July Fun

 July was full of fun! We had lots of small adventures and then ended the month with our trip to Bear Lake.

Our first adventure was to the Lehi Hutchings Museum. We haven't been to this local museum for quite a few years, so it was fun to return and see what has changed. We especially loved the live animals. There were some service missionaries who helped us touch a few of the animals, and the boys were in heaven.

We got to pet all sorts of creatures.

I don't know how they can laugh when they are holding a snake. Eek!

Trouble!

The Hutchings Museum has dinosaur bones, too.

Mom and Dad have been trying to go on lots of dates. Some months they are really good, others not as much. But a fun date they went on was to a little food truck in Lehi called Nachos Live. The nachos were delicious and there were plenty of them.

Mom and Dad love going to the Hale together.

Nachos Live was a super fun stop!

Don't worry. Mom and Dad easily ate all of these nachos.

Mark and Dad went to Youth Conference for a few days in July. They did activities all day long at Camp Williams and then came home to sleep. Mark still had a broken arm, but that did not prevent him from doing all of the activities (except for swimming). He rappelled, did the ropes course, and all sorts of other fun things. Dad and Mark had a lot of fun. While they were at Youth Conference, Mom, Dax, and Seth went to some fun splash pads for the blog.

Mark was not going to let his cast slow him down.

He tackled the ropes course with no problem.

Dad also went on the ropes course and rappelling.

He had lots of fun with the youth!

Mark after fishing the ropes course.

We went to Spanish Fork's new splash pad.

Then we checked out Vineyard's splash pad with this fun slide.

We ended our Splash Pad adventure day at Highland's splash area.

Every summer we look forward to the huge sno cones on Main Street in Lehi. They are delicious!

The sno cone is almost as big as his head.

Seth loves to get red, white, and blue.

It is one of our favorite summer traditions.

One of the things that Dax always wants to do is go fishing. Mom and Dad are not very adept at this outing, so we solicited the help of our amazing neighbor, Ben. He took Seth and Dax fishing and they caught a ton of fish. Ben even convinced the boys to kiss every fish they caught! They had so much fun.

Dax caught the first fish.

We are so lucky to live by such good people.

Seth caught fish, too!

Dax's first kiss!

Seth, too!

The sunset was gorgeous!

Dax turned 12 this year and the temples have finally opened. We tried for a long time to get an appointment at the temple, so that Dax could participate in baptisms for the dead. But unfortunately it was really difficult to get an appointment. Finally, Mom was able to snag one at the Payson temple. Mark, Dax, and Dad all went and had a wonderful time.

These boys are so cute!

The Payson temple is so pretty.

Dad participate in an eating contest. We were invited to check out the new Liberty Bell Challenge at Brooker's with a bunch of other people. Dad's team came in a close second! Dad said it wasn't that enjoyable to eat ice cream that way since it was a big pile of mush all together, but he represented Utah's Adventure Family very well. 

Three people ate all that ice cream!

It didn't seem to be a very Covid-friendly activity.

Brooker's was really nice to think of us.

That is the empty Liberty Bell.

Then we finished off July with a lot of other fun activities. It was a very HOT month, but a super fun one, too!

Dax and Seth's team's had a big party with the older Barons teams, too.

We love to take family bike rides by the lake.

Mom and Seth love the bike rides the most.

We got to go check out Space Jam 2.

We used our Get Out Pass at Splash Summit.

It's fun to race down this slide as a family.

Seth's poses are the best.

Seth and Mom hung out at the kiddie area while the older kids did some big slides.

Seth lost 3 teeth in one week. He is so cute with this huge gap.

We got drenched with rain at one of Dax's games,
but Seth got the worst of it since he didn't stay under the shade cover.

Ray's Baptism

The day after we got home from Bear Lake, we loaded up and headed to Blackfoot for Ray's baptism. The baptism was scheduled for Saturday morning, but we went early Friday because Grandpa had scheduled the temple. Dad and Bob would be baptizing Mom, Steph, Abby, Josh, Alice, Mark, and Dax. Since there are still limits and protective protocols at the temple, we had the place to ourselves. We were allowed to do 40 total names while Brittany and Melanie watched the kids outside. (Daniel was at bandcamp and Tiff and Jonny had flown out to Hawaii.) We had a great time together and enjoyed lunch at Olive Garden afterward. Then we hung out at Grandma's while Mom visited her friend in Idaho Falls.

Going to the temple with cousins is the best.

We love being able to go to the temple with Mark and Dax.

These are all the people who went into the temple.

The little kids hung out with Mel on the temple grounds.

Mom loves being able to spend time with her sisters anywhere.

She also loves visiting her friend, Angee.

On Saturday, we got all ready for Ray's baptism. Mark served as a witness, Mom played piano, and Dad offered a prayer. We also spent a considerable amount of time taking care of the Poole kids, which is always fun for our boys. Ben is at a really fun age, and we've become really attached to him!

We had lunch at Grandma's after the baptism and then headed home. It was a really fun to focus on baptism with the family.

We only took one picture at the baptism because Mark ripped his pants. 

Bear Lake Day 4

 Our last day at Bear Lake was mostly cleaning up and saying goodbye. But since no trip to Bear Lake would be complete without visiting the refuge, when the sweeping and packing was done, we drove north. The entire road was open this year, so we drove all the way to the end. We saw a ton of birds, but the most exciting was a great-horned owl that Seth spotted in the trees east of the refuge. We were loving being together and doing one of our favorite activities.

Dad spotted this snake in the road.

We love seeing kingfishers.

Mom and Dad 

We watched these sandhill cranes cross the road in front of us.

Black necked stilts

A snowy egret in the tree

Osprey

Seth spotted this owl.

It was such a great sighting.

After the refuge it was lunchtime. The boys ate the last of the sandwich stuff out of the cooler, so we stopped at a new place for shakes. Surprisingly, the Chevron station on the road back to Logan had some of the tastiest shakes we've ever had. We will be sure to stop there again!

We made the rest of the drive home in plenty of time to see Mark stroke a triple and score the only run for the Freshman team. It was a really great vacation!

The shakes were a great way to end our trip.