Temple Square

 This summer we took a trip up to Idaho and Utah to visit family.  We went drove from Peoria to Salt Lake City, arriving at 1 in the morning.  The next morning we took the kids to Temple Square before we continued on to Idaho.

Watching a momma duck with her babies in a small park near Temple Square

Our family in front of the temple

The kids in front of the temple by the reflecting pool.

 I always like to get a picture of the kids in front of the Nauvoo Bell on Temple Square when we are there, because our ancestors carried that bell across the plains after they recovered it (stole it back) from the minister of another church who tried to steal it when the saints were leaving Nauvoo.

The kids in front of the Nauvoo Bell

In front of the Christus

 We took the kids on a tour of the Conference Center.

On the roof.

Our tour guide was a sweet lady named Sister Hyman.  She asked how long we had and we told her about half an hour, but that we weren't on a strict schedule.  Well she was determined to get us done with the tour in a half hour.  When the kids stopped to admire anything for too long she would rush us along and tell them, "We only have a half hour."  She was so funny.  I did get her to stop long enough for a couple of pictures.  At the end she was a little disappointed because we went over by 5 minutes.

The kids with our tour guide, Sister Hyman

Early Summer Fun

Some of the fun activities we did in June

You've got to love the slip and slide.

Sonic hats after a super healthy dinner.  (Jared was at cub scout day camp and missed this one.)

Pretty much that is what we have done a lot of this summer... the slip and slide, that is, not the sonic. 

Mother's Day

This year for Mother's Day my family quite spoiled me.  They made me breakfast and dinner and gave me lots of fun presents.  Ben gave me a new pillow that I absolutely love and can't sleep without.

The kids and I on Mother's Day

Nate was very proud of the paper he folded into a heart for me during his Sunday School class. His teacher taught all the kids how to fold it so they would have something to give their moms.

Jared's Field Trip

Jared's class took a field trip up to Flagstaff and some of the surrounding areas.  He took a LOT of pictures, mostly of trees and rocks and rocks and trees.  Here are some of my favorites from his trip.  I won't post all of them as there were 222 pictures taken of this particular field trip.

Jared on the bus to Flagstaff

Some of his friends

There were many pictures that looked similar to this.  He was pretty impressed with the scenery out the bus window.

There were about 10 pictures of pages from his friend's Star Wars book that was brought along for he ride.

A cool tree

Jared in some ruins

Some ruins

Some more ruins

Rocks, with someone's backpack and ponytail

When I asked Jared who this was he said, "Some dude.  He had a cool tie."

Meteorite

Dinosaur bones

Oh how I love field trip pictures!

End of School Year Activities and Other Stuff

All the fun and craziness that comes with the end of the school year.

Bonnie started learning guitar in her strings class this year.

Gwen playing "Old McDonald" on the cello

Bonnie getting ready to perform on the cello

Jared playing the cello

The kids and I with our piano teacher after our recital.

A very fuzzy Gwen with a pinhole image of the solar eclipse on her forehead.

Another fuzzy picture of the solar eclipse.

These are videos of Nate and Bonnie's band concert.  Please don't feel that you have to watch the entire videos.  In the first one Bonnie is the flute just to the left of Mr. Ormsbee, the conductor.  He is by far one of the best band teachers of all time and, unfortunately, after this year he got transferred to one of the high schools in the district.  I guess they didn't want to "waste" his talent with the grade-school kids.  He was amazing!  The second one is the jazz band Mr. Ormsbee started at the school.  All the kids came in to practice before school two days a week.  Nate is playing trombone, and Bonnie is the piano player with the ponytail.  She wanted to be in the jazz band, but they don't include flutes so she decided to do piano for it instead.

Bonnie dressed up for her class play about the middle ages.  They made the play up and I am still trying to figure out the whole story months later.  But she was a very cute assassin.

Bonnie's Field Trip

I love sending a camera with my kids on field trips.  They love to take pictures and I love seeing what was important to them.  Here are some from Bonnie's field trip to the Fish and Game Outdoor Expo.

A Desert Tortoise

A Bearded Dragon

Bonnie's best friend Hana with a Boa

Bonnie with a Monitor Lizard

A view out the window of the bus

A self-portrait

Easter and Plants

I forgot to take a lot of pictures this Easter, but here are a couple of the eggs that we colored.

 Here are some pictures of our grapes and our lime tree this spring.  They were taken around Easter time.

Unfortunately this summer we got some horrible little caterpillars on our grapes that have completely destroyed our plants and most of our grapes ended up being very tiny and many were eaten by birds.  We will definitely be spraying them next year with whatever chemical we can find to destroy those caterpillars.

The limes, on the other hand, have been fantastic.  We have picked them to use on Mexican dishes and also to make limeade.  We've had so many of them and we have loved having that tree!