Independence Day

We had a great 4th of July weekend. 

We spent the holiday at my mom's house enjoying her new addition.  It is in the final stages and she was able to start cooking again.  Which we all appreciated because her food is fabulous.  Especially that potato salad.

We also enjoyed some old family videos, and Aaron enjoyed farmtown.

My dad pulled out the weird Benjamin Franklin portrait he got from the DI and we put it on the mantle for the day.

We played Croquet.  

And we decided rather than go to the fireworks, we would just buy our own.  My favorite activity was playing with sparklers while we took pictures.  We had so much fun.

This was supposed to be my name...but I don't know what happened to the R and I ran out of space.

Should say A+R, but Aaron struggled...

Supposed to be a heart-but Aaron's side is deformed.

My tribute to the cougs.  Can't wait for football season to start.

We took tons more of us dancing and all sorts of other things.  Who knew sparklers could be so entertaining?  So if you want some good times next 4th of July, just get a tripod, set the camera shutter speed to 2-4 seconds, and let the magic begin.  

The rest of June

As you can tell, I'm doing some catch up for June.  Here are few pictures from the other highlights of the month.

We did some bowling when Aaron's mom and brother came to town.

Aaron has become really busy with school.  He works really hard and is really good about not procrastinating things.  I think it is hard to get back in the school mode after a few years away from it, but he has been very disciplined, and I've been so proud of him.  

Last of all, here is my tribute to Michael Jackson.  I was a huge fan when I was little.  I loved listening to the Jackson 5, and I especially love the Thriller album.  I spent hours listening to my dad's record.  My mom had many of our childhood pictures and the best of our childhood artwork scanned last summer (thanks to Becca and Caleb).  So I dug up this drawing.

And this picture.  It may not be white sequins on my glove, but I thought I could imitate Michael anyway.  

Martin's Cove

About 6 months ago we got called to go on pioneer trek with the youth in our ward for youth conference.  I had been to Martin's Cove on a trek many years ago when I was in young womens (see pic below), and I was excited for the opportunity to go back.  They have improved the area quite a bit and made things quite efficient to accommodate the many thousands of visitors they have each summer.

Independence Rock (from my first Trek in 1997)

After months of preparation and many mutual activities we set off for Wyoming.   Here we are on our initial trek to our camp, after the 6 hour bus ride.

Martin's Cove

I spent most of day 2 wearing my authentic pioneer hoodie because it was cold and rained most of the day.

We talked about the Sweetwater River and the four men that carried all the pioneers from the handcart companies across the freezing water.  

Aaron didn't want to carry me across (remember how he feels about cold water), so I got to walk myself.  It was surprisingly deep with a pretty strong current.  It would have been hard to walk straight across without the rope.

Aaron enjoying some time to ponder

Me after a day of trekking in the rain, sitting by the fire to try to avoid the mosquitos.

This is my first photo merge panoramic picture made in photoshop!  This was made from four separate photos that I was able to merge together into one long one.  I had no idea how easy it was.  Probably doesn't do it justice, because it shows up so small, but this is the view when you come out of Martin's Cove. 
I think the thing that impressed me most about this time was thinking about how incredibly courageous and faithful these pioneers were.  They knew when they set out that it wouldn't be easy and they might lose loved ones, but they were willing to go anyway.  This is one of my favorite quotes about the handcart companies:

"We suffered beyond anything you can imagine, and many died of exposure and starvation...[But we] came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives, for we became acquainted with Him in our extremities...

Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart?  No.  Neither then nor any minute of my life since.  The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privilege to come in the Martin handcart company."  --Francis Webster

Bodell Reunion

In June we went to Moab for our annual Bodell Family Reunion.  We stayed at this great campground on the edge of town that had a pool and giant checkers.

We hiked to Delicate Arch.  It is huge.  Way bigger than I thought from all the license plates and pictures I've seen.

Aaron enjoying the scenery at the top.

Our favorite Junior Ranger.

This picture sort of shows how huge the arch is.  A guy offered to take mine and Johnny's picture under the arch, so I made the assumption he was actually going to try to get the whole arch...

One of Aaron's favorite pastimes at the campground was lying on the grass and reading his book (while babysitting so that we could plan our activity).  

This is the family fun night extravaganza that Julia and I put together.  We had all sorts of random family trivia along with charades, name the lyrics, pictionary and bring me a.  We had a great time and it became quite competitive.

And everyone won reunion t-shirts that I designed.  

We enjoyed spending most of the next day at the campground playing games like scum.

Then in the evening we went on the fiery furnace hike.  You have to go with a ranger so you don't get lost, and I could easily understand how you could get lost.  There were many different paths and areas to go.

There were a few more challenging spots like this where you had to walk with feet on one walk and lean your hands against another to get through.

And there were tiny little arches like this to climb through.

It was a beautiful hike and we were really glad we went. 

Another great reunion, topped off with Aunt Jimae's scones as we were packing up to leave.