Mother's Day cookies, Trip to Utah, Island Park Family Reunion and Swimming Lessons

As you can tell from the title, there have been a lot of things going on in our lives lately.  Being busy makes time go by so fast!  In the midst of all of this Teecee and I catered a graduation party and did another graduation cake as well as a wedding cake.  Brice took four summer classes in the four weeks after spring semester that he is in the process of finishing up right now.  We had a really rainy first week in June.  The moisture was a huge blessing for the land.  Now the ground is wet enough that the grass in the hills is growing for our cows to eat.  We got the garden planted the first week of June before the rain, and it seems to be growing slowly, except for the weeds. :~)  The flowers have been brightening my days with beautiful blooms since this spring.  I love spending time outside enjoying the fresh air and the green everywhere.  The weather has warmed up a lot this week until today.  It is cool and rainy again.  That should be expected since our ten year class reunion is being held outside today and tomorrow.  At least the heat won't be an issue.  I can't believe how much my life has changed in the past 10 years since high school.  I hope it will be fun to get reaquainted with former classmates.  I think that the family BBQ tomorrow will be the best part of it all because our whole families are what life is really about now, not just the individual classmates.

We made tulip cookies for our mothers and grandmothers this year for Mother's Day.  I think that they were a hit with both the kids and the mothers.  Kellon and Barrett love being able to frost and decorate things on their own since they have to just watch while we are decorating cakes.  Putting on the sprinkles  was the favorite job besides eating frosting. 

Aubree was always willing to clean up any messes.

I got to go on a road trip to Garland, UT (20 minutes from Logan) with Mom, Teecee and Aubree the first week in June.  Mom planned the trip to go visit her sister (Marlene) and family out there a long time ago.  Then she invited the rest of us girls to go along.  We had a good time together.  It was fun to have time to visit and laugh a lot because we don't get to see each other as much as we would like day-to-day.

I went to the Logan Temple with Marlene and mom one day.  Afterwards, Teecee, our cousin, Valyn, and I all went shopping in Logan.  It seemed wierd to be all alone in the stores because I didn't have anyone else to keep track of.

We went to Salt Lake City to visit Temple Square and the LDS Conference Center.  I thought that we had perfect timing to see the beautiful wildflowers in bloom on top of the conference center

Teecee, Aubree, Valyn, Me, Marlene, Mom

flowers on top of the conference center

Teecee, Aubree, Valyn in conference center

I am so thankful to Brice for giving me the opportunity to get away for 5 whole days before I have the baby.  I also owe Annette and my Dad a great big thanks for watching the boys the days that Brice was in summer classes.

I had one day at home to get stuff done before we left to go to Island Park, ID for a George brothers family reunion.  We reserved a cabin big enough for the whole family to stay in and a garage for all of the four-wheelers, of course.  It was fun for kids and adults alike to spend a few days in the mountains playing.  The weather even cooperated with us, so we got to go on four-wheeler rides everyday.

Cardston (cousin) and Barrett

We visited Mesa Falls one day.  It was amazing!  The falls are huge and make this lush, green area around it because of the mist.

Another day we went to Big Springs where there is a natural spring with huge fish to watch.  The seahawks and muskrat got most of the bread we were trying to feed the fish though.  That day we also went into West Yellowstone to watch movie at the IMAX theater.  That is the most realistic movie I have been to.  It felt like you were right on the cliffs and flying over the mountains--it made Aubree cry sometimes though.

The past two weeks have been swimming lessons for Kellon and Barrett.  They had them every weekday at 9 am.  I am so proud of how much progress they have made since last year.  Kellon has really overcome his fear of the water and Barrett has matured a lot in his ability to take instruction from the teachers.  They both got to jump off of the diving board today.  That still scares me, but I didn't tell them that. :~)  The pictures are really dark, but hopefully you can get the idea.  I took some cute video that showed the little fish in action, too, but I don't know how to put that on here.  Aubree was a great spectator.  She wanted to get into the water so bad, but she settled for playing with the other younger siblings that were up in the balcony watching, too.