Random August

This is what I find on my windshield on most Sundays after church. The kids drop off their junk while they walk home.

Sherry Bookman's daughter was able to get us tickets to the Sandy Amphitheater again. 

"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"

All summer we've enjoyed babysitting our second cousins (DaLynn's kids, Kimball and Charlotte) while DaLynn teaches Rachel and Bryce spanish.

Hispanic culture activity making tasty treats.

We got two new kitties. The calico is Kenya and the black and white is Mali. Unfortunately a few weeks later, Kenya was hit by a car and Mali ran away. But our awesome neighbor, Amy, helped us find Mali and she is sticking around. We love her.

Late summer monsoon rains are the best!

At the beginning of the summer, we constructed a potato tower. Adding a layer of boards and dirt every week or two, we started to grow potatoes. But somewhere along the line, something went wrong and after all I tender love and care, we came up empty-handed.

Sydney Selfies

Syd and cousin, Hailey

Syd and Hash

Syd and Alan

Syd and Lexi

Syd and Mali

After the Festival

After Apricot Festival, Camille went with Emily up to stay with Brook and her family in Cascade for a few days. They drove with Gpa Brown and Helen. They peppered him with questions and he showered them with stories, the whole way.

They had a lot of fun playing in the river, going to young women's together and staying up late talking.

While Camille was gone, Rachel was a little bored. She busied herself with baking a two-layer cake all by herself.

Mt Nebo Half Marathon

My sister, Sarah, and I ran the Mount Nebo half marathon.

We had so much fun spending the evening together and talking and just being with each other without the distraction of kids, husbands and anything else. Just us. Just sisters.

Sarah had the goal to finish the race in under two hours. So we started together with the 1:55 pacer. Sarah immediately made friends with them and she was off.  As I fell behind and found my own pace, Sarah finished at 1:54!!!! 

I finished?

 at 2:06. 

I used to call Sarah my "little" sister but there is nothing "little" about her. She is a power house and a rock star! She is an amazing example to me of positivity, joy, love and determination!

First day- or week- of school

First day of school pictures. Bwahahaha!

Let's walk it through:

Day #1: After 3 kids had already left, I remembered to take pictures of the bottom two.

On the way walking to the elementary school, we passed my middling, Camille, waiting for the bus and took a picture of her. 

Then I forced the bottom two to run the welcome gauntlet into the school. haha

Day #2, 3, 4:

I completely forgot to take pictures of the top two. A couple of Syd's friends made fun of the fact that she has no first day of school picture for her Senior Year!

Or parker's Sophomore Year!

Day #5:

I finally remember to take pictures.

Day #9: I finally post pictures on Instagram so we have a family history account that we were actually present when school started this year. Physically present. Obviously being mentally present is a bit of a challenge for me. 

Herriman Reservoir

To finish off summer before school starts again, the kids talked me into going to Herriman reservoir. I'm not always excited to go because of the prep work, food, towels, toys, sunscreen, time.

But by the time we get there and I'm sitting under my tent, I'm glad we came. And it was a relaxing way to say goodbye to summer!

Service and Sweets- Days for Girls

I have a new podcast that I love listening to.

The Sisterhood Podcast.

The hosts are Allyson Reynolds and Tiffany Sowby. They are friends who are opposite in many ways but have a great balance and chemistry. 

As part of their effort to bring women of all walks of life together, they also sponsor service activities called-

Service and Sweets.

First, you serve, then you go get a treat afterward.

This time I brought Sydney and we volunteered at Days for Girls. This program makes and provides hygiene kits for girls in under-developed countries. It's a wonderful program and we had a great time sewing together. 

Afterward, we went to Fiiz and got a drink and had some great conversation! I'm so glad to have found this podcast and made some new friends!

Karin, Allyson, Tiffany, Ingrid

Cherry Pickin' Gal

Sydney spent several weeks this summer in Santaquin helping with the cherry harvest on the Rowley farm. She drove a tractor taking cherries from the trees to the warehouse.

This was a big decision for her. She had to choose between two jobs and decided to take the harvest experience over more hours and pay somewhere else. I was really proud of her. 

So she decided to harvest but didn't have a place to stay. And we didn't want her to drive back and forth because of the early hours she'd be working. (4:00am) And we didn't have an extra car. We prayed and had faith that something would work out and she'd find someone to stay with. Sterling contacted everyone he could think of and nothing opened up. Then the week before the harvest started, Farmer Rowley offered her a room in his house. It was a huge blessing and answer to our prayers. So we dropped her off on Sunday nights and picked her up sometime Saturday afternoon for several weeks. 

And it was a GREAT experience!

She also made friends with Claire Rowley and another girl, Sara, who had just returned from her mission and was helping with the harvest as well. They spent a lot of time at the lake.

At the end of the harvest, the Rowley's held a pizza party and games for all their workers and invited our family as well. It was so much fun. 

In an essay for a college application, Sydney said this:

I didn't plan on mowing over a cherry tree with a tractor on my first day at the farm. I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought when I saw my seven-year-old instructor laughing at me. It was a dead tree that needed to come down anyway. Learning to drive a tractor was harder than I thought. 

This past summer I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work on Cherry Hill Farms in Santaquin, Utah harvesting cherries. This opportunity was something I was not familiar with but thrilled to do! Because of my interest in learning new things, I decided that even though this job required long, hard days, it would be worth it. I learned many new skills including how to drive a tractor, how to operate different farm machinery, how to problem solve in crucial situations and that hard work is worth the pain. I had to live away from my family and immersed in an environment that was out of my comfort zone but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

It was exciting to know that my little job on the tractor played a small part in the fruit production industry in Utah. The knowledge and life experience that I got was immeasurable. When harvesting season was finished, I went back home to my family ready to start a new school year. The work ethic I gained in harvesting cherries continues to benefit me in my school work.