Trips, Camping and other fun stuff!

The month of June seemed to fly by (and here it is now in the middle of July. Where did the rest of the year go?!?!?!?). We managed to get a lot of traveling done in June. My mom's family (so my grandpa) had a reunion planned the first of the month in Nauvoo, Illinois. Nauvoo is one of my very favorite places in the world. We made plans as soon as the reunion was announced to be in attendance. We drove down to Cedar City for my nieces baptism and to help my sister lay sod on Thursday. On Saturday afternoon, we headed across the country, caravan-ing with one of my sisters and my older brother. We broke off from them on Sunday morning and headed down to see friends that we left behind in Wichita. It was so much fun to see people there - we had planned on making it there for church, but we were late. So since we were already late, we (no, we wouldn't normally have done this) decided to make a run through the Sedgwick County Zoo. And run we did. It was a super fast visit, but we needed to see how all the animals had grown. We visited, slept great, got up early and left for Kansas City area.

At the Sedgwick County Zoo

We stayed Monday night in Kansas City, drove to Nauvoo Tuesday, spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning in Nauvoo. Then we drove to Omaha for Thursday night and Friday. Friday afternoon we drove to Denton Texas (stopping for a minute to visit some friends in Oklahoma City on the way) to help my little brother move out and to see his son get baptized. We got to see my little sister's new apartment and stayed Saturday night with her. We saw the baptism on Sunday and headed on the road for home.

Most of the group in visiting the Liberty Jail

Some of the group in Far West, Missouri

Some of my nieces and nephews in Adam-Ondi-Aham

It was a LOT of driving, but it was SO much fun! We got to visit with my siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles, and so many friends that we have missed so much.

Then, the end of June brought on my sister's birthday. My mom cooks us whatever we want for our birthday dinner (bless her little heart, it is NEVER an easy assignment!). My sister wanted dutch oven dinner for her birthday. My little sister was already planning a camping trip for that weekend, so we took over her campsite and made dutch oven dinner with chicken, potatoes, veggies, and cobbler. We have decided that we each need to take a turn cooking a different part of the meal so that we learn to cook a whole dutch oven meal by ourselves. I LOVE dutch oven, and don't even mind the clean up too bad!

The 4th of July was spent at my mom's - I play in the Cache Community Band and they perform at most of the parades in the valley. So I had to play in the parade in Lewiston, but got to watch the parade in Hyrum. It was a very relaxing 4th.

During the first week in July, our family puppy-sat for my nieces beagle. It reiterated why I don't really want a dog. It was fun for a little while, but the barking at night, and wondering what to do with it while I wanted to go do other things, and especially the poop, got really tiring. Maybe later we'll get a dog, but for now I'm okay with the turtles, gecko and fish we already have!!

My brother (whom we helped move from Texas. He's looking for a job right now so he's visiting my mom for a few weeks) decided to go camping, so we joined him last week. But of course I forgot my camera, so no pictures from that!!

And my mom had already reserved a few campsites for camping last weekend. I took a bunch of pictures from that, if my computer would let me put them on, I would! It was a lot of fun. The campsite is right by a very slow-moving river, so the kids got to get in and play away the afternoon in the water. A dunked in the very cold river, S, K and O just got in to their waists, and E would have loved it if I would have let her get in. It was a fun time!