My parents are here!

I am so happy that they have arrived! They will be watching "the boys" for us since James, Molly and I all will be spending a week at young womens camp.
We celebrated a belated Father's Day/Birthday for my dad with gifts. We gave him a box of See's chocolates, a book on mushrooms, and a mini pull-out scrapbook about him.


We celebrated Independence Day together. It was very low-key but the boys loved the smoke balls and pop-its during the daytime and the sparklers, crazy eyeballs and blooming flowers at dark. They also loved just being about to light matches (I think that was the big thrill)!

We all enjoyed a delicious July 4th barbecue of hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked beans, chips, deviled eggs, fresh green beans and this for dessert:

I love that my mom doesn't just slice strawberries - she adds in raspberries and blueberries too!

A great weekend.
Tomorrow morning James, Molly and I are off to camp - see you in a week!

Young Women happenings...

Wednesday eight of our young women, myself and another leader went and did hand massages and manicures at an adult day facility for developmentally disabled adults. We did this activity at a different location a couple months ago and the girls were happy to perform this service again. I am so blessed to be associated with such amazing young women. I'm sorry I didn't bring my camera this time. Our lives were blessed by our visit.

I hosted a breakfast on Friday morning for one of the young women who has lived in our ward for the past year who is returning home - she will be greatly missed! I am lucky however that she lives in the same state as my parents so hopefully I can visit her.

We had a light breakfast of three types of muffins - blueberry, cinnamon swirl and chocolate chocolate chip, juice and lots of fruit: cherries, watermelon, oranges, bananas along with strawberry yogurt.

Final preparations for young women camp have been keeping our household busy the past couple days. Lauren (my co-leader for the YCL's) and I made these fun headbands for all the YCL's. Each are color coordinated for the color which represents the level they are working with along with strands of blue, which is the YCL color. The flowers represent the 'bloom where you're planted' theme. Lots of flowers will be blooming at camp this year!


Here are some wood flowers that will be blooming. They are my VERY first attempt at doing something like this and yes, I know they are very basic but they will (hopefully) be great for a girls camp setting. I will cluster them in groups of three (the 'stems' are three different heights) around camp. I learned so much through the process: I got free wood, had to free hand a shape (and even that is such a stretch for me, I am so not an artist as you can tell), I learned to cut out the wood and paint the wood. I bought a sealant for the wood since it is sure to rain at camp. James cut the 'stems' for me and added them to the flowers. Hopefully each time I do something like this it will quicker and be more detailed in the final product.

Our visit to Utah

We celebrated a very nice Father's Day in Utah. James is an amazing dad and we hope he felt loved on this wonderful day. I got a quick group shot after church before we headed to the Sullivans for a father's day barbeque.

Tuesday we drove to Manti and stayed at a campground there right next to the temple. We got to see the Mormon Miracle Pageant on the temple grounds and enjoyed a solo night of camping.

Here's our van and trailer - it was gas guzzling experience!

On our way from Manti to La Verkin we stopped at Cove Fort and took the tour. James and I had been there years ago when we were first married so it was fun to go back.


James's sister Claire took Molly and I over to Clarissa's (Molly's cousin) new home. Molly is still talking about how cute her house is and how she wants to decorate her future home in the same style.

We attended a Gubler cousins reunion at a local park. Lots of people that don't know me and I don't know them but they are good, kind, wonderful people so a good time was had by all.

We spent one day at Zion National Park - it was a gorgeous day and we made lots of great memories. The weather was perfect, the views were gorgeous, the kids got along so it was a perfect day. We went on a couple hikes, played by the river, ate ice cream on the grass by the lodge and enjoyed the day.

Austin relaxing...

Ryan is still playing with this $5 squirrel he got at the Zion gift shop...

Reid performing 'the robot'...

Chase and I...

enjoying Utah

Why do vacations always go by so fast? We left last Saturday morning for Utah and tomorrow (Saturday) we head home...Has it really been a week already?
We have loved seeing and visiting with James' mom and sisters and the kids LOVE their cousins so very much!

Some other highlights:

*We attended a fun Gubler cousins reunion
*had a fabulous Father's Day bbq
*Went to the Manti temple pageant (and even had great seats!)
*camped one night in our trailer (we were going to go camping two nights but I got the 24 hour flu - don't ask, it was horrible...)
*Visited Zion National Park (gorgeous!)
*I took Molly on a successful shopping trip for school clothes!
*Everyone went to see the movie UP! except for Ryan and I who stayed home and slept

I'll need to post some pictures when we get home. Austin and Molly had fun at Zion trying to be the better photographer.

good memories!

Youth etiquette dinner

The Mia Maid class was in charge of our joint young men/young women etiquette dinner this year. They chose to do a Japanese cultural dinner. Here's their invitation:

Molly made these signs for the walls with Japanese symbols representing different things such as friendship, peace and tranquility.

Molly is currently serving as the Mia Maid president. She did a fabulous job with this activity ( as did ALL the Mia Maids!). Molly's assignment was to make the invitations and signs for the walls, the seating chart and typing up the names to add to some origami boxes her entire class made for place cards. She also called all the young women leaders to let them know the details of the event and was just genuinely excited for the entire thing. She has amazing leaders that are very organized, they are teaching her great organization skills that will help her for her lifetime.

Here's Molly and I at the end of the evening...still smiling!


All of the youth took off their shoes and left them in the hall and sat on pillows around low tables. They enjoyed sushi, raw salmon, tofu and noodles. Just a taste was offered to all and I think the youth all enjoyed the experience. The guest speaker spoke about etiquette in other countries. It was very interesting and taught the youth the importance of understanding others values.

Our young women secretary made a cd of some Japanese music that played in the background as the youth ate.

I think everyone enjoyed the evening.

new bed-cub camp-squirrel-jig saw!

Isn't that a lovely title?

(The first portion of this post is dedicated to Susan. I'm sure she'll get a good chuckle out of this...)
Molly has been using a twin sized daybed for years and we finally got her a new full size bed and mattress. With a new bed she needed to move the furniture around in her room. After many hours of effort she finally asked me to help and now she is sleeping happily and thrilled with her new arrangements.

We have had ground squirrels for about a year now and this is one of the first pictures I have been able to get of them. Yep, he's hard to see but he's on the block wall cruising to safety (away from me!). At first they were really cute but now they have made themselves at home and have dug holes into the two far corners of our yard. Our neighbors have gotten the worse of it however as the squirrels have moved into the ground under their gazebo and are ruining the foundation. We've agreed we need to work together to get rid of them. any ideas?

Last week Chase attended a two day cub scout day camp. He says it was 'great!"

He brought home this volcano, a new t-shirt, a pan for panning gold, a necklace, and some new beads among other treasures. Besides doing lots of crafts they got to swim and he enjoyed the campfire jokes and stories.

I have learned how to use a jig-saw. I've been busy cutting out flower shapes for girls camp decorations. It is has been a lot of fun but I needed to learn not to start cutting just before dark because then it's hard to see what you need to cut!

Hopefully they will turn out cute after I paint them - there's no promises though.

This weeks activities...

This past week has been full of fun things and events that make up everyday life. Two camp meetings and a young women presidency meeting for me, Chase to yoga, visits to the library, a trip to the dentist for Austin and Molly, a haircut for Molly, cub scout day camp for Chase, career shadowing at Ratheon for Austin and swimming each afternoon for all. Throw in lots of reading, some internet surfing, too much Rock Band and you have a typical summer day at our home.
I put these two lovely young women to work on a banner for young women camp. I am so glad I don't have a problem delegating - they did a fabulous job! This will be hung up among two trees in the parking lot as the campers arrive.


Our camp theme, "Bloom Where You're Planted" has been in my mind much lately and there is news swirling around the stake of possible boundary changes. There is a special meeting tomorrow for all members of the stake and all the rumors will be put to rest. All I can think is that it is each of our responsibility to Bloom Where we are planted - no matter what ward or what stake we are planted. We have been reassured that girls camp will take place as planned - I'm ready to bloom!
For our young women activity this week the Mia Maids and Laurels went the Family History Center to learn about genealogy.

This picture was taken right after Molly told me how red my eyes were and how tired I looked! HA! We did learn a lot at the family history center and I hope to dive in more soon.


Another summer activity is going to the pool four days a week. Not for swim classes for the kids, but for me! I go to the pool above twice a week for a class sponsored by the American Red Cross for individuals with arthritis and then twice a week I go to a different pool to take a aquatic class that is a real aerobic workout. We use flotation belts in deep water and get our heart rate up with some fun moves. I'm really enjoying it.