Lake Powell 2012

We went to Lake Powell with my family and we toured the Glen Canyon Dam.  This is the top next to an old turbine:

This is down at the bottom.  The guide said there's a reason for planting the grass.  Something about a lot of vibrations and the dirt and grass helps dampen them.  They mow it too.

These are the generators in the bottom of the dam.  They're made by General Electric, which I found to be amusing for some reason.

Julie fell asleep in this chair.  She was sleepy from too much sun.

Back at the beach, we just tried to keep Mikayla happy.  She was sick and cutting teeth.  The first night there, she kept waking up and crying.  I tried to nurse her and keep her quiet but we were in a tent, nestled in with 5 other tents.

I ended up walking with her up the beach.  She kept crying and the rangers came out to investigate.  When the rangers found me walking, they said they just wanted to make sure a baby hadn't been abandoned.  Apparently it happens.  *eyebrows raised*  I ended up getting the boat unhitched and driving around with her in the truck until she fell asleep.  When she'd fall asleep, I'd pull over on the road and park.  When she woke up, I'd start driving again.  I just kept praying for 7 a.m.

The second night there, I didn't even try to go to bed in the tent.  I just loaded Mikayla in the truck and away we drove.  While getting gas in my sleepy stupor, I lost Merril's wallet.  It was mailed to us a few days after we got home.  Unfortunately, the $120 cash was missing.  Oh well, at least the wallet and driver's license made it home.  :)  Crazy.

24th of July Parade...

Our ward had the Primary kids decorate bikes for the Pioneer Day Parade. Juliet was excited! She's standing by her friend Ayzie.

Jack had red streamers and wanted to look like he was going fast.

Maxine tried to get a red, white, and blue theme going and I think she did pretty good!

Mikayla was great and happy and then fell asleep.

Merril was able to take the morning off and come help get bikes to the parade.
At the community center, Juliet and Maxine got their faces painted and we all had sloppy joes.
It was cloudy and really pleasant, bordering on cold with the wind. But we had fun and then came home.

For dinner we made tin foil dinners and baked bread. :) Then we lit sparklers!

Maxine's cookies

Maxine broke out the Easy Bake oven and made these super cute sugar cookies. She made the 2 batches of dough and cut a heart out of the middle and swapped the center.

She really loves to bake and even got her own apron at a family reunion auction this summer.

Rice cereal...

So we started Mikayla on rice cereal and of course it's mostly everywhere except her mouth.

But she seems to like it and it's been fun. She gets a bite and then sucks her thumb, like she can't figure out how to make it go down without the thumbsucking.

What a mess!

Swim lessons and bacon...

So I put Jack and Juliet in swim lessons this summer. Maxine naturally wanted to swim and so I barely had to do anything and she was an avid swimmer. Jack and Juliet like to play on the beach when we go to the lake and so they needed a little encouragement. I've tried a couple of times to get them to swim this summer and it just wasn't happening. So I decided to throw them in some swimming lessons, mainly to force us to get to the pool on a consistent basis for practice. So on the first day, they pretty much took off because a "teacher" told them to put their head down and swim instead of Mommy. Here's Juliet on the first day.

I'm wondering why I had to throw down $60 for that but whatevs. They're having a great time! And today I tried my first maple donut with bacon on top. Oh yummilicious!

Freezing in San Diego...but still had an awesome time!

We drove down to San Diego area Tuesday during the day. We ate dinner at a taco stand where we were the only white people for miles. We got drinks called watermelon agua fresca that had little pieces of watermelon in it. Totally the best drink I've had in ages! So delicious on a hot day! We got to our hotel in time for bed.

The next day we got up and went to look at the beach and FROZE! It was around 65 degrees, cloudy and windy, and I forgot to pack jackets. Maxine packed her own, smart girl. We went to Walmart and found jackets for Jack and Juliet. The only size we could find for Jack was 5T so the sleeves were too small but it worked. There was nothing in the women's department so I ended up going to fabric and getting a yard of pink fleece cut and wrapped myself in it. I was going to have fleece cut for Jack and Juliet and make some poncho-type things but Merril said he'd pony up and buy real jackets instead of my poncho creations. We went to see the San Diego Temple. It was closed for the 4th of July but we still looked at the outside.


One of the sister missionaries at the temple suggested we go see the Mormon Battalion Museum, which turned out to be really fun for the kids. Jack got dressed up like a Battalion recruit and they panned for gold. They were able to take 2 pieces of gold home. We really liked it.

We ate dinner and drove up to La Jolla Bay to watch the fireworks, which were pretty spectacular. I heard the San Diego fireworks had a technical glitch and the whole show went up in 15 seconds. Glad we didn't hang around for those.

The next day we got up early and went to Legoland, Jack's pick for a family vacation!

We rode in some boats!

Drove some cars!
Mikayla and I hung out and had a good time in the aforementioned piece of pink fleece. :)

Maxine got eaten by a Lego shark and Juliet spied land with a Lego sea captain.

Jack rocked out with some Lego characters.

Mikayla rode around in the stroller and was spectacularly good, which is her nature lately. She is super mellow and hangs out. She's 5 months old today and I really can't believe it!

Yep, we all had a great time and stayed until closing time. Then we drove the 7 hours home and didn't pull into the driveway until 4:30 a.m. Then we all slept in until 10 a.m. the next day. Ahhhhh!