I mentioned that back in May a lady ran into me in the school parking lot. Her insurance was a PAIN to work with. They were snails. Finally by July 1st, it was approved to take the van into the shop and get a rental. The shuttle came and picked me up to take me to Park City to get the rental at the Avis counter at the Yarrow Hotel. It wasn't till I was at the counter that I realized my license was IN our van at the shop in Heber. We called the shop and tried unsuccessfully to have it faxed over. I was out of options and did not know WHAT to do. I decided to text Matt to see where he was. He said, "I am in Park City." I said, "So am I, I need you! Meet me at the Yarrow Hotel." He was like "Whaaaaaaa???"
Independence Day!
We met up with the family at Scera Park in Orem for a pic nic. On his first outing since I had seen him at the hospital was little Oliver Woolf Taylor! Taylor boy number five.
Lindsey posted this picture because it is a rare thing for Ollie not to be crying. As we walked up to the picnic he was wailing away. Shafer had him over one arm like this as he made a sandwich for himself. Definitely not their first baby!
That night Mallerie and her friends started hiking to the top of Timp at 6 pm! She called me as we were coming up Provo Canyon just after 9 pm to say they were already at the top! They literally ran the trail. They watched the fireworks in both Utah County and Wasatch County from up there. We were watching the fireworks in Midway. I texted her that Memorial Hill caught on fire. She texted back, "I know, I can see it!"
I spent the morning driving the beautiful Gaurdsman's Pass to Brighton to pick up Ava from Beehive Camp. She had such a marvelous time with her besties Ana and Rachel.
It was hard to keep track of when the girl's were coming and going all summer long! That same week Katrina was in Nashville with Debate.
Then a couple of weeks later Mallerie went to northern California with her friend Jessica!
When people asked if we were taking a summer vacation I rattled off the states and places we had gone: Nevada, California, Oregon, Nashville, Brighton, Girl's Camp, etc....
We just hadn't gone all together.
SONdays
Matt was made a High Priest in July. It probably seems like just yesterday he was a boy sitting in the window waiting for church to start.
MUSEUM OF NATURAL CURIOSITY
Ashley was going to be gone for a few days so she enlisted Ava and Alivia to come stay at their house to babyside while Cade was at work each day. Sadie brought Alivia and Landrie from Elko and we met up in Lehi at Thanksgiving Point's new museum. Lindsey also met us with her crew. It's great! I texted the following picture to Matt, "That is Callie up there!" He texted back, "Where ARE you??" I love messin with him.
This Lego room would have been Graham's very favorite had it not been for the train room. For-get about it! I didn't have to wonder where he was the rest of the time.
Callie however, she was all over the place. At one point I could only find her head.
A lady came up to us and asked if we were Sadie's sisters. She could tell just by watching us. She took a photo to send to Sadie, "Look who I ran into!"
There is this one area that had dark tunnels. There are camera's filming the kids inside which show screens outside the tunnel. Lindsey and I sat there and watched the kids go back and forth. Graham passed by sobbing. Then his face was right in front of the camera. He looked so distraught with his eyes glowing. Somehow he got out of there and into my arms. He was a sweaty mess. We headed out of that area.
Lindsey and I took both our tribes to Dickey's BBQ afterwards for a family style meal so we didn't have to try and keep order's straight. We kept it even easier by telling everyone we were just having water. The water button was attached to the red punch at the fountain machine. At first a few of the kids got punch by mistake, but as the evening went on and the "mistake" was still happening, we started to wonder. At one point Zeke was walking back to the table with a tall cup of punch. Lindsey said, "Zekey...." He said, "It's magic, I put in water and as I was walking it just turned red!"
Cade brought Alivia and Ava to the Timponogos Temple on Saturday to do baptisms. They even got to see Grandpa while they were there. They had a ball staying at the Taylor's. They said that one night Cade got home from work, put on his apron and made a cake after dinner. Then he got out a needle and thread and sewed up the holes in his corn sacks. They like seeing the domestic side of him I guess!
UNPLUGGED!
Once again Heber Valley hosted the Unplugged program. They made a fort, had a lemonade stand, made smoothies, and went on a bird walk, among many other things. All this to be able to earn a brag tag and be entered in the weekly drawing.
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| Alivia supporting the boys snow cone stand. We enjoyed having her for a sleepover. Kate also stayed with us during the summer. |
Was this worth it??? YES. Yes it was!!!!!
Yeah, that is a franklin Graham is holding. I was giving him a hair cut when I got the text from the gal from the Chamber of Commerce. I read to Graham, "Congratulations Graham Bocanegra week 7 winner of the Unplugged drawing. Come in to get your picture taken and to pick up your one hundred dollar bill." He was ecstatic to say the least.
I will tell you that having your 7 year old handed a one hundred dollar bill isn't a dream come true. In fact, I wish they would have had ten winners and only give them $10 each. Graham wanted to go blow it all on toys and candy right away. I said, "Let's talk to dad." I knew he'd be the voice of reason. Sure enough he talked Graham into putting $40 in savings, and of course $10 tithing. Putting some in savings was very difficult for Graham, and of course he blew the rest. Gray even swindled some out of him. In fairness to Gray if it wasn't for him Graham wouldn't have even won. When the lady was putting Graham's number on the back of the tickets she was writing 115 and Gray caught her and said, "Actually you are looking at it upside down, it's actually 511." She was grateful he caught her mistake and fixed them all. He's a numbers guy. Well I think I've said enough about the big win.
DINNER WITH THE QUAD
Missy was in town from Kansas so we all met for dinner. L to R. Abby, Missy, Kirsten, and Melanie. What is better in life than old friends I ask you? Nothing! New friends are great too but not the same. Not at all. These girl's are. the. best.
I went to a wedding reception later in the month for another friend's son. I threw on my hanging out shirt once more.
POOL DAY!
We just can't get enough! Of cousins that is. We met up with Eliza, Lindsey, Ashley, and my dad at the Lindon pool for some pool time fun!
I am so thrilled my kids are able to make such fun lasting memories with their cousins on a regular basis. The day didn't go completely smooth sailing, for starters a baby nearly drowned in the lazy river. It wasn't one of ours but made us extra vigilant with the watching for the rest of the day. Then gray swallowed so much water during his stay he was pale and tired. I was googling dry drowning symptoms. As we drove up the canyon I realized how often he feels sickly when we are away from home. He is one who literally could be content staying home 24/7. I'm starting to wonder if it's in his head. He's a Home Boy.
July was crazy hot. When that was the case we stayed inside and cranked the AC.
But I will drag anyone outside to see a pretty sunset.
Can you see the rubber chicken on the roof? There it stayed till NOVEMBER.
MINER'S RETREAT!
We're Baaaaaaaaaaaaack. Taylor Family Reunion. July 21st-24th, 2014
(I am glad Lindsey took photos as well because then I can steal from her blog).
Because Midway is our our backyard, we didn't have as much driving and fussing as some of the other folks so Matt marinated chicken and I made a pineapple cake for all. Eliza and Lindsey brought crock pots of sauce, and Ashley brought the rice. Rice is hard to gage and before you know it we had talked each other into make waaaaaaaay to much. I STILL have some in the freezer (like I said, it's now November when I am typing this).
I was real restless after dinner, like I had the jimmy legs or something. I said, "To the Boulders!" Everyone was real accommodating and we fit as many kids into the back of the pick-up as possible and drove through the campground to the trail head.
There was a lot of singing in the back going on, "I put your hands up, they're playin my song..."
It was still light on our way to the bat cave but it was DARK on the way back. So we took a different trail! Ivy was in the lead of our group. We chuckled as her pink flouncy skirt led the way. She took a topple and that was the end of that, but someone was always willing to carry her.
At the boulders as we hiked up she pointed to the tall mountain, "That is very dangerous." Violet brought glow sticks for all. Well, until they were all handed out and she wasn't quite so sure she was happy seeing them on all the others;) But we were grateful as we needed every bit of light on the way back down.
The next couple of days the boys went golfing, some of us girl's went shopping, and we enjoyed outings such as Memorial Hill and of course...THE FREE LUNCH PROGRAM IN HEBER.
Heber Valley Railroad.
Mallerie hooked us up! I asked her to ask her boss ahead of time about getting our group a reservation and some tickets. I thought we would have to pay $5 per person but her boss just said, 'They can come for free, how many?" Mallerie was like, "FOURTY."
We gave our donation in the concession car. Back in our car I asked, "Who spilled their soda?" Matt said, "I did." I thought that was very honest of him considering there were 30 kids he could have blamed it on.
Graham was so happy to be on the steam train again, he was crying coal.
When Callie saw out the window the Train Robbers crackin their whips and fixin to get on the train she mumbled, "Not this again." But she was a good sport and put her hands up.
Mallerie wasn't working but we still got to hear from her and she danced down the isles with the other older cousins, which got the younger cousins dancing as well. For some reason whenever a song played from something other than the Frozen soundtrack, it froze!
We didn't though! My aunt JoAnna and Meiken were going to meet us for Burgers afterwards and I had to text her, "This train is hotter than Blazes we are going to the Provo River instead to cool off!"
Boy did that water feel heavenly. It was nice and shallow where we played but Katrina went back two days later and claims she nearly drowned! A good reminder to be ever vigilant at the water.
That night we left the older kids in charge of the younger kids and the adults headed to Tarahumara. I made sure I threw out that we were Katrina's family to her boss and were seated pretty quickly. The kids were back at the campground with Pizza.
We were in fact cheating a bit by eating out while we were technically camping. But aside from the first meal we cooked at the campsite the first night, we decided to do easy meals this time. The next day we picked up burgers and fries for lunch!
Playing cards was the most popular past time at the Pavillion. Those playing could not get enough. The ragedy rascal boys were BUSSSSSY busting sticks and making dams in the mud they created out of the running hose. We concluded this was NOT wasting water because every drop was being enjoyed. We all enjoyed just being together!
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| Cade wowing the youngins with some magic. |
Movie night. We enjoyed Dairy Keen shakes for the adults and a box of ice cream sandwiches for the kids. Whatever was left on the ground was cleaned up in the morning by the abundant critters, who by the way, seemed to be gluten free. They went to the trouble to pry open Lindsey's cooler and eat her gluten free snacks. They also managed to get the lid off Cal's baby formula. So maybe they aren't gluten free, but they only like expensive items. They turned their noses up at out strategically placed hot dogs.
As the siblings sat around the campfire one night Ashley said, "RA-COON." There it was big as life getting into the garbage. We turned out all the lights and just shone our flashlights. There in the pavilion we could se yellow eyes flashing back at us. It was freaky. Our worst fear of course was a bear. Eliza was so certain she could hear one prowling around one night she barely got any sleep!
It's surprising any of us did actually. The first night there the kids were so hyped up they were running around screaming till midnight it seemed. The second night they crashed at 10 pm and were silent. As we sat around the campfire laughing and talking we said in the direction of the tents, "How do you guys like it????" They slept through even that.
Critter's Below.
The older girls didn't camp with us but drove home to Heber each night as did Lindsey with baby Ollie. This worked well the first night when the teens could take home all that extra chicken and rice since we didn't really have a way to refrigerate it. But wouldn't you know they brought it all back the next morning. Oh well, everyone knows I like a reason to call people bird brains. Ollie's little cry in the morning when he came back sounded just like the morning birds.
We packed up and headed out on Pioneer Day July 24th
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| Huge flag that was displayed at Provo Towne Center |
That night I took the girl's out to Chaleston to watch fireworks over the lake. We got there in the nic of time and miraculously found Katrina! I loved that Mall and Rom were wearing shirts representing their hoods.
The kids hurried and set up camp chairs in the back of the truck to watch. This was like Katrina's last night to be a kid before the her big 18th the very next day.
I bought some fireworks to do back at the house and Luke also brought some aerials. We had some in the garage as well that Matt got from Wyoming back when aerials were illegal in Utah. Leave it to Graham to find them and we figured that night was as good as any to set them off. As we watched the sparks fly I sang "Silver and Gold, Silver and Gold, how do you measure it's worth..." from Rudolph. Later as we did more fireworks Callie sang in her best Burl Ives voice, "Silver and Gold, Silver and Gold." She's a fun gal.
