Where does the time go?

Oh my goodness!  What in the world am I doing up at 2:00am!!!!  Important stuff, thats what.  This here is the project I have been finishing up, just in time for tomorrow evening....

Priesthood Jeopardy.  The last and final family home evening we will be doing for Caleb before that ever important 12th birthday.  Holy Cow!  He is almost 12.  Yikes.  There are so many more things I probably should have tried to teach him, or could have done to help him feel more ready...but this is it.  Hopefully there will be some fun involved, and some learning and some cooperation from all the kids.  Where does the time go?  Caleb is almost 12.  We could not be more proud of the young man he has become.  Now, I want time to hold still, just for a moment.  He is sweet, still innocent, honest, happy, hard-working, helpful, faithful, intelligent, and loving.  A young man trying his best.  All that we would want and ask for.  We love this awesome kid!

Tradition

Rodeo season, it is here in Utah!  Oh, we love a good rodeo.  When we moved to West Jordan, 9ish years ago, we started something.  We started going to the rodeo.  Some would say it was to celebrate the 4th of July.  But oh, there is something bigger behind it all.  Caleb's birthday.  Falls right in that perfect, fun time of year.  Rodeos, fireworks, parades, sun and fun.  The rodeo is to be together, to cheer and get excited and have fun.  It is also for Caleb, our awesome boy who was born at this fun time of year.  And so the tradition continues.  We go to the rodeo, for his birthday.

 We went to Strawberry Days again, in Pleasant Grove.  It is such a fun rodeo!  Not too far, tons of fun action.

 Yes, they have mutton busting.  Always fun to watch.  But at the Strawberry Days Rodeo they do something called the "cash cow."  You can see my three awesome the-die boys running out there to take their place.

 And here you can see the hundreds of kids running around the arena.  What are they doing?  Something totally cool!  The rodeo people tape real money to young cows (approximately 3-4 cows), hence the term "cash cow".  They tell all these rowdy kids to come onto the arena floor and gear up as they release the "cash cows" from the shoots and the kids run around like crazy trying to yank the money off of the cow.  So much fun to watch!  They do warn the older kids to watch out of for young ones and the young ones to watch out for each other.  We are not trying to teach stampedes or anything.  Just some good, clean, crazy fun.

Other awesome moments in the rodeo not pictured.  Rob's favorite, the wild cow milking event.  Several milk producing cows are put in the shoots with rather long ropes tied around their necks.  Enough companionships of brave men are then led onto the arena floor.  The cows are released from the shoots and the object of the game is for these companionships of men to grab onto one of those ropes and get control of the cow long enough to get an amount of milk out of her.  The wildness ensued when these men were dragged along the arena floor trying to get a hold of these cows and be the first.  Hilarious! 

Diedre's favorite is the barrel racing.  I love to watch those beautiful, fast horses.  The boys just love the excitement and Haley really got into cheering.  So much fun!

But was it over?  Oh no!  Even though it was so incredibly late they had one more event.  BMX style motorcycles.  Our camera takes awful night shots.  But here they are setting up the ramps for one dirt bike and one 4 wheeler to go around and around the arena, jumping into the air and doing tricks for all of us to eat up and love!  The highlight?  When the motorcycle did his flip!!!!  The tradition continues and it was super fun!  Love our little family and all those crazy, fun moments.

ok, ok; summer at home can be fun too.

What's that you say?  We had fun without a lake nearby?  Well, we had to make due.  :)  Since soccer practice started up this week and we could not go to the cabin, we went bowling.  For free.  Yes!

 We all had a lot of fun!

 This little girl won both games.

 William enjoyed his success of spares.  Caleb even got his first strike ever!  Good times.

 We also got to see an old-time car show.  Sweet cars.  And the kids had a history lesson in who exactly is Herbie and why was this car supposed to be so cool.

Yeah, I guess summer can be pretty fun at home too.  Today we are going bowling again today and then best of all, the RODEO!!! Should be another good day.

Summers are not the same without the LAKE

Oh yeah!  You better believe we went to the cabin and tried to make the most of it.  We have to!  This place, Scofield, is the best place in the Summer!  No doubt.  But it seems that soccer and scouts and stuff may not let us be there super long this year.  How sad.  So, we have to take what we can get.  Just today after church, every single child was bummed that we would not be making the drive to the cabin.  What?????  Terrible in my books too.  But on to the good news....

 

Beautiful!  Just simply beautiful to be there with these cuties.

 This kid, awesome!  Soccer practice at the cabin. Why not run up and down the road for 15 minutes, get winded, and stronger?  Thats what he did.

 Of course we got in the water!  And yes, it was cold.

 But when you have this cool snorkel gear and you are as awesome as the Gray kids, you can handle some cold water.  The funniest thing was to hear Caleb try and talk while the snorkel was in his mouth.  He could not pronounce his "R" nor his "B", and he sounded like he was in a cave.  Such a cool family!

 I know, it is hard to tell, but all those little white things are pelicans.  It was an art gallery worthy painting.  All those pelicans scattered across the water, beautiful mountains all around, happy family in the truck, at our favorite place ever.

 I had to go get William out of the lake and Peter was really hungry.  Caleb, being the cool kid he is, stepped up to the stove and cooked dinner for he and Peter.  Such a rad kid!

 Scofield tradition, blueberry Eggos for breakfast.  Haley asked me today where was her blueberry Eggo?  I had to, sadly, tell her it is at Scofield.

 We saw elk!  I love nature.

And we even saw a freakin' beaver!  Out of the water, grooming itself and munching on something.  We have seen in them in the water, but never on the shore.  SCORE!  We watched it for as long as we could.  Got as close as we could.  Then watched it some more as it swam around the shoreline.  It was so cool!

And this sunset, beautiful and perfect.  I am not sure if it is noticeable or not but at the very bottom, along the shore, was a mystery bird walking along.  We have since found out they are sandhill cranes, but it our little band of awesome lake people, we will forever, and lovingly, call it the mystery bird.  It looked like the sky was on fire.  The clouds were making beautiful shapes.  The perfect place to spend summer!

It is Official!

 This Kid! Awesome.  Hard working. An official member of The Utah Glory Competition soccer team.  Whoa

 The end of school came.  And this kid made some fun friends in school and did really well!

 This kid is so glad he will have more time to play.

 This kid, yup that same awesome one, is no longer in elementary school.  This 6th grade class is on their way up.

 This kid, wow, is so very smart and tries his very best.  And that teacher, wow, is the very best we could have asked for.

Yup, here comes summer!  Last day of riding his bike home from school.  Did I say he is awesome?  Yes.  He made several goals this year for school, and I am pretty sure he completed them all. Of the few; 1) take home lunch every day - check. 2) be on time for school and there every day -check. 3) ride bike to school and home from school every day - check.  Yes, even in blizzards and the like, he kept every goal.  We are so proud of him.

 

It is officially summer, the kiddy pool is out and being used.

 End of summer trip to the zoo.  Yup, it is official, they are ready for summer...but mom is not quite so ready.