A Little Summer Update!

I have been putting off writing in my blog for way to long now.  So now that means I am going to be lazy and group a few events together so I can hopefully catch up a little quicker.  

This summer flew by, just like summer always does.  It was a good thing too because half of my summer was spent away from my Bradley.  From the time Brad left for Alaska till the day I did, my weekends were booked with a lot of family time.  I couldn't have asked for a better family to get the time to go by faster!  My last post was about our trip to Lava that is usually about the middle of July.  So from there till the time I get to Alaska is what this is going to be about! :)

First off, was Rodeo Weekend.  We go to the Famous Preston Night Rodeo along with the parades and carnival every year since before I can even remember!  It's a tradition that I look forward to every year!

On the Sunday of Rodeo Weekend, we also always have a family reunion in Preston.  It was fun, as always, and after we went back to my grandma's and played a few games!  This is when I had to say good-bye to my cousin Katie!  She was headed out to play college soccer at Iowa Western (the same place I did!!), and it was a bitter-sweet moment!  I was so excited for her, but sure do miss her at all our family get-togethers now!

The weekend after Rodeo weekend, my grandma asked us to join her in the Relay For Life that was being held in Preston.  She is a cancer survivor, and we were so excited to support her in it!  I was amazed by how many people were there either because they survived cancer or had a loved one who they lost from the dreaded disease!  It was really fun, and I'm so happy that we got to be there for my Grandma!

  

The Saturday after the run my cousin, Connor, made the decision to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I was beyond proud of him.  He is so lucky to have such an amazing group of supporters around him, and even more a little sister who made that decision just a year before! Their lives are going to be forever changed, and words can't express how proud I am of both of them!  This world is so crazy these days, and when two kids like these two can decide at such a young age where their priorities lie you know that they are something special.  No matter what anyone tells you, Connor Boy, this church is true and it is going to make you the happiest person ever.  I know for that for a fact!  So proud of you!

That was the last of my summer before I headed out to Alaska!  My summers continue to get better and better each year.  I have the BEST family to spend it with and Brad and I are so blessed to have them in our lives!

Lava Hot Springs

Every year for as long as I can remember we have gone to Lava Hot Springs over the weekend that Josh's birthday falls.  I think that ends up being about the 3rd weekend in July every year.  It used to be that we'd just go to the pool on Sunday, but as of the last few years we've gone camping for the whole weekend!  It's always a weekend I look forward to!  We do the same thing every year, but it's still so much fun!

We got there on Friday and set up camp.  We had dinner as soon as we could because we were all starving.  Then we played bocce ball, horse shoes, some ninja game that I forgot the name of, word on the street, animal noise games, and others that I'm sure I'm forgetting!  We are full of games, and ALWAYS find ourselves laughing!

This is just a quick little video we caught did of Jack!  He's my mom's most favorite dog, and he is spoiled to say the least!  We all make fun of him that he's not too smart even though she'll argue with us that he's the smartest out of all the dogs.  In this video he actually does seem pretty smart ;)

The next day we always float the river all day.  We've learned over the years that if we get the huge quad tubes we don't come out with river wounds.  To anyone who's ever floated the river there you know that it can be pretty brutal if you fall off your tube!  We always hang out by the big waterfall, and the boys look for sunglasses that other not-so-lucky people have lost.  Then we usually float the river a couple times!  We had a few head bonks going off the waterfalls, but overall our injuries stayed at a bare minimum...which is good for us!
That night we played more games, and we celebrated Josh's birthday because that was his actual "birth date".  We threw in my mom's name when we sang happy birthday to him because hers was just a few days prior.

This video made me laugh so hard because my dad sings "jolly, jolly, jolly" the whole time (standing for Josh and Molly). 

On our last day we always spend it at the pool.  It's been tradition for our whole family to have a competition down the slides to see how can get the farthest.  There's always like 10-15 of us lined up at the bottom of the slide from standing where we stopped.  It's always so fun!  This year we also played lots of soccer and had a Bocce ball competition!

I have the BEST family in the world!  It was so fun to be together with everyone, and we all missed Brad so much!  Having such a fun weekend to look forward to, though, did make the time go by much faster!