Summer Art

Our friends Jared and Nancy were here visiting. Jared runs the Central Utah Art Center and does a summer program for kids, so I asked if they would be willing to teach some of us here. They taught a three day class focusing on color. Here is our tye dye project. Landon, Claire, Caden and Isaac.
Tye Dye with sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol.
The same process tying bands around different size balls and using the sharpie markers then spraying with the rubbing alcohol. Brooke, Nadine, Samantha and Dallin.

Claire, Caden, Hunter, Elizabeth and Maddie.
Haydn with Alex in back.

The end result over the mason jar.
Landon still at work on his shirt.
Final results. Shirts look awesome.
Jared our teacher.
Landon and Dallin.
Brooke
Well worth the wait.

Goofin' Around

Just another day of play. Claire, Brooke and Grant always play so well together.
Brooke makes a great bat girl.
One of Grant's favorite things to do is play in my pillows on my bed so I decided to play around with my camera since he was a willing participant. Wish I had my bigger lens.



Fly away wonder woman.

Lazy Sundays

Still in his Sunday clothes, Grant decided to set up the sprinkler to cool off.

Saying Goodby is Never Fun

It was time to say goodbye to our good friends the Skabelunds who have been here for 18 months. I always hesitate to make friends when I know someone is going to be moving. Although it was hard not to get to know such wonderful people. I am so glad we did. We will miss them very much. Good luck in Japan!!!

Maki, Jeremy and Hikari.

Two true Dodger fans.
A letter Claire wrote on 9-2-08. - My Best Friend - Have you ever made a friend? I have. I made Jordan, Madison, Zoe, Olie, Maddie, Olivia, Natalie. Zoe and me like to do is play Barbie's and house and hair. We like doing Barbie's hair. Hieckoty (Hikari) was a good good friend of mynd. She teach me how to ride my bike. I went slow and fast it was fun. I can go on my bike by myself wahoooo said me I went sooper dooper fast. I was going to crash into Hiecoty (Hikari), I stopt. the end. ( I wish I could draw the picture she drew on the letter) We will miss our friends.

Wicked Fourth of July

On July 1st I took Claire to see Wicked. She totally loved it, and wants to go again. The next day we went to visit our friends in Nyssa, Oregon for the Fourth of July. We were actually in the Fourth of July parade in Vale riding in a covered wagon. Grant loved the beautiful horses and Claire loved throwing candy at people. It was good to be with such good friends.

Beautiful view from Travis & Misty's.

Oly & Claire getting ready for the parade.



The beautiful horses, that pulled our wagon.
Buy Oregon Onions. They are mouth watering.


Our very own fireworks show. Something we can't do where we live. It was really cool to watch the fireworks all over the valley.
Our gracious hosts. Misty & ??, Oly, Garrison & Travis Page. Thanks for such a great Fourth. Misty always spoils me. Claire would not take a family picture so to this date we still don't have family pictures.

Memories

One of my favorite memories of my mom is every summer we would go to Santa Cruz for a couple day excursion with our best friends Marilyn and Teresa. We would shop, cruise the boardwalk and relax on the beach. It was a fun little tradition that she did with me every summer. Eating of course was one of our favorite things to do. We often would eat at a restaurant called the Shadowbrook in Capitola. All the waiters were male which probably made the experience all the better as a teenager. Our last trip to Santa Cruz was August 1989 before I left on my mission. Mom has been gone two years on July 4 and I cherish the memories I have of her. Missing you Mom.

A Christmas Carol Train Tour

We went back to Old Sacramento to check out the train tour for the movie coming in November. We of course had to wait in a line (as with anything Disney), but once inside got to see the making of the movie, also see some original writings of Charles Dickens which was really cool, some of the costumes and models used to re-create this movie. At the end we got to morph our faces into some of the characters and then saw a preview of the movie in 3D. It was interesting to see Claire still jump at the 3D effects, Grant was truly not affected by it at all.