Snake in the House

Juliet, who is not a fan of snakes, came upstairs to inform me that there was a snake in Mikayla's room. I ran downstairs and we couldn't find it. I searched all around Mikayla's room and other rooms in the basement. There's a snake loose in the house. Bummer. 

Two days later, it was found by the piano and Mikayla caught it and took it outside. Yay! It was the smallest snake I've ever seen! I'm glad it's not in the house anymore!

 

Boys Lake Powell Trip

Shawn is so generous. It's so nice of him to invite Merril and the kids on Lake Powell adventures. This year, it's the boys turn. Sorry Jack, you're in the MTC and missed it this year. Mark is learning to surf with Shawn.

Mark got to drive the boat.

How he sleeps like that, I'm not really sure!

They went to toilet bowl arch and were jumping off the top into the water. While they were there, Merril said a volkswagon size rock fell off. They decided to leave.

They came back a few hours later and the arch had collapsed.

Merril was interviewed for KSL News about it. You can see it here. Pretty crazy! Thankfully, not one was hurt. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WdjjnOVoEo

Girls Trip to Midway

After we dropped off Jack at the MTC, Juliet and I were about to start a girl's trip with my Mom and sisters in Midway. Maxine was working at FSY. Julie and I didn't want to drive home, only to turn around and drive back so we stayed up the day and had fun wasting time together. We went to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. I thought I was fine with Jack leaving until we showed up and the place was crawling with Elders and Sisters from the MTC. No, we didn't see Jack. But it just became very clear that he was a missionary and was going to be gone for a very long time. I cried. I cried as we walked in. I cried and we descended the steps to the font. It's okay. I just missed him a ton all at once. But the baptisms were nice. 

And since we were staying up north and goofing off, Merril took the two little kids to Lagoon.

Legit my favorite ride.

Check out the bussin' meal! The kids are saying bussin' lately. It means awesome!

Maxine was busy with FSY kiddos!

This is Juliet's first girl's trip.

We rode the Heber Creeper train.

There has to be golfing, I mean driving the golf cart.

We went to a disco 70s tribute band in Deer Valley. 

We rode a bobsled at the Utah Olympic Park.

We watched a ski jumping show at Olympic Park as well. It rained on us for a bit.

My Mom promised Randy Winmill that we'd visit the grave of his Mom and Dad, Roy and Relva.

We went swimming at the Midway crater! I've wanted to do this for a long time. The water was warm, perfect for lounging. They made us keep on our life jackets so we couldn't snorkel down.

General shenanigans.

Midway is influenced by Swiss settlers and a lot of the buildings have swiss architecture designs. These shutters at the LDS church building were a fun nod.

It was a good weekend. I'm not sure how many more extra kids were going to invite because the bigger the group, the harder to arrange hotels and transportation. It might resort to an OG Gordon girls adventure.

Here We Go!

Bags are packed!

Soaking in the last hangout with my boy!

But it's time to go! The whole family drove up because we didn't have to worry about school. Jack requested some Crown Burger before checking into the MTC but Apollo Burger had to do. Crown Burger was too far into Salt Lake.

We took pictures in the parking lot because the MTC wants missionaries ready for drop off.

We had two vehicles driving in to drop him off. We should've put everything into one car because MTC security was confused by one vehicle having the luggage and the other vehicle having the missionary. But they let us in.

Mark and Mikayla didn't even get out of the car at the MTC. They'd said their goodbyes. We gave him hugs and off he went!

I was feeling a lot better about dropping him off than dropping Maxine. He seemed good and so I felt good. Two years sounds way longer than 18 months though, just saying. I know he'll be taken car of.

Grandpa's Waffles

With Grandpa Campbell in Africa for 18 months, we had to figure out the special waffle recipe. I tried it once just with using pre-ground whole wheat flour and apparently that doesn't work. So I followed the recipe exactly and bought a waffle iron just like Grandpa's and it turned out amazing! I might have to scale up the recipe though. I feel like it doesn't quite make enough for our family and there's more room in my blender.

But they are delicious!

 

Jack's Farewell and Starting MTC

When deciding what to have for food at Jack's farewell, we were torn because our ward is at 9:00 a.m. and I felt like we needed to have breakfast foods. However, when we asked Jack what he wanted to eat, he said he would like brisket. So we decided brisket can be a breakfast meat. We had eggs, fruit, I made muffins the day before, granola and yogurt and berries, brisket. 

I didn't know how many people were going to come but we actually had around 70 people come to the house. We kind of ran out of brisket at the end but there was still other food. 

Paul is going to Japan on his mission. These are the only two pictures I took at the event.

Lovely Leighna has been supportive but I can tell this has been hard.

Later that day, Jack got set apart as Elder Campbell. 

He started home MTC and it's a lot of learning and sitting at a computer. He had to squeeze in some naps. He says the language is a lot but Jack is smart. We know he'll get it.

Lazy Pool Day

Mark wanted to go to a pool party with Jack the evening before but I made him stay home. Jack was going with older friends and I don't want Mark to grow up too fast. So the next day, Mikayla was going to swim at Reece's house and Mark was sad because he couldn't go with her. I said we should go to the pool. As it turned out, Mikayla and her friends came to the pool with us. I made Mikayla wear a hat because she's already sunburned from swimming so much.

I think they were posing kind of like this picture. If they didn't do it on purpose, that's what it reminds me of.

I swam some and relaxed some. It was great.

 

Summer

Jack's trying to fit in as many rides and hang outs before he starts home MTC.

Kanarraville Falls

A friend in the ward, Shanae Allen, asked last minute if I wanted to go on a hike. She had a permit to Kanarraville Falls. I didn't get a picture of us together, which shame on me, but the falls were perfect. Even though it was summer, the water was freezing. I had to stop occasionally to warm up my toes.

It reminded me that I should bring the kids. It's a cool slot canyon and waterfall in the desert.