Neighborhood Bear Lake

For quite a few years now, my parents neighborhood has been getting together and planning a trip to Bear Lake. It is always a blast. We love going when we can make it. Since we live a little closer, we just made it a day trip this year. 

The girls loved playing in the water and building sand castles. Sammi liked being Godzilla even more. It took several tries to build more than 3 towers without Sammi stomping on them and knocking them over. It upset Ellie, but they finally were able to get some put up. 

While the girls stayed at the beach, played with Grandma, and went for a boat ride, another group of us went to Bloomington Lake. This is one of Jake's favorite little places. Now I finally have a video of me going off the rope swing (normally this doesn't happen when you are the photographer.)

Thanks to the neighborhood for letting us come hang out at the lake. It is so nice to have neighbors that close.

Aggie Ice Cream Tour

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! We went up to the Aggie Creamery to learn about how they make the famous Aggie Ice Cream. Did you know it takes 4 days to make a batch of ice cream? That's one of the reasons homemade isn't as creamy. The time and the cold.

Waiting in the classroom

Just so everyone can hear, they meet in a classroom first and talk about making ice cream and then show a video about it. Aggie ice cream uses milk they get from local dairy farms, generally those also associated with the school.

Are we ready yet?

Sammi did not like going into the sub-zero freezer where the ice cream is stored. Negative temps were just a little too much for her to handle. She wanted back out before everyone came in. Ellie wanted to see how long she could stay in there. Luckily she has daddy for that.

At the end of the tour, you can either pick a small cup serving of ice cream or a single scoop cone. Ice cream is ice cream to Sammi so she just wanted one without the wait. She had cookies and cream. I had cookie dough (super solid as they had to grab it from the sub zero freezer). Jake had True Aggie Night, which is my new favorite flavor (raspberries and cream ice cream with dark chocolate covered raspberries mixed in). Ellie had orange sherbet.

We love ice cream. Yum.

So good, it surprised Ellie.

Cheese, I mean ice cream face.

After we drove up the canyon a bit (since we figured no one was super hungry for dinner yet). There is a fun little hike around second dam, I think that's where we stopped. There were people fishing and swimming. We just walked around the pond.

Such a fun day. We live in a great place.

Bluebird Chocolates

My mom, Annie, and the kids came up to visit a while back so we tried to have lots of fun for the day. We started with a trip to Bluebird Chocolates to go on a tour of the candy shop. We saw how they made caramel popcorn and found out that the Bluebird Restaurant is no longer part of the same company as the chocolates (and don't carry them in the restaurant candy store) even though they started from the same family. They use almost all of the original machinery and equipment as from the beginning. 

We love popcorn.

They still hand dip all of the chocolates they sell. Of course during the fall and winter holiday months they make and sell the most chocolates. Here's a video of one of the workers hand dipping the chocolate. 

Of course, we then had to buy some. They were so good that later that week, I took Jake back so we could buy a few more. 

After we had spoiled lunch, we came home and ate anyway. Then headed off to the splash park down the street. It always takes Sammi a bit to warm up to the idea of playing in the cold water but she, along with all the other kids, played and splashed a lot. 

Even though it was a short trip, we were glad they came up to hang out with us. It's so fun to have family close enough to occasionally stop by. 

4th of July

We tried to have as much fun as possible for the 4th of July. Luck for us, Cache Valley is a great place to do that. July 3rd, one of the departments put on a huge concert and fireworks show at Romney Stadium. We didn't go to it but we did go with some friends to a park high on the benches and watched the show from afar. The kids loved it. (Side note: glow sticks do lose their potency over time. Ours were less than spectacular but the kids still loved them.)

On the 4th, the city of Hyrum hosts the parade, which oddly doesn't start until noon. We showed up just in time to find our same neighbors, sit with them towards the front of the parade and make out like kids at Halloween when it came to candy and snacks; a cheese stick, hand fulls of otter pops, tootsie rolls, taffy, water bottles, a few frisbees, coupons, and dumdums. 

Loving everything but the camera.

Later that night, our awesome neighbors (who also don't have family in town) came over for dinner and some fireworks. I know it looks bright-ish outside and that's because it was. Having our kids up until almost 11 the night before, we decided to light some of the fireworks at dusk.

Although our show was small, quite a few of our neighbors went all out. We saw about 4 different sets of fireworks within a few blocks of us going for close to 30 min or longer. Neither girl acted particularly scared of the fireworks this year.

God Bless America!

Update to Always Playing

The problem with having multiple picture taking devices is I can't keep track of where they all are and manage to post everything from everywhere. I found these while looking through the tablet pics. (P.S. I got a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet for my birthday/anniversary/mother's day present. I love it. Can do so many cool things.)

We stopped at Grandpa DeVon's new store. (Cause wherever someone works, that place belongs to them. Have you ever noticed that?) The new RC Willey store in Draper is pretty cool. Also, when you aren't there to buy stuff but see your dad, he tends to show you all the cool stuff you probably won't/can't ever buy but are super neat. Oh, and buy you ice cream and cook at the little deli.

Waterfall pics.

 Then we went to the Chocolate Exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Utah. It was one of the last days but it was employee appreciation for University of Utah staff so we were able to go for free. The chocolate exhibit was just one part so we walked around the rest of the museum after.

It's nice when someone else takes pictures so you can be in one.

Grandma Wendy bought chocolate truffles. Ellie ate hers in dainty, small bites. Sammi shoved the entire thing in her mouth.

1

I love chlocolate!

 We went out on the patio to observe the stars and Sammi lounged with Stef.

Say "cheeese"

Logan Temple

Ellie kept saying she wanted to do something fun but I wasn't really in the mood to go and do anything so we drove to the Logan Temple to walk around. The only other time we have gone was a Monday night so the gates were closed. We lucked out today because although the building is closed for cleaning and maintenance, the gates were open and we could still walk around. This time I remembered my camera and that I needed to take some pictures. 

Swinging and sliding down the back railing.

Ellie wanted a picture with some flowers

Taking time to cool their hands off.

Smelling the flowers and digging in the dirt. 

  They knocked on all the doors, tried to open them, and smelled half of the flowers.

As I went to take the above picture, the wind started blowing just a bit. I didn't have to wait long for the wind to be strong enough for this pic. After that the wind just stopped again. I love it. Two of the most amazing and strongest symbols out there. One stands for freedom, liberty, and hard work. The other stands for agency, eternity, and love.

This simple trip reminded me how blessed I am and how I am watched over by a loving Heavenly Father. It brought such peace to my day that we were able to do more.

June came and went.

Not sure how, but June just got completely away from me. That seems to happen a lot lately. Also, I was terrible at taking pictures for all our activities. 

We spent some at Logan's Summerfest Arts Faire. It takes place at the Logan Tabernacle. There were so many things to see and do. They has an arts and crafts area for the kids. The girls made foam visors, plastic sun catchers, and pinwheels. There were booths all across the lawn of the Tabernacle with art work from all different medias; glass work in both stained glass fashion and blown art work, oil paintings, watercolor, photography, recycled art work, crafty decor, etc. Some artists drew and painted on location. There was even a section for side walk chalk art. Here, they had boards set up for kids to draw on.

Girls helping with chalk art.

Finished work.

 We also had the annual Watterson Family Reunion in Ophir, Utah. Great camping ground. We arrived late Friday night and set up the tent. The girls loved sleeping in the tent and managed to stay wrapped up this year so they stayed warm. They played on the play ground and all over with their cousins. I made some pillow cases for the auction.

We tried fishing a couple more times. Once with Grandpa Steve in Wanship and another time here in Wellsville. Daddy snagged a small fish in Wellsville and Ellie helped reel it in. It managed to get free before we pulled it to shore for a pic though.

Ellie and Daddy fishing. 

We also drove to Lava Hot Springs to spend some time with the youth from our previous ward and hang out with Jake's brother and his family. It was a pretty drive and after seeing it, I really think we will try to go back and staying to play. 

Of course, mixed in with that we played across the street and at parks and what not. Just can't believe it came and went so fast.