July 2024

 July has been a fun month.  We started the month off by sending Emily to Provo for FSY.  Emily and her friend, Hahna wanted to attend FSY somewhere other than Utah State so they decided to go to the session at BYU.  

These two cute girls roomed together and had a wonderful time at FSY.  They learned a lot and enjoyed being away from home in a new area for a week.  FSY is such a great experience for kids.  Emily came home with so many spiritual experiences and stories about the things she had learned.  I always wanted to go to EFY when I was a kids but never got the opportunity.  I am so glad these experiences are more available to the youth now.

While she was gone, we celebrated the 4th of July.  Because Emily was at BYU during the 4th of July, she got to watch the huge Stadium of Fire firework show at the BYU stadium.  She said it was pretty awesome.   

The 4th of July was a blast with a lot of fun times. Charlotte and Logan were part of the Children's Choir in the Sunday Patriotic Program put on by Hyrum City. The family has been a part of this program since Emily was around 8 years old, so it is cool to see we still have kids who like the choir.  The Patriotic Program is always really good.

On the 4th of July, Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth came here to play around with us. We went to the Hyrum parade and had a good time. 

The kids love this parade because they always get a ton of candy.  It is also a huge parade and everyone from all over the Valley come to see it.  This year the parade lasted an hour and a half!

After the parade, we went to the Cache Valley Cruisin' Car show. Grandpa Farnsworth and Colby love going to see this car show. 

We all love seeing the cool car and picking out our favorites.  It is always fun seeing the cool old cars and the new ones. This year Calen and Rochelle had a vendor booth at the fair grounds selling their laser cut wood crafts.  We liked browsing their booth and looking at their fun items for sale.  Once the car show was done, we headed home to get ready for the BBQ and fireworks. 

We had the Pini's come over as well as Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth and part of the Phillips and Yap family. This year Russell splurged and got some fireworks to light off. The kids loved lighting off the fireworks. Once the night came, we always have the best seats in the house for the Hyrum Firework Show.

 The Pini's were even impressed with how close we were to the firework show. Like always Hyrum does an amazing job with the show. The encore show was good as well with the rest of the neighborhood doing fireworks.  They always go off for hours.

The next morning we met up with the Pini's again to hike the Wellsville Ridge for my birthday.

The hike was amazing and when I got home the kids had made a banner and decorated the house for my birthday.  Happy 39th birthday to me!

That night we went into Logan to see the Cache Valley Cruisin' parade.  This isn't really a parade but it is pretty awesome to see all of the cars from the car show driving up and down Main Street just cruising like they would in their day.

We love sitting and watching all of the awesome cars.  It is really a big community event and everyone loves it.

On July 10, we put our second kid in braces.

Colby is now in braces and he loves it.  Okay not really.  His teeth needed braces because there was a lot of overcrowding.  There was such little space that one of his canines is impacted meaning not growing in.  The Orthodontist hopes that as he moves the teeth around and provides a space for that tooth, it will grow in on its own.  If not we will have to go to an oral surgeon.  Our fingers are crossed that it will just grow in on its own.  So Colby is in braces for the next two or so years.  Yeah!

I have spent a lot of time working at the American West Heritage Center again this summer.  Occasionally the kids will join me and help with all of the chores at the farm house.  During one visit, they learned how to milk the cow.

Farmer Robert Hoth taught them the technique and was happy to have them help with the milking.  Logan was a natural and loved milking the cow.  We milk the cows twice a day and both times, Logan was the one to do most of the milking.  Charlotte and Brooklyn also tried milking.  Colby, being allergic to straw, stayed away from the barn and the cows just in case.  The kids also liked gathering the eggs from the chickens.  They were also a great help in picking the raspberries.  I think we came home with two big Ziploc bags to use in making raspberry syrup.  The syrup tasted so good!  We even used it to make homemade raspberry ice cream for Russell's birthday and it was so delicious!  We should have lived on a farm.

 The kids have been very creative during their summer break.  They have been making crafts, having picnics, and just having fun.  Colby and Logan found these giant boxes and decided to turn them into race cars.  The cars actually turned out really cool.  There was so much detail put into them.  There were even steering wheels, and gas and brake pedals.  They even decorated the big Amazon box like the Mystery Machine in Scooby Doo.

Charlotte and Brooklyn have also been having fun making up different activities.  They love having picnics and plan one for almost everyday.  They also got creative and painted rocks to keep themselves busy for an afternoon.

Logan City does a pool party each summer for all of the city employees.  This is always fun to go to and we all love to swim.

During the party they give out a bunch of prizes to the kids during the starfish drop.  The people drop starfish cutouts attached to diving rings into the pool and the kids have to search for them.  When they find a starfish, they can redeem the prize.  This year Charlotte and Brooklyn were the lucky winners.  Charlotte won this huge inflatable dragon.  She has been bouncing all over the house on this thing.  Brooklyn won a Bluey water toy and bath towel. She loved playing in the pool with Bluey.

On July 24 we got together with Ashley, Mavis, and Eloise and watched the Pioneer Day parade in Logan.  

It was so hot but thankfully we had our big umbrella to kind of give us some shade.  The kids liked the parade and got a bunch of candy.  The parade really had nothing to do with Pioneer Day though it was more of an extension of Independence Day festivities and advertisements for businesses.  

That night we lit off a few more fireworks and did some cool designs with our sparklers.  We really should look deeper into why we celebrate Pioneer Day.

On July 28 Russell and I took the kids up to Burley, ID so we could participate in the Spudman Triathlon.

This was a good race and we both improved our times over last year.

By the end of July, Mountain Bike season was in full force.  Emily and Colby had practices 3-4 times a week on the various trails around the area.  Instead of just waiting in the car, I have started running or hiking the trail with them.  A really beautiful trail and hike is Beaver Mountain.  The three younger kids hiked the lower loop with me while the other kids mountain biked both the upper and lower loops.  Logan was our guide because he had ridden this loop before and knew the way.  I loved being in the tall pine trees.

Another morning they took a ride up Green Canyon.  This time I decided to run the trail with them.  The funny thing about it was I could keep up with them on the uphill portion of the trail and actually beat a few of the riders to the top.  We went all the way up to the yurt before turning around and heading back down hill.  On the downhill portion though they totally beat me on their bikes.  Oh well I am still pretty impressed I could run as fast as they could bike for most of it.  This was a good 8 mile trail and the scenery was beautiful as well.  I may just have to transition into a trail runner because it is more fun.

For Young Mens, Colby's group planned a mountain biking activity.  They rode up the Blacksmith trail.  

Of course Colby and Ethan bombed up the trail and zoomed back down before anyone else could get halfway.  Their leader, Bro Skaife, was trying his best to keep up with them and he did pretty good but they still beat him.  

All of this and a week long camping trip made July pretty packed with fun.  We love summer!

Spudman 2024

Round 2 of The Great Spudman Triathlon. You'd think we would have learned the first time and quit while we're ahead, but nope we wanted to do it again. This is by far one of the funnest triathlons. The course is perfect and of course we get to do it with each other and some of our friends. This year we brought the whole family and we are glad we did. They had a great time.  We got to Burley, ID the night before the race and stayed in the same RV spot we had last year. It was nice we had our own trailer this time.  After unhooking the trailer and setting it up, we headed to the race area so we could get our race packet and set up our transition areas.  We also got tattooed with our bib numbers on our legs and arms.   

We were ready to do this!  After a carb-loaded spaghetti dinner, we went to bed early to hopefully get some sleep.  Well I didn't get much sleep at all because of race nerves and a migraine headache.  I was not looking forward to getting up in the morning...

Well it was an early morning for us to get there. The kids were still a sleep, and we let them stay that way. We had a later start getting to Burley than last year so we ended up having to park on the side of the road. When we got to the race area, we looked at the time and we had 30 minutes or so before I started. We still had to get our running stuff ready and get into our wet suits. We were there though and made it on time. I was tired but thankfully the migraine had gone away.

We found Colt Pini, Justin Slack and Tim Rohmann who were part of our group. Russell was a little nervous this year because he thought he had slacked on the swimming part of training.  I felt pretty good about the swim because I had practiced a lot this year.  We would soon see if that training helped...

I was in the first wave of the race so I started about 10 minutes before Russell and our friends.  I got in the water and started swimming.  I did really well for a ways but then started to panic a little because it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere.  I kept pushing on though.  I should have swam out farther into the main stream of the river and let it push me but I didn't realize I was so close to the edge.  About 200 yards from the finish line I got totally disoriented and started zig-zagging back and forth so that really messed me up.  I finally got out of the water and tripped on the same stupid rock I tripped on last year... Ugh...  

The swim to bike transition went pretty smooth and soon I was off on my bike.  I was excited about this part of the race because last year I really cruised on the bike portion.  This year though I just could not get going.  I had a head wind the whole time and I was exhausted from no sleep. I basically just trudged along at around 16 mph.  I was passed by so many people which was really frustrating but I could not get my bike to go.  Russell caught up to me at about the 20 mile mark and he was just zooming.  I felt so slow.   

Finally I made it to the second transition point.  I racked my bike and changed my shoes and stared running.  Less than half a mile in I realized I still had my helmet on!  I felt so stupid but there was nothing I could do.  I thought about taking it off and clipping it to my running belt but it kept bouncing and pulling my belt down.  I also thought about stashing it somewhere but I didn't know when I could get back to find it.  Finally I just decided to embrace the ridiculousness and wear the helmet while running.  

I was never going to see these people again so who cared what they thought of me.  And if I tripped, my head would be protected right?  After wasting a few minutes messing with my helmet, I just started running to make up time from the other time events.  Running is my best sport.  I felt so good during the run.  I felt like I made up a bunch of time.  I kept hoping I could catch back up with Russell on the run but he ended up finishing about 30 seconds before me.  I was so excited to see the finish line and sprint downhill through the trees to the finish.

Russell had a much better experience this year and did so well! Here is his experience:  I was worried about the swim because I had not trained very much in swimming.  I sucked it up though and off I went. The swim was not bad I thought to myself as I got out of the water. I ended up taking off a couple minutes from last year. The swim to bike transition was faster also. I felt like this year's ride was a lot easier but Tiffany felt opposite. I ended up catching up with her on the ride. I just kept riding thinking to myself, "I might be able to cross the finish line first this time." The whole time during the race the air was way smoky and overcast. It made it nice to stay cool. I got the the run portion and I had a goal this race to run the whole 10K. Off I went and just kept singing to myself, "put one foot in front of the other, and just keeping running." 

Another fun motivator was getting across the finish line before Tiffany caught up with me. I made it the whole way running and felt good. I thought I had time before Tiffany came across, but I should have know better. As soon as I got out of the finish line area, I heard Tiffany Farnsworth across the PA system. She was only a few seconds behind me. 

We had some funny and learning moments on this race. I laughed when Tiff came across the finish line with her helmet on and wondered what she was doing. As for me, I did not put band aids on my chest and my nipples were bleeding by the time I was finished. Not a good feeling. I looked like hairy chested big foot running into the finish line. 

Spudman #2 was in the bag and we felt great once we were done. Last year was bad for my hydration, I was thirsty all day after the race. This year we found the right drinks and it helped a ton to drink after and put the sodium back in my body. 

Once we were all done, we found our friends and of course compared our times and gave each other a hard time. I ended beating my time from last year and also beat Justin Slack, and Tiffany. It was cool.  Colt Pini  and Tim Rohmann killed all of us though so there is that...  

In the end though we both improved our times from last year.  Russell was able to shave 10 minutes off of his overall time which is awesome.  Even with all of my problems, I was able to cut off 3 minutes from my previous overall time and get under 3 hours which was my original goal.  I cut 2 minutes off of my swim time (which would have been more if I hadn't zig-zagged) so my training did help.  My transition times also improved my a lot.  And my run time also improved even with the helmet fiasco.  Unfortunately my bike time was worse...  But I will take the 3 minute overall improvement.  

I don't know if we will do the Spudman again next year or try something new.  It is fun to do a race together though even if Russell always beats me even without training.

After the race, we headed back to the trailer to get the kids.  The Pini's came with us to hang out for a bit too.  Emily and Colby had a blast hanging out with Hahna and Tony.  We just chilled at the trailer for a while and chatted.  Then the kids wanted to go do something so we loaded up the kayaks and went to find a place to launch them in the Snake River. By the time we got to the place, the weather turned bad fast and it started to rain and thunder.   The water was so choppy that the kids were having a hard time getting back to the shore. We decided to give up on kayaking and headed back to the trailer. The Pini's decided to head home.  

We chilled for a bit at the trailer and then the kids found the small pool at the RV park and wanted to go swimming. We had a great time!  The pool was a little sketchy and pretty small but they kids didn't care.  It was nice to relax on the lounge chair and watch them play.  

We headed home the next day.  This was a fun trip to Idaho. 

Family Campout

It was a fun summer for all of us. We took a camping trip up Logan Canyon near the Rich and Cache County border. Emily and I went up there this last year for the deer hunt and found these cool camping areas for trailer camping. While we were there we did a lot of fun activities and made some fun memories.

 At the campsite we chose, Charlotte found some cool bent trees that looked like horses. Emily remembered these trees from deer hunting last year and she called them the Carousel trees.  There was also a lot of dirt for Char and Brooklyn to play tea party. 

 

There were also plenty of trees for everyone's hammocks. The kids spent most of the first day just chilling in their hammocks. 

The campsite was the perfect middle ground for lots of our activities. We were close to some fun trails to mountain bike, hike, and run on. It was nice and quiet for the first week because we were the only ones in the campsite. It was a great place to camp despite all of the flies and other flying bugs.

Our first adventure of the week was a trip to Tony's Grove. We have become quite fond of Tony's Grove and have gone up there quite a bit every summer. 

We had fun playing around in the water, trying to fish, and kayaking. If they had a chance, the kids would spend all day on the kayaks. This lake is the perfect size and you can see the whole thing. We were lucky to find a spot to chill and put all of our stuff because it was pretty crowded.

We also took a day and went to Minnetonka Caves up above Bear Lake. We have not been to this cave for a long time. The last time we went inside the Cave was the first year we move here. 

The Minnetonka Cave is a cool underground cave that has stalagmites and stalactites and it is really cold. Inside the Cave, we went underground for about a 1/2 mile. The kids had a great time hiking down and up the stairs.  It was so cool to see all of the rock formations and to hear about how they were made and the cave was formed.

Some of the formations even had names like Elsa's Castle, Hogwarts School, the Seven Dwarfs, and more. When we were at the very end of the tour, the guide turned off all of the lights and it was pitch dark! You could not see your hand right in front of you.  

While it was dark, the guide asked if anyone had a real diamond and Tiff went up with her wedding ring. The guide took a green laser and pointed it at the diamond and the laser beam refracted off the diamond and the laser went all over the cave. It looked like a disco ball! The limestone and other minerals in the rocks made the laser beams glow all over the cave.  It was pretty awesome. 

Another day we went to Bear Lake and spent the day playing in the water and eating food. We wanted to go to North Shore and chill, but they do not allow dogs in the park. Our second choice was going to a co-worker's property and hang there. This ended up being really nice because we had the beach to ourselves. 

It was quiet and there was a table to eat and Truly could come and hang out with us. The kids got a lot of sun and a lot of water time!  The kayaks are always a blast to play on and they love them. If they had a choice they would stay out in the water all day and not come in. 

 While we were there, Tiff and I got to do a swim workout too.   With the Spudman coming up in a couple weeks, we needed all of the open water swim time we could get.  The kids had a good time following us as we swam and it was nice to have them there in case we needed a break from swimming.  The cool thing about Bear Lake is the water is so clear!  It was really like swimming in a pool because through your goggles, you could see clear to the bottom of the lake.  This really helped with not panicking while swimming.   

An all day trip to Bear Lake would not be complete without a famous raspberry shake! On the way back through town, we stopped by our favorite place and we all had some great flavored shakes. 

It was worth it after being on the lake and in the sun all day. The best flavor is definitely Raspberry but the kids chose some other yummy flavors too.

Back at camp, we had the best Corn Hole tournament with the whole family. 

It was a good time to just relax and spend with each other. Charlotte was our Corn Hole Queen that day. She was way excited to win and told us all she won.

 During the week, Colby, Logan, and I went on a ride on the Little Bear trail just up the road from our camp. It was a fun down hill trail, but we knew the 3.5 miles back up would be no fun. It is always fun taking these two out on a trail. Logan is getting better every time. Colby is always bombing down the trail and going crazy. Tiff and Emily decided to run the trail instead of bike and they also loved the downhill but not so much the uphill.  

Another fun hike we did was just up the way from our camp site. It was a short but cool hike called Limber Pine. 

This trail was a very family friendly hike and more of a nature walk.  Along the way, there were signs giving us different information about the plants and environment we were walking through.  There were some big old trees on the trail. 

Some were alive like this huge multi trunk tree.  From the sign near this tree, we learned that this was one of the oldest trees in this area.  We also learned that the reason this tree and other trees like it have multiple trunks is because over the years, squirrels stored their seeds and nuts inside the trees and eventually if the seeds did not get eaten they start to germinate and grow into trees inside of another tree.  So technically these trees are multiple trees all growing together in one.  Pretty cool right?  

Other trees were dead and had fallen over.  This tree's root ball was huge. It was a little taller then Colby!

At about the halfway point we came across a little rock garden full of rock cairns.  We decided to build one of our own there too.

Throughout the forest, we saw many of these L shaped trees.  The kids called them horse trees because they could sit on them like a horse.  After reading the sign by the trees, we learned why they grown that way.  While the tree was growing, it got buried with heavy snow one winter.  The crown part of the tree was bent over and damaged by the snow.  Then a secondary branch took over and started growing straight up in the crowns place. Because it was still bent over when it started to regrow, the tree now has that bend permanently.  The new growing trunk (after the bend) is also smaller than the original trunk that is in the ground because it has been growing for less years.  Nature is pretty cool.  I am glad that I have a family that likes to be outdoors and explore different things. 

It was cool to spend my 41st birthday on the mountain and chill with the family. 

We even got the other Farnsworth clan to come up and party with us. The kids loved hanging out with Mavis and Eloise.  They played in the dirt, made a little camp in the trees, and practiced their improv shows on the tailgate of the toy hauler.  

I had dutch oven potatoes, BBQ chicken, and peach cobbler for my birthday cake.  Oh and homemade Raspberry Ice cream. Yum!  Thanks to Logan for cranking the ice cream maker basically the whole time after everyone else got bored with it.  It was a great night. 

The last fun trip we did was head to White Pine Lake. Tiff has always wanted to hike there from Tony's Grove. I had a mountain bike ride with the team that day, so I rode my bike from the Bunch Grass trail head while the rest of the family went to Tony's Grove and hiked and biked from that trail head. 

It was my first time on the Bunch Grass trail so I had only heard two things about it. Expect a lot of climbing and it is about 6 miles up. Oh boy I thought. It was a fun trail though and lot of amazing scenery. I planned on a longer ride and my goal was to get to the top. I rode for 6 miles and I was not at White Pine yet. I was getting a little tired but I kept pushing on. I finally saw someone and he said I had one more hill climb and it's the hardest but I was almost there. Great, I thought. I got to the top and there was everyone from the bike team waiting on me. Oh well I made it. I did make it before the rest of the family though so I got a chance to chill and see the amazing views of White Pine. The lake was awesome. It was well worth the ride and finishing.

Emily and Colby made it not to long after. They had planned to mountain bike up the trail from Tony's Grove but they told me it was a lousy trail and they ended up hiking their bikes for most of it. Tiff, Logan, Charlotte, Brooklyn and Truly hiked the whole way and made it as well. 

The hike up to White Pine from Tony's Grove was amazing!  It was such a beautiful hike with wild flowers everywhere you looked.  We started early so that we could beat the heat and get to the Lake by lunch time.  Logan and Charlotte were troopers and hiked along with me.  The beginning of the trail was really washed out and rutty.  This made it hard for Emily and Colby to ride their bikes.  Once we got passed that part though the trail was pretty well marked and good.  The trail wound around the mountains and meadows and then up and over the mountain making a steep decent for the last mile.  This decent was nice for viewing purposes though because you could look out and see for miles.  At about the halfway point there is a fork in the trail. Going left leads you to Mt. Naomi Peak and then on to Green Canyon (if you want to go that far).  I would love to go back and hike to Mt. Naomi sometime.  We turned right though and continued on to White Pine.  After making the steep decent, we finally made it to White Pine Lake and the 4 mile mark of the hike.  If I thought the scenery along the tail was great, White Pine was even better!

This is a beautiful lake and a well kept secret.  There are camp sites up here for backpackers though so there were actually more people up here than I thought there would be.  We took advantage of the peaceful place and rested for a while before heading back.

We all chilled for a while and hiked around the lake. We ate lunch, fueled up, and the boys played in the water. They said the water was way cold. On the other side of the lake there was still some snow left to add to the water being cold. We did not want to leave this amazing place but we knew we had a long way to go still.  After about an hour, we decided it was time to head back.  

Emily and Colby decided to ride back on the Bunch Grass trail with Russell and do the down hill part. It was fun to see them book it down the hill. They made it back to the parking area way before we made it to the truck to pick them up. They chilled on the side of the road in whatever shade they had and waited. 

Logan, Charlotte, Brooklyn, and I made the trek 4 mile back to the truck the same way we came.  Brooklyn wanted to walk so she walked for a good mile before the trail started getting really steep.  She loved running along with the big kids and jumping off every rock she would find.

When the trail got steep, we knew we were now climbing that big decent from before.  This time though it was a huge ascent.  I knew it was a mile of climbing so I told Logan I was going to take it slowly especially with a 50 lb pack carrying Brooklyn.  I was wishing I had remembered to bring my trekking poles for support... Finally I had Logan and Charlotte find me two long straight sticks I could use as trekking poles.  Logan was on the hunt and found me some great sticks.  Those sticks were a big help climbing up that mountain.  Charlotte was also getting tired so I gave her one of the sticks and told her to just take it slowly like me.  We finally made it up the mile climb and I was so glad when the trail flattened out and even started to decline.  We walked for a little bit more before stopping at a small grove with a big log to sit on.  We sat down and rested our legs and my back.  Brooklyn was asleep so I didn't want to wake her up by taking off the pack.  We ate some more snacks and then headed on our way after our rest.  We continued on making pretty good time and finally made it back to Tony's Grove.  We were all tired by this point but I was so glad to have done the hike.  We hiked a total of 8 miles and climbed 1,350 feet.  I think that is pretty awesome kids! Good job!  This hike was on my Summer Bucket List and I was happy to check it off. I would definitely do it again. 

Everyone was really tired the rest of the day so we just chilled. All of our Garmin watches said our body battery was empty.

The next day we packed up our camp and headed home.  This was a great camping trip and a lot of memories were made. If only everyday could be spent on the mountain!