The Joys of June

June was a fun month with lots of family in town and ended with a great trip to Yellowstone. Here are a few other highlights from the month.

Mom and Dad took a walk to the Alpine Poppies one evening. It was perfect and not busy! 

There were pretty yellow flowers, too.

It's always fun to be together.

Mom loves the wildflower outings.

Dad was good at taking pics!

We spent a lot of time at the Saratoga Springs temple as volunteers and as visitors. We walked through with family and served a few extra times to help. It was such a wonderful experience and we truly love this temple.

We went and walked through one day for fun.

Our last day at the temple in the basement!

We have really grown to love this place.

Mark was umping, so the four of us came to usher.

Walking through with Dad's brothers.

We hiked a new trail called the Wild Rose Trail. It was beautiful with lots of wildflowers and great views. We love adding new adventures to the website!

Mom with more wildflowers.

It was a nice trail.

We even found someone to take a family pic.

It was Free Frazil Friday every Friday in June! We did not miss!

We tried a bunch of flavors.

Hope they do it again next year!

Our ward put together a float for the Lehi Round-Up parade. They asked for volunteers to help walk in the parade and Seth was thrilled. He wore his apron and chef's hat because our float was all about Lehi food. He had a great time other than there wasn't enough candy to throw. We will have to send him with his own stash next time.

Ready for the parade.

It was the end of June, but Dax was ready!

Cute Seth saved candy to hand to us!

He was the cutest parade walker.

Here are a few other highlights from the month of June:

Making sno cones with their machine.

We checked out the dinosaurs at Thanksgiving Point.

Mom turned into a butterfly!

Seth played his last games with the Red Sox.

Mark has clearly passed Dad.

We have so much fun together!

Love the evening walks down by the lake.

Quick Trip to Cedar City

Mark was playing in a baseball tournament in Cedar City. Since we had a free weekend, we decided to make a little family vacation out of it. Little did we know that it would rain and rain, and we wouldn't get to do much and Mark wouldn't play many baseball games. 

The one picture I took of Mark playing baseball at this tournament.

Mom and Mark went down a little early because Dad had a half day meeting, and Seth had an activity day camp (it rained there, too). Luckily our neighbor shared a poncho and took good care of him. Mark's first game was delayed because as we were getting ready to go on the field it started pouring! Like seriously pouring! So Mom sat in the car and Mark in the dugout. It finally slowed after about 30 minutes, so then we played. Mark's team won and we headed off to get lunch.

Seth was dry, but he was a little sad that this wasn't a BYU poncho.

Well, the rain came back, and it kept raining, so Mark and Mom hung out at the home they had rented while Dad, Dax, and Seth drove down in the rain. Mark's second game of that day was cancelled. We played games, watched movies, and ate dinner in the house. We did sneak out to get shakes.

We played a bunch of games!

The next day Mark's games were all canceled because the fields were unplayable. They kept trying to move things around, but eventually nothings worked out. So we went down to a ghost town that we hadn't visited before in Leeds. And then we headed to Hurricane because Mark was supposed to play there (we found out later it was cancelled), so we headed to our favorite tortoise seeing spot.

Dad teaching Seth about telephones.

No one was super thrilled with the ghost town.

The best part was the Jail!

Mom liked the purple cactus.

Can't miss Free Frazil Friday even when we are in a different city!

It really is a lucky spot because Dad spotted one right inside the gate by the garbage can. The tortoise honestly looked like he was trying to get out! Thank goodness for the fence to keep him safe. We watched him for awhile and then hiked around looking for others. We didn't find any, but it was a great end to the day.

So close to the fence!

We couldn't believe we spotted another tortoise here.

We searched every nearby, but only found lizards. No other tortoises.

Mark finally ended up playing another game the next day, but it didn't really matter. They didn't give out any awards and it didn't count toward anything. Everyone was frustrated with the way the tournament had worked out with the rain, but we had a nice relaxing time as a family.

Yellowstone Day 5

String Lake is one of our favorite places in the Tetons.

We'd come to the final day of our vacation, but we didn't want to head home yet. Instead, we slept in before packing up our cabin. Then we headed south to String Lake. We'd walked along the shore of String Lake, but we'd never made the full 4 mile hike around the lake.

Along the way, we saw too little bucks standing right off the trail. They didn't mind us at all as we stopped to take pictures. The trail climbed up the hillside, giving us much more elevation change than we'd thought, but it was a nice hike that looked out over the entire area. We finished the hike around the lake in plenty of time to start our drive home. There were still a few more sightings in store, though. 

Seth tried to walk and balance this rock.

One of the deer we spotted.

It was fun to see the other side of String Lake.

The trail was pretty.

Mark loves being in the mountains.

We will miss the Tetons.

It was a great last adventure on our trip.

On the Moose-Wilson Road we spotted a yearling bull moose. He was right on the edge of the pond, and his horns had just sprouted. Later, crossing the bridge in the town of Moose, we saw a cow moose and her fawn colored calf. They were just below us eating in the brush. It was a great way to say goodbye to the Tetons!

The young bull moose checking us out.

He has very small antlers sprouting.

Momma and baby moose--possibly the ones we saw yesterday.

Cutest little baby moose.

They were just off the bridge. 

The boys took this picture of a kingfisher (there were three of them) while Mom made lunch. 

We took the back way to Utah. We drove down through Cokeville and Randolph. Our kids had never done this because we always stay at Grandma's house on the return trip. This time we had to get back for baseball, though. We came down through Evanston and Mark made both his games. They won both with Mark finishing out the final game as pitcher.

It was Free Brazil Friday, so we stopped in Randolph to grab one.

Jim and Naimah gave Seth a rugby ball for his birthday. He was thrilled.

Mark loves playing with these young men!