Sunflowers

We have been growing lots of things in our garden this year, but we decided to try growing some sunflowers. My sister Melanie and I had the kids plant seeds in little pots so they could get started early. My boys had fun watering the little peat pots and watching their sunflowers grow. We finally decided they were big enough to move outside. Unfortunately the next day there was a huge wind and rain storm, and none of the sunflowers survived. My boys were so sad. Luckily I had a huge bag of mammoth sunflower seeds in my church primary closet, left over from an activity. So I took one home and we planted it. Nothing grew for a long time, but one day when I was weeding I noticed a little plant. A few months later we have a 10 1/2 foot tall sunflower. It is a big attraction at our house (the boys run and check on it every day) and everyone who comes to visit has a comment about the sunflower on the side of our house. And, there is a two foot sunflower trying to grow in the shadow of our mammoth sunflower--one of our original plants is trying to make a comeback. We will have to see how it does. Check out our sunflower!

Dax's eyes were closed, so I tried another picture later.

Now Mark isn't looking, but you can see how big the flower is compared to the boys and our 6 foot fence.

Raspberries

The Ockey clan headed up to see Grandma and Grandpa Daniels this weekend. While Randy and Grandpa worked on a new deck, the boys enjoyed spending time with Grandma and her raspberries. They helped pick raspberries, made jam, and ate tons and tons of raspberries. They had raspberries for every meal and every snack. I can't blame them, they are great raspberries and there are millions of them! We have a raspberry bush and so far we have picked about 10 raspberries. Hopefully next year we will get a few more. So here are some fun pictures of the boys enjoying raspberries.

Picking Raspberries

A few minutes later--all their raspberries were mysteriously gone!

We still managed to fill the bowl.

Oh, Dax--how many raspberries did you eat?

Mark mashed the raspberries for the jam!

Dax added the sugar and stirred it all up!

Hyrum Lake

This past weekend, we headed up to Hyrum Lake (near Logan) to stay in the new cabins. It was a different kind of camping. We slept in beds -- there were two full-sized bunk beds, we kept our food cold without ice -- there was a mini fridge, and we cooked on the camp stove -- there were no fire pits. We had SO much fun.

Josh and Dax loved playing on the top bunk.

There were two cabins, so we stayed in one, and my sister, Tiffany and her husband, Jonny, and their little boy Josh, who is almost 3, stayed in the other. The cabins were just added to the campground this year, but we are already planning to go back next year. There was also air conditioning--that was the real winner and the reason we had such a wonderful stay.

Randy in front of our cabin.

We spent a lot of time at the little beaches by the lake. The lake is brimful this year, so the beaches were mostly covered with water, but we loved playing in the warm lake water.

The boys digging in the sand.

Playing in the water!

We went to Logan one day and hiked the Riverside Trail up Logan Canyon, stopped by the temple, and went to Willow Park Zoo (you can read about these stops on our other blog).

The riverside trail was so beautiful and well shaded. Mark is always our trail leader.

I think this was the 5th or 6th time we stopped to throw rocks in the river on our hike.

We tried our hand at fishing, but we didn't have any success. The boys were so excited to try fishing, so I was a little bummed we didn't catch anything, but they didn't seem to mind too much. They would rather throw rocks in the lake anyway.

Hoping the fish will bite!

A happy camping family.

It was a great trip and we would recommend staying here to anyone. If you want to learn more, check out Hyrum Lake State Park.