June: The Reader's Digest Version

Where has the time gone? Between all the flooding, raining, hailing, lightning, freezing cold temperatures, and that ark we've been working on for when the Great Flood comes (global warming my you-know-what!) I'm amazing that I have anything to show for the month of June! But I was able to find some fun pictures and stories to share, so enjoy!

June started off quite nice, actually. Isaac finished his baseball season with a bang, getting two fabulous hits during his last game AND getting someone out on first base! His Regular Grandma and Aunt Em were watching and he was out to impress! This is a picture of Isaac and his fellow Muckdogs, Chase and Jacob.

Jason was a wonderful coach and a master pitching machine worker! Coaching took up quite a bit of time but I know the kids and parents really appreciated it. Notice the skies. They aren't blue!

We were able to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house with my mom and Emilie while they were up during that first week of June. It is a beautiful temple and I'm so excited to be able to attend there! We, on the other hand, don't look quite as beautiful in this shot. The wind was blowing so hard it was tough to even stand.

Speaking of standing, I apparently have a tougher time than most. While we were walking back to our car after partaking of the complimentary cookie and bottle of water in the hospitality tent, I came a-crashin' down! Alayna was walking in front of me and stopped abruptly, and in my effort to avoid knocking her to the ground, I went ahead and tumbled to the ground myself. It was pretty bad, but even worse when you consider that I was holding Eli at the time! When I realized I was going down, I made a very awkward, yet successful, attempt to get him onto the grass rather than crush him beneath me on the cement. I imagine I looked somewhat like a football player trying to get the ball over the goal line. Jason yelled, "Fumble!" as I went down, which helped the situation tremendously. Eli was startled but otherwise unharmed. I didn't fare as well. My foot was all bruised and scraped, my elbow was bleeding like crazy, and my knee what totally mangled. In fact, it is still bruised and slightly swollen almost a month later. I can no longer kneel and standing up after sitting on the floor is quite a chore. Good times.

While I'm on the subject of the temple, I'll also mention that on June 13th, Jason and I were able to serve as parking lot helpers at the temple. It was a very cold, very wet, very miserable day to be outside for 5 hours but we made it! About 15 minutes before our shift at the temple started, the Angel Moroni was struck by lightning, which made me feel even better about being out there with my umbrella. Fortunately for us, it didn't really rain too much during our shift and we really enjoyed meeting people and just being there and serving. Ironically, this lady fell right in front of me while walking back to her car. I told her my story and she felt a bit better about herself.
The day after we went through the temple we all went to the air show up at Hill Airforce Base. It was a long, hot walk (especially with my gimp knee) but the kids really enjoyed seeing all the airplanes. This is Eli with my sister, Emilie.
On June 14th the kids and I drove down to St. George to spend some time out of the rain. It was Emilie's 16th birthday and we were so glad to be able to spend it with her! While there, we went swimming (which I have no pictures of), went for bike rides, (again, no pictures), and went to a baseball game (no pictures of that, either). The game was so much fun! At the end of the seemingly neverending game - it went into extra innings - they flew a helicopter over the field and dropped $1 bills for everyone to run around and gather up. It was my dad, brother, sister-in-law, Isaac, and me. Between all of us we made exactly $4. My dad caught 3 of those dollars and my brother caught 1. Fortunately for me, my dad's a giving soul and gave one of his dollars to Isaac, who was near tears (it was almost midnight by this time, after all). He did come away from the game with something pretty cool, though. He got one of the players and the mascot to autograph his arms! He didn't have a ball to sign, so he just stuck his arms out and they signed them with a Sharpie. He was thrilled!

We also got some really neat pictures of my grandma and all the grandkids to give to my dad for Father's Day. They all wore Harley Davidson shirts and posed in Grandma's back yard. So much fun! I wished we could have stayed longer, but it was a great trip, well, other than the me-driving-alone-for-four-hours-with-three-kids part.
The day after returning from St. George, Isaac went to one of the coolest birthday parties ever! Our neighbor, Chase, had an Olympics party complete with events, a flag ceremony, torch relay, lighing of the cauldron, music, and medals. This is a picture of our neighbor, Cooper, Isaac, and Alayna, with their mini-torch cupcakes.
This is the closing ceremonies. Notice the cauldron in back of Isaac. So much fun!
And finally we have today, Fort Herriman Days! This is my kids at the Herriman parade, and yes, this is the best picture I was able to get of all three of them thanks to Isaac. We are now on our way up to the park for the carnival and fireworks, so I'll have to post more on these final few events of June another time. Maybe toward the end of July I'll get around to posting again!