June 2024

Summer is finally here!!  We are so excited to finally be out of school and ready to have a lot of fun in the sunshine.  To start out the month of June, the kids and I headed down to St. George to spend some time with family.  While I was hiking Rim 2 Rim in the Grand Canyon, the kids got to spend some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa Morwood.  

When I got back from the Grand Canyon, we went and hung out at a few of the splash pads in St. George.  The kids' favorite was the big one at the St. George Town Square by the Library.  When we lived in St. George, this was one of their favorites then as well.  It was fun to introduce this park to Charlotte and Brooklyn.

When Emily was Brooklyn's age, she loved standing by this statue and spraying people with the hose.  Look how much she has grown over the years!  And look how much Brooklyn looks like Emily.

The kids' favorite part of the splash pad was the lazy river.  They loved wading in the water and even made a human dam and backed up the water in the river causing it to overflow.

They did like laying under the waterfalls as well and letting the cool water splash on them.

The splash pad was also fun.  I think this was Brooklyn's favorite area to play in.  She liked sitting on the sprayers and letting the water spray her in the bum. 

The kids also had a blast playing in the Hughes' pool.

The pool was the perfect depth for all of the kids to play in.  Brooklyn and Charlotte are fish and love the water.  Fynlee also like playing with the girls but liked to stay on the ladder.  

We loved our time in St. George spending time with cousins.  It was hot but we loved being warm after the long winter.

Russell and I are still the Activity Day Leaders for the older boys group.  We have Logan and all of his friends in our group so we love this calling.  For one of their activities, the boys wanted to do an obstacle course.  Instead of obstacles we decided to do group challenges.

First they had to get from one point to an other using only squares, then they had to get everyone on a 3x3 square and stay there for 5 seconds.  Finally they did a human knot and had to try to untangle their arms without letting go of their hands.  These activities were fun and created a lot of laughter. We did realize we had a little too many leaders and not enough followers because the human knot ended in kids getting mad and walking away frustrated.  Oh well you live and learn.  I guess we won't be doing the human knot game again anytime soon.

June 16 was Father's Day so we had a blast spending time at Porcupine Reservoir.

The water was so cold as usual but we had a great time kayaking, swimming, picnicking, and enjoying being together as a family.  Russell and the kids went out on the kayaks and the wind was so bad that they had a rough time coming back to shore.  I think Colby got stuck a ways down from our area because the wind was blowing him back.  Finally after paddling so hard they all made it back to the shore.  Russell and I were going to do an open water swim for the first time this season but decided it was way to windy and choppy to do any swimming.  Other than the wind, we had a great time.

When we got home we gave Russell his Father's Day gifts.  Happy Father's Day!!

Mountain Bike season has started again and Emily and Colby are back on the team.  Russell is the Assistant Coach again this year so that has kept him busy. This picture was taken during their first time practicing at Beaver Mountain:

You can't tell very well from the picture but it was snowing on them!  Russell had to take a picture to document that their ride at Beaver Mountain in June was in the snow.  They said it was a pretty cold ride.

June is also baseball season.  We spent basically every night at the baseball fields watching Charlotte and Logan play baseball.  This was Charlotte's first year playing coach pitch softball and she loved it.

Charlotte did a great job playing softball.  She was able to hit the ball every time she was at bat. She also did a really good job in the outfield making sure to get the ball whenever it came to her or being ready when it didn't.  Her team was the Ladies in Pink and her coaches were really fun.

Logan's team this year was Rangers.  He had a good season and learned a lot.

Unfortunately he was only able to play catcher a couple of times because his coach put him in the outfield most of the time.  Logan was kind of mad about that but he made the best of the situation and did well in whatever position he was put in.  Logan liked playing with his teammates and making new friends.

For our big summer Day Camp activity for the Activity Day boys was a trip to Bear Lake.  We spent the day playing on the beach, swimming, and kayaking on the North Shore.  This was such a fun activity.  There were many water fights, and burying each other in the sand.  The boys had a great time.

On the way home from Bear Lake, we stopped at Macy's for some ice cream.  The boys were so tired and a couple had sunburns even though we tried hard to make them put on sunscreen.  This activity was a success.

When we got home from Bear Lake we had to hurry and get ready for the kids piano recital.  This recital was their fun "Pops" recital where they can pick and perform any song they want to learn.

The kids did so well on the pieces they chose.  Colby decided to learn "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey.  He loved learning this song and did so great on his performance.  Everyone in the audience was bobbing their heads and you could tell they were singing the song in their heads.  Good job Colby!  Logan performed "Harry's Wondrous World" from Harry Potter.  I am not surprised Logan picked a song from Harry Potter because he loves Harry Potter books.  He did a great job performing this song too.  Finally Emily chose to play " I Ain't Worried" from Maverick Top Gun.  This was also a great performance and everyone was dancing in their seats to it.   This was Emily's last piano recital so it was good to go out with a good number.  She has decided to be done with piano lessons because she is getting so busy with other things in high school.  I think she has learned so much about piano and will be able to use her talent in the future.  Now Charlotte will take her place in piano lessons starting in August.  To be honest, and I might be biased, I really think these three were the best performers in the whole recital! 

For Young Men's Deacon's Camp this year, Colby and Russell headed to City of Rocks in Idaho and spent a few days learning to rock climb.  The Deacon's group had a great time and really got out of their comfort zone climbing the rocks.

They all did a great job though and took on every challenge that was thrown at them.  Colby loved climbing and was able to do all of the courses.  He was even able to face climb the whole rock on his own.  The boys also went hiking and ate lots of Oreos and food.  Some boys even went a little crazy eating Crystal Light powder. Then the boys wouldn't go to sleep and Brother Skaife had to use his dad voice.  Ha Ha.  For the last day they went to Lava Hot Springs and got to go swimming and playing in the hot springs.  A good time was had by all.  

While Russell and Colby were gone, I took the rest of the kids to Beaver Mountain for the Bjorr Mountain Bike Race.  For being the assistant coach, Russell got two free entries into the race so Emily and Logan took advantage of that and participated in the race.  This was Logan's first mountain bike race and he did amazing!  

Logan raced with other 11-12 year old boys and did one full Beaver Mountain lap which is a little over 5 miles.  He cruised as fast as he could passing a few boys along the way.  He did say he wrecked at one spot because a boy stopped right in front of him but the wreck was more of a tip over on the bike so he was fine.  Logan ended up finishing 12 out of 17 boys and getting a time of 33 minutes.  Pretty good for his first race.

Emily also did great in her race.  She has been focusing on Cross Country running so this race was just a for fun thing.  I told her to use it as a base for the rest of the season to see how she can improve.  

Emily raced hard.  She competed against the other Freshmen and Sophomore girls and did 2 laps so around 11 miles.  The hill back up to start the second lap is a killer so she took it nice and steady.  Emily was able to finish with a time of 1:02 which is pretty great!  I probably should have left her in the JV category that Russell put her in because she would have gotten a placement award.  Sorry...

In the end though they both did amazing.  I am too scared to really get into mountain biking so every time I see the kids race, I am so proud of them.  I hope they are proud of their achievements as well.

This was a great practice run for the mountain bike season coming up.  We will be heading to more bike races toward the end of the summer.  Both Colby and Emily will be participating on the Mountain Bike team.  Logan can start next year.

This cute girl has started to read!

Well okay she mostly just memorized the story with the pictures but still!  Brooklyn can read this whole book, Are You There Little Tiger?, by herself.  She was so proud of herself.  

This has been a month of fun.  We are glad Summer is here!