Sam's eventful week...

Sam started soccer (well his first game was last week but it was cold and rainy that day so no pictures).

Sam lost his first tooth! He has been waiting and waiting for this to happen. As far as I was concerned, I would have been happy if he didn't lose his first set of teeth until jr. high. But he got really concerned when his cousin Jenna pulled her tooth out by herself at our house. So a few days before school started (when he was supposed to be practising going to bed early) he kept on coming out and coming out and wiggling it and saying, "When do you think this will come out? What day? I think it is a little more loose now." etc." So... I pulled it out. So he could settle down and fall asleep. He was thrilled!

First day of school. First grade is a long day. We're excited for his teacher... and still anxious for him. Every night this whole week, before he goes to bed, he lays out his clothes on his bedroom floor. I thought he'd just do it the first day of school, we'll see how long it lasts.

Alpine Days...

So, this really shouldn't be entitled Alpine Days since I haven't attended any of the festivities other than the parade and fireworks since I was a teenager. But we call it Alpine Days anyway, since that's our designated "family" reunion... which no one attends :)
Ha ha, family members would be offended if they read my blog. Which most don't (except for you important few -- you know who you are, aka anyone who happens to read this blog). But in their defense, I live close and can easily attend while others live far away and lives get busy and hectic. As Michael explained to his mom, it's a big bunch and even if only half attend it's a lot of people. But here are a few pics of the event... and a few extra festivities that happened on our weekend.

Friday night rodeo, which was kind of a bust this year. Last year the kids were able to try and catch a chicken, and it was entertaining. But this year, I think it was poorly organized and boring to watch so we bailed early.

We left and went to get snow cones. Most of the kids got Tiger's Blood flavoring, which I think is probably just cherry with 4 times the amount of red dye, but the kids loved it. I refrained from posting the grossest pic of Katelyn's teeth. It looked like someone punched her in the mouth and her teeth looked all bloody...

Here are Sam and Luke seriously waiting for the parade to make its way to us. (We almost always sit at the very end of the parade route because it's up the street from my dad's place.) It was a good parade because it was short! About an hour, which is good.

Jared and his friend Julie planned a hike up to Timp Cave and invited us to tag along, so we went. I teasingly told the kids I needed a recent picture of all of them in case we lost them on the mountain and we would give it to the police to post on the news. Little did I know how true that statement could be, because it's a pretty treacherous hike. It has been probably 15 years since I hiked that hike and my memory must not be very good, because although the way is paved the entire way, it has steep switchbacks about a mile and a half up the mountain, and right NEXT to the paved 4 foot wide path is 100 foot drop... to the next path that you passed 10-15 mins before. So I think you could literally fall all the way down the mountain. So we risked life and limb of our kids and my brother's kids up this mountain. Needless to say, it was a nervous hike for us, and MUCH harder than I remembered.

This is half of us on the switchback above us. Katelyn and I brought up the rear most of the time. The kids did great and hiked the whole way on their own. Katelyn got a piggy back ride for a brief time, but for the most part did it by herself. She said her favorite part "was eating food" (the snacks we brought).

Then we went swimming and had pizza.

That night before bed, we checked on Katelyn and saw her asleep with her parade loot.

What a weekend!

Kennecott Copper Mine

I've lived in Utah my whole life and never been here...
So we took the kids for a drive and went to see it. It was really cool to see. I don't have all the facts but it is one of the only man made things you can see from space, and if I remember right they said that if the empire state building were in here it wouldn't even reach halfway up the hole.



So, take a look at those little trucks going up the path there are 4 right in a row they kinda look like ants.

Now take a look a this tire that the kids are standing by. This is one of the wheels that goes on those little trucks.

24th of July

Our ward did a really cute bike parade and breakfast for the 24th of July. My kids were excited ALL week to decorate their bikes and ride in a parade.
I think they went around the circle 100 times. They didn't want to stop. It was such a fun activity for them.

This is Sam's sunflower he planted in kindergarten and we transplanted it at home. It's much bigger now and the sunflower heads are so heavy they point at the ground. Which was a point of much concern for Sam until we found other sunflowers doing the same thing.

Trip to the zoo

This summer we've also been to the zoo with the cousins. The kids had a blast as we melted because we went on the hottest day of the year.

Every time I turned around Sam and Jenna were studying the map of the zoo.
The highlight is always the train ride.

Pet update.

So, an update on our pet. It escaped. Twice. Sadly, we have no pictures of Linny. I thought I'd have ample time to capture the bunny on camera and now... it's gone. Here's a picture of what we thought might be the end of Linny. Our neighbor's cat eyeing it from the tops of the fence. And you can see our reinforcements of the boards pushed up to the cage by the slides. But it squeezed out. The first time some neighbors found him and brought him home. The second time Linny knew better because he was no where to be seen. Sam was lamenting his loss to a neighbor boy when his dad overheard and told Michael that he saw him when he was out running (about a mile from our home) so... I'm trying to decide if we get a replacement.