he went and hung out with Tessa & Ryan in the Tadpole pool while I took turns going down the slides with all the kids. Fun Day.
(I only had my camera phone so these are my high quality photos from our day!Looks like I forgot to get Ryan too, Shoot!)

The only time I can get my Tomboy daughter to agree to wear a ponytail is when we go swimming!

Last camping trip of summer (ode to...)

I may never catch up with my life on here at the rate I'm going but such is life. The week before school started (Aug 11-15), my family took a close to home vacation. We started off the week camping just up Hobble Creek Canyon. Nice and close to home. We stayed for 2 nights and had a great time. I have decided I prefer muliple day camping trips, because one nighters only give you enough time to get away but not relax. I feel like I am constantly working (set-up, cook, clean up, etc.) when we go overnight. But when we go for at least 2 nights we have some time to really relax. I thought I would read the newest James Dashner book "The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters" But as you can see in my side bar I am still working on that one. What happened was I started reading the first couple chapters to my kids and then Nathan took the book to read it and I never got it back the rest of the camping trip!
(Nathan is obsessed with Harry Potter and Star Wars books so my secret to getting him to read other books is to pique his curiosity by reading the first few chapters of books I think he may be interested in and then he has to know how it ends and usually finishes the book within a day or two hehe.) So I didn't mind so much that he took the book. James Dashner was probably one of the first authors he became interested in (besides Mary Pope Osborne) Nathan started reading Dashner's Jimmy Fincher Series when he was in first grade--it was a great series Aaron & I read it too.

Speaking of books do you see what book Aaron was reading on our camping trip?


Look Closer!


There. Yes. To lessen my guilt for reading and being obsessed with the Twilight series I got my husband hooked on them so that I could at least discuss them with him thus not feeling entirely guilty for neglecting regular duties in favor of reading them.



We camped right next to a creek (dare I say it was Hobble Creek? I really have no idea, that might seem the logical conclusion though given that we camped in Hobble Creek Canyon.)



The water was low and so the kids had a lot of fun playing in it! This was a perfect start to our week long at-home vacation.

(P.S. There were also Mtn Lion and Bear sightings at our campground-so the camp host told us so we were fortunate enough to not have them visit us!)

Mother and Son

At the Francis Family Reunion this summer, Kielle asked if she could snap some photos. i had her take a photo of May and Aaron. I think she did a pretty good job. I love this photo.

Blackberry Cobbler

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MMM! I have been wanting to make this ever since I saw it in the July issue of Southern Living Magazine and tonight I made it! It was so delicious! You should try it too!

Ingredients

4 cups fresh blackberries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 large egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons butter, melted
Whipped cream (optional)
Garnish: fresh mint sprig

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°. Place blackberries in a lightly greased 8-inch square baking dish; sprinkle with lemon juice. Stir together egg, sugar, and flour in a medium bowl until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle over fruit. Drizzle melted butter over topping. Bake at 375° for 35 minutes or until lightly browned and bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream, if desired. Garnish with fresh mint sprig, if desired.

For a neat presentation, bake for the same amount of time in 6 (8-oz.) ramekins on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet.

Yield

Makes 6 servings

Ada's Baptism

With Ada turning 8 she was also baptized. We are so pleased with her decision to be baptized. She was baptized the day after her birthday on July 5th. There were lots of family and friends in attendance. Ada is such a sweet girl. Following are some photos of the day:

Home Makeover

This is what used to be in our family room. Ugly brown carpet!

This is what we found when we removed the carpet--beautiful hardwood floors. We are currently in the process of ripping up all the carpet and the we will be refinishing the floors. I am so excited for the finished product!!!

Library Reading Party (Ode to Summer)

A huge part of our summer is participating in our library's summer reading program. Usually I will read books to the kids in the shade of our grapevines while they suck on popsicles. I have done that a few times but this summer they have done a lot of reading on their own. In the past, the end of the summer party has been a late night swim at the pool in Provo. We have never attended that party, but THIS year the party was a water party at the Arts Park! Complete with a dunking tank! Kielle and Ada were the bravest and got dunked over and over and over again. Nathan didn't want to go at all, but being the good mother that I am, I made him go and as usual he had fun in spite of himself. He avoided the dunk tank though until about the last 5 minutes of the event and then he couldn't get enough of it! The kids talked Mrs Moon--the children's librarian into going in the tank fully clothed and she turned to me and asked if I would too. I don't have the photos to prove it, but we did get dunked and it was fun!

Ada was the first one to try the dunk tank...
I think she LOVED it!
Then Kielle tried it out. I love this sequence because you can tell when she knew she was about to go down...and then she's...GONE!

Ryan waited in line for the dunk tank climbed up and then remembered how much he hates getting his head wet and got back down again.

He opted for a different kind of cage...
Tessa joined him in the bounce house. The two of them spent more time trying to get me to take photos of them than they did jumping! Silly kids!
And then Nathan tried out the dunk tank too...
The kids got soda at the bottle toss. They also got free sno cones and popcorn! They loved this activity (which was over a week ago on Aug 6th--that's how behind I am in my summer blogging.)

Thanksgiving Point (Ode to Summer)

My family LOVES Thanksgiving Point! It is such a fun and beautiful place to visit, but it can get pricey. That's why when I saw that admission is only $2 per venue per person every Tuesday in the month of August, I knew that we had to go. Today was kind of overcast and there were a couple drops of rain so we decided that we would go to the Dinosaur museum. Umm...not so good of an idea. The line wrapped around the building. So we drove down to the Gardens deciding that if they were overcrowded too we would just get ice cream and go home. But there weren't very many people at all at the gardens.. It was great! We had so much fun enjoying the beauty of Nature. Ryan loved being our Navigator and trying to figure out the maps.


The older kids discovered that there were plaques with quotes and scriptures all over and it became their personal quest to find as many of them as possible.

We love all the gardens there, but most especially, we love the Secret Garden.

We had so much fun and since there are 3 more Tuesdays in August, we just might have to go again and again.

By the way, does anyone know the name of this plant? I would like to plant it in m yard!