Stacey's Wedding

Russell's cousin Stacey Jo got married on June 27 in the Logan, UT temple.  We headed up north on Wednesday the 26th to make it to the wedding.  Yes, we have been out of town every weekend in June!  We are the travelers, I guess.  July should be a little less busy for us.  Anyway, on our way up north, we stopped in Scipio for a potty break and to feed Logan.  I did not know that they had a petting zoo near the gas station in Scipio.  It was a great distraction and energy release for Emily and Colby.  It also gave them something to do while I fed the baby.  

L

The coolest thing was they had a zebra to pet!  The kids were also able to feed the animals too.  

While at the zoo, Russell, Emily and Colby were able to pet a zebra, goats, llamas, sheep, ponies, a peacock, and more!  They had a blast.  We are definitely going to remember this little petting zoo when we take future trips up north.  Like I said it was a good way to release some energy.

And of course, we had to make our traditional stop at the Krispy Kreme in Orem.  The hot light was on so we all got a free doughnut even Logan!  The kids loved watching the doughnuts go along the conveyor belt and be cooked and made. 

We finally reached Jen and Rick's place in West Jordan.  We stayed with them for the night.  We were too busy goofing off to go to bed at a decent time!  Russell and Tyler kept texting Stacey until after midnight. Russell was telling her it wasn't too late to back out yet and some other crazy warnings like getting married just leads to having kids and it is all down hill from there.  Finally Stacey told him to go to bed!  We couldn't stop laughing.

The next morning we headed to Logan to see the newlyweds come out of the temple.  

Don't Stacey and Bobby look so happy!  We wanted to go to the sealing but we didn't know what to do with our kids especially Logan.  It was nice to see them come out of the temple though.

It was a warm day, around 100 degrees in Logan!  We all hung out in the shade waiting.  We could not keep the kids from the water fountain.  Aunt Traci is definitely the favorite aunt.  She can always get smiles out of all of the little cousins.  She was nice enough to hang out with Emily and Colby as they explored the water fountain and wandered around temple grounds.  

Because of the summer sun, everyone was wearing sunglasses.  We had to get a few pictures of all of the hotties in their shades.  I love these boy cousins.  They keep things interesting.  Uncle Paul and Bobby couldn't be left out either much to the dismay of Charlene and Stacey!  I think these two pictures are so fun and tell a great story about the fun people in this family.

After the temple, we all went out to eat and the famous Angie's Diner in Logan.  This place has the best food.  Someday we will attempt the "kitchen sink" if you know what I mean.  After eating we went to the Pepperidge Farm factory for some free samples and big bags of cookies and Goldfish.  Too bad we were too late for the Goldfish bags but we did get some yummy cookies.  Next we went to the Gossner Factory for milk and ice cream.  This places have become traditions for us whenever we visit Logan.

  

Finally we made our way down to Taylorsville to the wedding reception.  First they had a really nice ring ceremony followed by more pictures.  We all had a great time at the reception.  There was food and some dancing but most of all, we got to see and talk to friends and family we don't see very often.  It really was a lot of fun.

As part of the decoration Stacy had this way cute, way awesome lemonade stand where we could get drinks.  They served lemonade and a variety of different flavor to add to it.  The best was raspberry but Bryson made a equally good concoction of Strawberry and mango lemonade.  That was pretty good too!

Unfortunately we had to cut our stay a little short because Colby started running a fever.  He was not feeling good at all so we headed home.  This was a fun quick trip.  Good luck Stacey and Bobby Stamper and Congrats!!

Our Junk

 While I was getting the camp trailer ready to go camping we were visited by a random person who wanted to take a picture of our amazing tire, but here is the thing, I had no idea he took the picture.  After we got home from camping, we checked the mail. I was expecting something from the City so when I saw an envelope with the city emblem on it, I got excited. When I opened it, I read that the city loves our yards to be clean and neat, free of junk. I thought the city was doing some city cleaning day that they do sometimes. But come to find out my yard was the junk yard. I looked at the last page and there was a picture of our tractor tire that has been leaning up against the wall for months. They told us we had 14 days to remove it or we would be fined. I laughed so hard and was a little upset when I read this because of all the things they saw in our neighborhood they saw this. To tell you the truth, I consider our yard pretty well maintained and clean.  I have worked really hard on getting it that way.  Our one problem apparently is the tire. Tiffany wanted to put a sign on it that said "This is not junk it is a future sand box" or "Your Junk is our Treasure!" and I wanted to put a sign that said "This is my work out tool." Needless to say I put it on my landscaping trailer before we went out of town. I have yet to get rid of our junk. We also told the neighbors that if they had junk they could bring it to our house because we our making our yard into a big junk yard.  They all laughed and wondered why they didn't get a notice too! 

So here is our eyesore of a pile of junk!  Our awesome tractor tire!  The letter from the city told us that they like residents to keep their yards clean in order to keep property values of the surrounding homes up.  So in other words the property values in our neighborhood were going down dramatically all because of our tire!!  Yeah pretty crazy huh!  Well just so you all know for future reference we are junky people!!!!!

Goodbye Clifford

Clifford the BIG red dog, came into the Farnsworth family two years ago. We went to the Corn festival and while we were walking there we saw people giving away puppies. After holding all of them, only one stood out that we all liked. He was so tiny he fit in my palm. Now look at him full grown. 

It was hard to come to the decision that I made. I always threatened the pound on him, but I never followed through until yesterday. We were camping at Pine Valley and getting ready to go. Emily was playing with her cousins by Clifford when she slid down the hill and Clifford jumped up and bit her. I could not believe it. I thought it was only a one time thing and we fixed it. Then we were camping again at Fish Lake and while we were fishing Emily went to pet him and he freaked out and bit her again. I blew up and that sealed his fate of the pound. Then while we were packing up to head home from Fish Lake, Clint started petting Clifford in the back of our truck.  Then he turned to pet Clifford again and Clifford snarled, growled and snapped at Clint too.  He has had other rage issues in the past too.  We knew we had to do something about our dog.  Emily had a hard time understanding, but we told her that we loved Clifford but because of his actions he was not safe to be around. 

Here we are saying our goodbyes to Clifford for the last time before I took him to the pound. He was a good dog; I wish I had spent more time with him and maybe it would not have come to this. I have to look after the safety of my family. I did not know when the next  time he would rage out and bite again, because it was random. I took him to the pound and tied him up and said goodbye. As I drove away, I took one last look before driving away. I wish this would have never happened. While Emily was feeding Clifford for the last time, I was a little nervous to see her feed him. Colby did not understand what was going on.When Clifford was in the back of the truck, he was saying good bye to Clifford and laughing. To this day every time Colby hears a dog bark he thinks it is Clifford and tells Tiffany "Mom Clippord is barking." I think he still thinks he is still here.

We will miss our dog but we could no longer have him around if he was going to be dangerous to our kids and possibly the neighbor kids too.  We will most likely get another pet but it will probably be a fish or something.  Goodbye Clifford.                                                                                                                  

Morwood Reunion

June 20-22 was our annual Morwood Reunion on Fish Lake.  I love camping in Fish Lake; it is the best place ever.  Before we could go camping, we needed to get Colby a new 4-wheeling helmet so that he could ride on the 4-wheeler while we were camping.

He loves his helmet and anytime he wants to ride he tells us "I need my helmet!"  Colby loves riding the four-wheeler.

We left for Fish Lake Wednesday (19th) night around 9:00.  We wanted to drive while it was cooler and we also wanted to get out of town quicker so that we could get on the mountain first and get the best spot!  We drove to the bottom of the hill at the Fish Lake turn and camped for the night in the gravel pit.  Definitely a tradition in my family!  We were so tired we fell right to sleep.  The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast, and travelled the rest of the way up the hill to Fish Lake.  We camp along Seven Mile this year.  We weren't the first ones on the mountain but we did get a really good spot.  The first camp we came to we notice Roy, Jared and Jacob were camped there.  We pulled up by them and tried to find a spot.  Then we noticed that my grandma and Uncle Rick were camped a couple spots down from Roy.  Since that was where most of the reunion activities would be, we decided to move closer to them.  The campsite next to my grandma was empty and big enough for my parents and the Hughes' when they came up so we decided to camp there instead.  We found a really nice spot in the shade that was relatively flat considering we were camped on Seven Mile and nothing is flat there.  After getting parked and set up, we just chilled and relaxed the rest of the day.

Later that day, Clint arrived.  While we were talking to him, he got the wild hair to pull a huge fallen tree out of the middle of the camp with his truck. He and Russell hooked up a chain to his truck hitch and the tree trunk and away he when pulling the tree.  With little effort, the D-Max pulled the huge tree out of the camp and made way for my parents and the Hughes' to get their trailers in.  My parents came up shortly after that.  They brought Becca up with them.

Another reason why we came up early was so we could go to the Manti Pageant.  At around 4:30 we headed to Manti to see the opening night of the pageant.  Becca wanted to go with us and I am glad she did because we needed her help with the kids and blankets.  Thanks Becca!

We got to Manti around 6:00.  The pageant didn't start until 9:30 so we had some time to kill.  We ate dinner, and played Go Fish and Speed.  We also had fun watching Logan learn to rollover. It was easy to rollover when he was going downhill.

While we were waiting, we saw the YM and YW from our ward.  They were up there for Youth Conference.  We talked to them for a little while.  Then Becca, Emily and I went to find some Popsicles but came back with snow cones instead.  They were good until the sun went down because then it got cold!

The pageant was awesome as always.  My favorite part was the part that depicted the Savior visiting the Americas.  You could totally feel the Spirit.  Emily's favorite part was the pretty costumes and the dancing Lamanite girls.  We loved the pageant.  We didn't get back to camp until about 1:30 am so we were tired.

We slept in the next morning then decided to go fishing at Gate's Lake that afternoon.

It was a good day of fishing because we didn't catch anything!  The kids got tired of fishing after a while so they went exploring for big sticks.  After they had found a few they threw them into the lake.  Russell also got tired of fishing with power bait and not catching anything so he took the kids and Becca to go dig for worms. Emily is such a little girl. She loves anything princess, pink, and pretty.  But she also loves digging for and holding worms!  Here she is showing off the worms they found in the mud and under cow pies!  Yummy!  The worms kept Emily and Colby entertained for bit while Russell and Clint fished.  Well we still had no luck and it was getting to be dinnertime so we headed back to camp.  Russell took Emily and Colby on the four-wheeler while I drove the truck with Logan.  Four-wheelers are the best rocking chairs.  Colby was asleep before they even got up the hill so Russell flagged me down and put Colby in the truck with me.  Emily had a blast riding with Dad.

After eating dinner, we headed over to my  Uncle Rick's family's camp for Cobbler.  Here are Colby and Emily eating cobbler with my cousin Cami's kids and Jack.  Don't they all look so clean!  You gotta love black mountain dirt!  The cobbler was really good.  The Rick Morwood family made peach, apple, and cherry cobblers for the whole clan.  It was fun to get together and chat and catch up after not seeing everyone for a while.  

Saturday we also spent fishing.  This time we went to Mill Meadow and once again it was a good fishing day where we didn't catch anything.  Colby had a blast casting and reeling in his new fishing pole.  Emily had fun sitting in the shade of her chair canopy.  While we were fishing Clifford ran off and wouldn't come back so I went to find him.  He had found someones leftover food and was eating it.  I told him to get back there and took him back to where we were.  Russell had him lay down by us.  Then Emily reached her hand down to pet Clifford and he flipped out and growled and bit her!  Russell was so mad I thought he was going to kill the dog.  Emily was freaking out too but I don't blame her.  Luckily she had a sweatshirt on so the bite didn't break the skin.  After that we packed up and went back to camp.  We were all really mad. While we were back at camp, Clint was petting Clifford and then stopped for a minute then when he went back to pet him, Clifford growled and snapped at him too.  We decided we needed to do something about out dog because he was no longer safe to be around.  

We needed to head home so that we could make it to church on Sunday so we started packing up.  When we were packed we went over and had Taco Soup and ice cream with the family.   After dinner we hooked on and tried to pull our trailer out.  Then we realized we park right under a low tree so we had to maneuver the trailer back and forth a million times to get out from under and out of the trees.  After about an hour of my dad, Clint, and Klint Hughes guiding Russell, they finally got the trailer out.  I have learned that at times like this it is better for me to just go somewhere else because I freak out at the littlest things and it makes Russell even more nervous so I just let the guys take care of it.  

In a way it was a good thing it took us so long to get out because it put us in the perfect opportunity to see something awesome.  Every time we go to Fish Lake, we search for the moose. I have seen them a couple times but Russell never has.  This year was different.  On our way home, we drove up the hill near Johnson Reservoir an saw something big and black at the top of the hill. We thought "What is that?"  When we got to the top, there in the marsh near Frying Pan campground was the big bull moose!

It was so awesome!!!  We sat on the side of the road and watched it for a while.  The moose was so big and we couldn't believe how dark it was.  Emily said it was like the moose on Brother Bear!  We were glad we had gotten delayed a bit so that we could see the moose.  This made our day and we were smiling the rest of the way home.  

We had a great time at the reunion and camping.  

Happy Dad's Day

Happy Father's Day!  We had a pretty quiet Father's Day this year.  We had just gotten back from camping so we were still trying to clean up.  So we just stayed home and relaxed.  Russell said that was OK because he got to be with his family.  

Here he is with his three munchkins.  

For Father's Day we made cards out of old magazine clippings.  The kids picked out some fun pictures and helped us write cute sayings with them. 

Russell has been doing a few landscaping side jobs for a little extra money.  A few days ago he bought himself the Sthl chainsaw he has been wanting for years.  He needed this chainsaw for work. When he brought it home I said "Happy Father's Day! You bought your own present!"  So that is what Russell got for Father's Day!  He loves it!  ha ha.

That night we had dinner with the Farnsworth clan and then went to the Hughes' to celebrate Jack's birthday as well as see my dad.

Happy Father's Day!

Farnsworth Family Pictures

When we returned home from Pine Valley on Saturday, we all got cleaned up and had family pictures while Jen was in town.  We had family pictures last year but since then Logan was born so we needed an updated picture.  We had our pictures taken at the Red Hills Golf Course.  I think they turned out really good.

I think the picture of all of the grand kids was the hardest one to take.  None of the kids were looking at the same time and Annalynn was done having her picture taken so she was wiggling every where trying to get away.  This one is the best we could get.

After the pictures, we took some funny random pictures.  With the Farnsworth's we definitely get more funny pictures than serious ones.

Traci's friend, Paul, took the pictures with Rick's camera.  I don't want to be too forward but Traci and Paul seem to really like each other and they have a lot in common so maybe there is something there....

Farnsworth Reunion

The Farnsworth clan got together June 13-15 for a fun reunion.  We spent the weekend camping in Pine Valley.  It was so beautiful and cool and fun.  We all had a great time together and did a lot of fun and crazy activities.

The trip didn't begin as good as Russell had hoped.  Thursday morning I went to work and Russell got the final things ready like getting ice, packing the water jugs and the pillows and hooking on to the trailer.  When he was finished, he shut the trailer door and it wouldn't shut right so he shut it a little harder.When he did this, the whole bottom of the door fell off and then the sides and pretty much the door just fell apart after that!  I don't want to mention the response I got from him when I got home and asked why the trailer door was on the ground tore apart.  He just told me "Don't ask!!!"  and I just went in the house and let him figure it out.  After driving to every RV place in town to look for a new door, Russell found out every place required us to order a new door which would take 4-6 weeks and they all cost at least $300.  Russell decided to head to Home Depot instead and buy some new boards and rebuild the door himself.  Once again I stayed in the house with the kids as he worked and cursed the door for the next couple hours as he fixed the door.  Finally the door was as good as new and back on the trailer and we were able to leave. Lets just say Russell was in a much better mood after the we were finally on the mountain!  I told him it wouldn't be camping if something didn't go wrong or if we didn't have to fix something on the trailer!  He agreed.

When we finally got to camp and got everything set up, we decided to go exploring.  Colby wanted to try out his new "pishing pole" in the river.  (Colby says p's instead of f's!)  He had a great time fishing and was getting really good at casting his pole and then reeling it in as fast as he could.  When I bought him his fishing pole, he was so excited and told me all about how he was going to catch a little pish with his pishing pole.  Then he asked me if I would cook his pish so he could eat it.  I told I would cook his fffffish.  He said "Yeah my pish."  I just laughed.  

While we were exploring we found this cool log bridge across the river and the kids had fun walking across it.

Emily, Colby, Paul and Alex had a great time exploring with Aunt Traci.  Jen told Traci to not let the boys get wet.  They were being very careful until the end.  Alex was walking across a rock path through the river and also a small log across the river balancing without any trouble.  Paul could not be shown up by his younger brother so he tried the rock path and little log too.  Well Paul had a harder time balancing and slipped right off the log into the river wading right up to his waist!  The look on his face was so funny it was like "Oh no my mom is going to kill me!"  We all laughed at him and said "You better get out before your mom spanks Traci's bum for letting you get wet!"  

The next day we all went for a bike ride.  While at camp, Tyler found an abandoned little bike that was the perfect size for Colby.  After seeing that it had been abandoned for a couple days, Tyler picked it up and took it back to our camp for Colby to ride.  He figured someone had just forgotten about it and went home without it.  Colby loved that little bike and tired to ride it everywhere.

During our bike ride, we rode along all of the bike trails in Pine Valley.  We rode from our camp at Ebenezzer all the way to the lake.  Emily even rode her own bike!  She is getting better at riding but still needs some help.  Going to the lake was really easy because it was all down hill.  Coming back to camp was another story.

What a life!  Colby and Logan rode in the bike trailer and got to sleep the whole time while I had to pull them along.  Don't they look so sweet in there sleeping on each others shoulders?  When we got to the lake, Logan woke up which means "My eyes are open, I'm hungry!"  So he started crying.  I decided to head back to camp with them instead of going on.  Like I said before going to the lake was easy but coming back to camp was not so easy...  I discovered I was very much out of shape!  I could not peddle up the hills pulling the bike stroller.  I would try with all my might but my legs would literally turn to Jello and I could not go any further.  I ended up walking most of the way back.  On the way back, a lady stopped me on the trail and asked me if I had seen a little black bike with training wheels.  I knew she was talking about Colby's bike so I told her to meet me at our camp.  I knew Colby would be sad because he loved that bike but I also knew that if I lied to the lady, I would feel really bad and so would her little son.  When we got back to camp, I told  Colby we had to give the bike back and to say thank you for letting him ride it.  He did say thank you but I don't think he realized what was happening until they drove away with the bike.  Then he looked at me and said "They took my bike!"  I had to try and explain that it wasn't really his bike and we would get him another one later.  He was mad for a little bit but then he seemed to forget and went off to play. 

The rest of the day we just hung out, relaxed, and played around:

Grandma Farnsworth brought some fun crafts to do with the kids.  Here they are painting Prayer Rocks:

Here are their awesome prayer rocks as well as their colorful fingers!

While the kids painted, the adults relaxed in the shade.  Russell even managed to catch a few winks!  After the crafts, we all went on a scavenger hunt.  

For the scavenger hunt, we had to find a lot of different things in nature and either put it in our bag or take a picture of it.  We had to find a deer, fly, butterfly, bug, squirrel, robin, chipmunk, rock, stick, pine cone, flowers and more. 

After dinner that night, we had some fun family games.  First we had pie eating contests: 

These were so funny to watch!  And not to leave the kids out, they had their own doughnut eating contest:

This was so cute to watch.  Even Colby got into it and tried his best to eat the doughnut without hands.  Emily's face was so messy too.  But I think Alex was the winner.

We also played Charades and roasted marshmallows for S'mores.  We couldn't stop laughing at all of the awesome charades.  

The next morning, Russell, Jen, Rick, Tyler, Traci and Traci's friend, Paul, headed out to go Paintballing. While they were gone LeeAnn and I helped the kids make Father's Day cards and play games.

When the paintballers returned, we packed up camp and headed home.

Here are some fun random pictures of our fun camping.  We had a lot of fun at Pine Valley and the reunion.