Memorial Day

My husband had to go to San Francisco this week, so I took my kids to Idaho for Memorial Day. It was just a small family gathering, but those kind don't give me a headache! We left early enough that we got there in time to go to the cemetery (at least one). They had already visited the one in Paris, but we went with them to Bloomington Cemetery.

Ross got to put the flowers on the graves. Grams is very particular about who gets which flowers, so I hope we did it right.

This little guy was there, so that means I get to take lots of pictures of him. Babies don't care if they're getting their picture taken, they just keep on acting naturally, so maybe that's what I love about them.

Hanging out at my grandpa's grave.

Nigel and his momma. He sure had fun with this flower...

Which gave my girls the idea that they needed to go pick some.

Hooking up the buggy. This was my grandpa's wagon. My dad just refinished it so we can use it in the 4th of July parade.

After we rode it around. I hope we find some new horses for the parade. These horses need to get out more!

Chloe sure loves her cousins! Maybe we should nickname this kid Frank.

Sophie was also willing to get her picture taken with him... actually, she was excited if it meant she got to hold him.

Grandma taught the girls a new craft.

I got a family portrait! Nigel had a good grip on the piece of cantaloupe.

He wasn't letting his mom get much crocheting done.

Ross did a great job getting the lawn mowed. I took Nigel out with me to get a picture of him, and Nigel ended up on the mower as well.

The lake was so pretty as we drove into the valley that morning. On the way back I decided I would actually stop and get a picture. I still don't think this does it justice.

Balloons * Diamond Take 2

I'm going to call this a picture post. There's not much to say, but I have a lot of pictures that tell the story better than I ever could. I was just going to upload the pictures from our recent camping trip, but when I turned the camera on there were a bunch of photos of the girls playing with their water balloons. They came and asked me to take pictures one day of them playing with these balloons. I did a few, but then they ended up taking many more on their own. So most of these belong to Chloe or Sophie.

I'm including this one to show my daughter's obsession with the 4th of July. She talks about it EVERY DAY. She sings about it. She tells people she loves it more than Christmas, even though she has to keep the Christmas songbook out on the piano year round.

Now on to camping... We needed to use up our free voucher we got from our last trip to Diamond Campground. We didn't have to go back to the same campground, but we did because it was easy. We went on Tuesday night, and finally found a nice time to camp in Utah. You just have to go on a weeknight while school is still in session. We had a good time, the weather was nice, and there were no people to bother us. Chloe was a little sad we only planned one night, but she got over it once we were there. She is going to love girls camp (coming up in just a few weeks!). Anyway, on to the pictures.

Acting Debut

One of the field trips we've gone on since I last updated was out at Deer Creek State Park. They had a falcon demonstration for us, and then afterward we did a service project, cleaning up the park.

I told you about the 9 year old who purchased the glasses Brandon wanted just before he got in to buy them, so he had them order him a new pair. Well, after a couple weeks (when they were supposed to be in) we stopped in the store to see if by chance they had come and they just hadn't gotten around to calling him. They didn't have them. But then a day or two later he got a call saying they were not able to order the color he wanted. So, we had to go back and look at the other color options. I honestly can't tell any difference between the color he wanted and the color he got. And I think he looks very handsome in his new glasses.

We've had to spend a couple Saturdays in Centerville working on the house. That is no sacrifice for the girls.

We got rid of a ton of our junk at a homeschool swap. Our ward in Centerville did these each spring, so I was glad when I found a lady here organizing one. We got rid of a lot more than we took home. Sophie even got excited about it. She's been cleaning out her drawers and desk. I'm so proud of her. Chloe is the ultimate minimalist. She's willing to get rid of even more than I am! She's good for me, and she helps me get things cleaned out when I'm too slow to get to it. We've also been selling a lot on KSL, so they've been able to make a little money as well.

I have a friend who is in the movie business. She's been in several commercials and things, and you can see her in the upcoming "Ephraim's Rescue"! Her husband is a director/producer. They are working on a project for The Hole-in-the-Rock that will be shown at the visitor center in Bluff. They needed some extras for the movie, so I volunteered the girls and I. We filmed it yesterday up at This Is The Place Heritage Park. We had to be there at 6:30 AM. That made for a very early morning for us, and we were there until after 4:00. It was a long day, but the girls were great. I think they now know they don't want to go into acting, but hopefully they gained some appreciation and understanding of the whole process.

As usual, I didn't take my camera. I'm always so scared of lugging it around with me at things like this, and then I regret it! There were several people there taking pictures, so hopefully I'll get some of us soon, but here are a couple generic shots someone else took.