Slow summer days

We celebrated Hyrum's birthday last week as a family, then invited extended family up for Sunday dinner. Here's Hyrum with his birthday plate.

The kids and I went to the Oquirrh [say it Oh-kur]Mountain Temple openhouse last week. My favorite part was seeing all the beautiful artwork and the kids liked the cookies they served after the openhouse the best. :)

And Sunday morning, Jared came into the bedroom looking for my camera. Here's why:

We're camping this weekend, so the rest of today and tomorrow will be spent planning meals, and packing clothes. :)

Love the weather

Today [so far] it has been sunny and clear. Of course, we took a trip to the doctor for my allergy shots [his office is in the Salt Lake Valley] and it rained on the drive over. But since we got back, sunny and clear. LOL, I'm still getting used to all this rain! We live in a desert, after all. But, because we're high up in the mountains, we end up with rain almost every day. And the temperature is perfect- I'd say it's about 69 or 70 degrees outside IN THE SUN right now. Which means I can crack open my windows at night, but dare not widen the crack, lest I wake up with frost on my face.

Jared made it safely back from Texas yesterday. For a conference, it was unusually brief [2 days] and actually productive. Yes, I was shocked as well. I thought that there were laws against having productive conferences; especially government-run ones. LOL :)

I unpacked another box in my room. Whew! Only 59 million left to go.

At church last week I saw a familiar face, and wondered if we were related. Sure enough, I found out he's a cousin to my mother. Of course, moving to the town where my grandparents lived their whole married lives, I was expecting to meet a few relatives, but I'm excited that I actually recognized him! And, my next-door-neighbor is a cousin to my dad's nephew [my cousin]'s wife. My neighbor's mom, and my cousin's wife's mom, are sisters and they grew up in the same small town that my husband is from. Oh, this world keeps getting smaller and smaller! ** small break while we sing, "I'm my own grandpa" **

Took the kids to see "Up" Monday night. We all enjoyed it. Especially the bird, Kevin, who made us all laugh repeatedly.

Gratitude List:
* cars that work.
* a car repair bill that did not break our monthly budget.
* unpacking another box and getting the contents put away.
* walking to the park last night, and talking with my husband while the kids ran around.
* a sugar cone with 2 flavors of ice cream [both contained chocolate]
* watching a movie with my kids, and not worrying about bad language or inappropriate jokes.
* helium balloons!
* I found a recycling place in town :) so I feel not quite so bad about all the paper I shredded and now need to throw away.
* God is good. My life is good.
* homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Settling in

We have internet [can you tell I'm excited about that?], and library cards [big bonus for Walker, who wants to camp out at the library now], and some vegetable plants for our container garden. We thought about digging up the sod in one of the back corners of the yard. We even got permission to do this from our landlord. However, after looking at the soil, we realized it is mostly rocks. We would have to buy topsoil [not going to happen in a rental house], and build containers to hold the soil, in order to get any sort of a good garden. So, we decided to skip the 'pull grass up' step and the 'buy topsoil' step, and move directly to 'plant veggies in containers' step. I have 2 rooms with boxes: my room and the craft room. There are also a bunch of boxes in the basement, but that is what basements are for :) so I'm not too worried about that yet.

Gratitude List:
* fresh homemade wheat bread
* wheat grinder is out of storage and in use once more
* nice friendly neighborhood
* lots of friendly kids to play with mine
* cool sunny weather to play outside in
* water walls to protect my tomatoes from freezing temps. Our average 'last frost date' is June 1st.
* family get-togethers
* my children
* my husband
* my faith in God. He is good!
* internet access to friends, old and new, which helps me keep in touch.
* meditation time to mellow my temper. It isn't a miracle cure, but it helps so much.
* my health