What do kids do in Nauvoo?

I wanted to just post a few pictures of the kids and some of the fun things they have done here in Nauvoo. Of course I already posted about them painting grandpa's fence. They played a lot of card games late at night, and slept in late in the morning. They spent time at the Adventure Zone, go cart racing. They hung out at David's Chamber, just taking pictures. They helped decorate and clean up the wedding reception. And had a wild night setting off fireworks on the 4th of July. I haven't seen them very much, but they have had a really fun time. Monday they will go to Six Flags in St. Louis, and Tuesday they will go to the Nauvoo Pageant. We will leave Wednesday, and I have a feeling they'll sleep most of the way home. Conner and Steve

Conner, Lacey, Steve, James, Kaylea, Amber, and Luke
Talmage, Madison, and Conlan

Steve, and Kaylea

Kaylea, and Bryce
Steve

Kaylea

Steve

Bryce, and Kaylea

Bryce, Lacey, and Kaylea

Kaylea, and Lacey

Bryce, Steve, and Luke

Conner, Steve, and KayleaThe whole gang watching fireworks

Nauvoo Trip

We took a family vacation to Nauvoo, IL, because my niece Sage is getting married. We had such a nice trip here, I didn't realize how much nicer it is when you have more drivers. On the second day of driving, I was only at the wheel for about an hour. It was WONDERFUL!!

We were able to come in time for a bridal shower for Sage. It was really nice, I was able to meet a lot of friends and neighbors in the area. My mom and grandma were able to come as well. This is Grandma Dickson's first Great-Grandchild to get married. It's pretty amazing. She has 99 great-grandchildren and one on the way.

Nauvoo has had nothing but rain for so long, Jamie's and my parent's yard was a swamp. Dad had a fish pond in his back yard that became unstable because of all the rain, and the fountain tipped over. Steve thought it would be really nice to help my dad clean up his back yard. After the wedding reception, we are going to be having a family barbecue, and we thought he'd like to have his yard really nice for the barbecue. Well, it kind of snowballed. Steve used the weed eater to clean up around the flowerbeds, and shrubbery. He raked and weeded and really started making the yard look good.

Thad's family came to help, they cleaned out the old fish pond...we really appreciate Thad for doing that part, it smelled pretty bad!!And I started working on painting the fence. Uncle Lynn had purchased all the supplies, which made starting the job really easy, but the wood was so wet he was unable to get to it. We have been blessed with perfect weather while we've been here!!After the plastic pond was taken out, dad decided to fill in the hole with dirt and simplify the yard a little bit. The men loaded the old pond into a dump truck, and Marty and Steve hauled it away. Dad raked out the dirt, and prepared it for a flower bed. I realized that at the rate I was going with fence painting, it wasn't going to get done. So I recruited all the teenagers to help me finish the job. What had taken me about six hours the first day, ended up taking them only 1 hour the second day...I wish I had thought of that sooner.These kids were amazing! We had Jamie's two daughters, Lacey and Amber, my three kids, Steve, Kaylea, and Conner, and Amber's 3 friends, Bryce, James, and Luke.

I should have known that when mom and dad set out to accomplish a task it's done in record time! This entire project took us 2 days. Now we can enjoy the wedding and 4th of July festivities.

I did it!

Well, call me crazy, but I did it! The Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay is a 188 mile race from Logan to Park City, Utah, running on the back roads and through the mountains. There were 12 people on our team and we all ran 3 legs which ended up being between 12 and 19 miles each. Mine was 13 miles, which I thought would be a piece of cake because I can run 15 miles in a day, but I didn't realize how hard it would be to run without very much sleep. I only slept about 2 hours. We started at 11:30 am on Friday and finished around 4:30pm on Saturday. This is the team that rode in Van 1. We came to realize that we were a pretty mild group. From left to right there's Todd, Lori, Rosemary, me, Julie, and Joe.

This was at the start of the race. They start about 12 teams every 15 minutes. Joe ran the first leg and then passed a bracelet off to me for the second leg.

My first leg was my most difficult run. I was glad to get it over with right at the beginning of the first day. It was about 7 miles, running from Nibley to Hyrum. This is a picture of the hand off, and below was right before I saw the huge hill I had to climb, okay, next to the other routes my hill was NOTHING, but I was determined that I would not walk the hill at all, and I was proud of myself for sticking it out.

My second leg, #14 was in Mountain Green. It was only 3 miles, but it was in the dark, so I don't have any pictures. I had to wear a headlamp, a tail light, and a reflective vest. It was funny at this hand off, Joe came running into the chute, I put out my arm to get the bracelet and he started to run right by me. I had to call out his name, it was getting pretty dark, and then you run into these really bright flood lights, and it's hard to see anything. This was my best run, it was short and cool, and I really felt like I could run fast.

We spent the night in a church parking lot, some slept outside on the pavement, and some slept on the seat of the suburban. I was a lucky one who slept in the suburban. We stopped at 3:00 am to sleep and got up at 5:00 am to get to the next major exchange with the second van.

I think my last run was from Francis to Kamas. I don't remember, I just ran where I was told to run. By this point I was exhausted, I hadn't had much sleep, it was overcast and looked like rain but wasn't too cold. I had 3 miles to run again but it felt like more. The best part of running this race is that you build friendships with your team. I really felt like they cared about what I was doing, they'd stop and ask if I was okay, they'd bring me water, they would stop just to cheer me on as I ran past, and even if I just ran an average race at an average pace, they'd tell me what a good job I did.

This is at the end of my last leg. The smile is because I'm so glad I don't have to run anymore. But I was too tired to move, or walk, or run... There were still 10 legs to go, but mine was finished. After everyone in my van was finished, we went to a home in Park City and got showered and cleaned up. We put on matching team shirts and met at the end of the race to cross the finish line together as a team, all 12 of us. By this point it was raining cats and dogs. I am waiting for another team-mate to send me a picture of the end of the race. Steve came to cheer me on at the finish line and was my ride home. It was so nice to see him after a couple of long, hard days. He was really supportive to let me go, while he dealt with all the kids. All in all it was a lot of fun, a lot of sore muscles and joints, and not a lot of sleep. I don't know if I'll try this again any time soon, but it's fun to say I did it.

Cougar Football Camp

We let Conner go to football camp at BYU. He got to go with his best friend and stay in the dorms for 4 days. Conner called us each night to tell us everything he was doing, it sounds like he really had a blast. They had a talent show, movie night, and the final evening they went to 7 Peaks water park. I went to pick him up today, before they let the boys go, they had an awards ceremony. In Conner's age group, they divided the boys into eight teams and had them play in a tournament all week. To my surprise, Conner's team won the championship and Conner was given a trophy for Offensive MVP. I was so proud of him! He really loves this sport.

Family Feud

We had my nephew Dallin come up for a quick visit a couple of weekends ago. My kids are crazy into air-softing and apparently Dallin is too. They spent most of the time having wars with each other, with the neighbors, with about 20 friends in the mountains. The funny part was, they were gone so much that I hardly even noticed we had an extra kid in the house!

Washington Day 4

We had such a busy Saturday, that I was so glad when Sunday arrived! Church didn't start here until 1:00 and we didn't want any breakfast after the huge meal we had the night before. So we slept in, and just relaxed all morning. I took a walk outside and saw dad just sitting in front of the chicken coop watching his chickens. He walked inside the coop and picked up his favorite chicken, "Buffy", so I could get a picture of them together. Buffy is very sweet, she always walks up to dad and lets him pick her up, the others run away. She may not be the brightest bird, but she's the sweetest.After church, mom had invited all of my cousins who live around Arlington to come and have a potluck dinner. It was so fun seeing cousins that I haven't seen in MANY years! The food was AMAZING, I think I gained at least 5 pounds on this trip. Here are just a few fun pictures of everyone out on the patio. It's so nice at grandma and grandpa's house, there are so many flowers around the patio, and the grass is so green. The garden is amazing, and there are birds everywhere. I could sit outside for hours, and having my cousins there was like icing on the cake.
After dinner, we went inside to talk and Janice surprised me with a pedicure! She had brought all of her nail polish and tools, and just sat down right in front of me and said, I'm doing your toes. YAY!! She did such an amazing job, I actually like them better than the last few times when I had them done in a salon. My cute cousin Janice, and my cute toes!!This is Seth, he and I became great friends. He likes to climb on me and I swing him around. He's a doll. I had such a great trip, it was hard to leave. Steve and I drove home the next morning, it was hard to say goodbye. Knowing that we will be visiting again next month made it much better. Thanks everyone for making my trip so fun!

Washington Day 3

Today was our first real Play Day since we arrived in Washington. Mom and Dad are service missionaries in the dry pack cannery, so Steve and I decided to go spend a canning session with them. Don't you love the outfits the expect us to wear? Steve spent almost the entire time running the canner. Mom said he was quicker than most people that run it, and made the time pass by more quickly. He did a great job.

After canning, mom and dad took us to Deception Pass, and on a drive to see the countryside. It was really cool. I can't believe how beautiful it is here in Washington. I keep saying it smells so good!! I get out of the car and smell pine trees, and flowers, I don't know what all I'm smelling, but it's so nice!

The views at Deception Pass were Amazing! I can't imagine how hard it would be to build the bridges over this waterway. There were several boats on the water below fishing. It's such a beautiful area.Since I arrived in Washington, the roads are lined with these beautiful yellow flowers. I keep commenting on how bright and beautiful they are. People who live here tell me I'm crazy, that it's a weed, and it's really hard to get rid of once it grows. Who would want to get rid of such a beautiful flower?? These are much better than the bindweed we deal with in my part of the world.

I think my dad is mocking me.
After our drive we went back home and picked up Grandma and Grandpa. They had a funeral earlier in the day, and grandpa had to speak in the program. We went with them to Golden Corral for dinner, talk about an amazing place. We ate and ate and ate and ate. Dad ate straight dessert, actually he had a small salad, and then it was all about desserts. All of us ate until we felt like we were going to pop. As we were leaving, dad took an ice cream cone to go. .. silly dad...

After we were finished eating, we didn't feel like driving home yet. I have never been to Darrington, so mom thought it would be fun to take me there to see the "tree". In 1971 this tree died, and they asked the company that both of my uncles worked for to cut it down. This tree was 737 years old. We figured out that it would have been about 200 years old when Christopher Columbus discovered America.

This is a picture my grandma and grandpa have hanging in their home of the crew that took down this old tree. Two of my mom's brothers are in this picture. And below is a picture of the remainder of the tree today. It is 9 feet in diameter. It's pretty amazing. We had a nice drive.
One famous Darrington landmark is White Horse mountain. You can only see this view from the Darrington side. If you look at this mountain, it looks like a horse is rising up out of the top of the mountain. Pretty cool. All in all, we had a really fun day.

Washington Day 2

On our second day in Washington, Steve and I had some repairs that needed to be made on the carpet van. It wasn't a big deal, but it was really hard to wait for them to repair the van while I wanted to be in Arlington soo bad. We had lunch at a cute little Italian restaurant called Romio's.

When we finally got to Grandma and Grandpa's house we decided to try out the carpet van, and see how well it works. They didn't mind letting us try it out on their carpet. We realized that cleaning carpets is a little bit harder than it looks. The day was beautiful, and warm, and the carpets dried pretty quick.

While Steve was doing most of the carpet work, mom and Grandma made us an AMAZING dinner of fried oysters and shrimp with homemade tarter sauce, salad with homemade dressing, rolls with butter and homemade blackberry jam. Then they surprised us with an amazing dessert. It was like a soft cheesecake with fresh strawberries and blackberries on top. This was given to Steve as his birthday cake. Steve turned 42 on that day. The fried oysters were so good, I have never had them cooked that way before...I think everyone needs to come to Washington just for this amazing food!

I gave the carpet cleaning a try. I did only about 10 square feet, and really struggled with that much. It actually turned out really good. I think Grandma and Grandpa really liked how clean it made their carpets.

We're in Washington!!

Steve and I had some business in Washington state this week, it was a great excuse to come see my parents and grandparents. We spent the day today traveling, and getting some work done. I feel like I've been cooped up in a vehicle all day (airplane, and car). One of my favorite things to do in Washington is to take the ferry. You are still traveling, but can get out of the vehicle and walk around deck. Steve took a picture of me outside, but the wind was blowing so hard it looked ridiculous. This evening Steve took me out to the "Crab Pot", what a fun place to eat. They give you a board, bib, and a mallet, and then bring your food out in a big pot and just dump it on the table in front of you. I couldn't believe how much food they brought us, it was CRAZY!!

We weren't able to eat everything, but we did make a pretty good dent in it. It was a fun, unique dining experience. I can't wait till tomorrow, I get to see mom and dad. It's been months since we saw them last, it feels like forever. We also get to celebrate Steve's 42nd birthday!!