Updates

I've posted 6 update posts to get caught up from most of our summer. PHEW. I'm glad those posts are done!

Lagoon

One of the days that the Curtises and my parents were here, we went to Lagoon. WOW! What a difference a year makes. Instead of being terrified on the rides, Dean loved them and was crying when he had to get off. His favorite ride by far were the bumper cars. We stayed for 5 hours, which was about 3 longer than I thought we'd last. Kat and her family stayed all day long, from open to close, with my parents! Thanks everyone for helping us to have such a wonderful visit! Dean was in heaven.

Timpanogos Cave

As part of Laura's graduation, we wanted to do something as a family that Laura really enjoys doing. That is hiking and being outside. I detest hiking. It's just not my favorite way to exercise, but I tried so hard to be a good sport and refrain from complaining. We hiked to and through Timpanogos Cave the day after graduation. While the hike was very intense at times, it was more fun than I thought it would be. Dean was a champ, as was John who carried him on his shoulders for part of the way up and almost the entire way down. The caves themselves were amazing and definitely made the 100+ flights of stairs equivalent that we walked up to get there worth it. I told John we needed to take a family picture because I am never doing that hike again. :)

Laura's Graduation!

My entire family came out right on the heels of most of John's family leaving. It's been a busy last month for us, to say the least. Laura graduated from BYU with her Master's in Mass Communications on August 15th. Dean took a picture of everyone of our family while graduation was going on. I love our little photographer. Congratulations to Laura!!

Summer Hikes

We made it a goal at the beginning of the summer to go on a hike every Saturday in preparation for our summer activities (Yellowstone, hiking Timpanogos Cave). While we didn't make it out every Saturday, we sure went on a lot more hikes than last summer. Dean loves being in nature and sadly, his favorite part is when he needs to go to the bathroom. "Wow. Pee! Really cool!".... We loved spending more time being active together and enjoying Heavenly Father's creations.

Yellowstone

We enjoyed a wonderful 3 days in Yellowstone with John's entire family as a celebration of his parent's 50th (!!) Wedding Anniversary this year. It was so much fun to see everyone, except for 3 nephews who were unable to make it. We all stayed in 2 cabins in Island Park, Idaho. We were in the big cabin, which meant that Dean had so many wonderful cousins to play with at his disposal. He was in heaven! He's the youngest by 4 years and so he's always looking up to his older cousins. They all enjoyed the foosball table and running around causing general commotion. What a dream for my almost 3 year old. It rained every day we were in Yellowstone and we were amazed at how much driving it takes to get anywhere in the park. Once we wrapped our mind around that, we had a wonderful time in the car, enjoying the wildlife. Our favorite part was watching a huge herd of bison that were split on both sides of the road across a giant valley. It was amazing. I will never forget that sight. Our favorite part of Yellowstone was the Old Faithful area. WOW! Old Faithful was amazing. I don't care what anybody else says about it being underwhelming, it wasn't. When else have you seen water spewing out of the ground like that?? NEVER! We went on a lovely hike after we watched Old Faithful in all it's glory. We saw a bunch of other geysers and were lucky enough to see some of them go off while we were walking by. There were so many and lots of beautiful pools of blue and green along the hike as well. It culminated in beautiful Morning Glory Pool, which was breathtaking. Thank you, VO's, for such a wonderful trip!!