Bear Lake this week

This week was the Ellis family reunion at the lake.  Between appointments, girls camp, Jer's time off, and Ada getting ready for her last business national competition.... Everyone was busy but me.... so I hitched a ride to the lake with Janelle and visited with Renee and Diane.... then Liz and Rach, and Joe. Mark and Carol came.  I'm so grateful to see my cousins and family. All 5 of my siblings were there this week too.... so I got to be there with all of them.  We played games, ate food, chatted, watched movies, etc....   My family came up Friday and Saturday (except Ada). It was nice off and on.  I had fun with the kids doing a moonwalk video.  It made me so happy. It got us away from the smoke of the fires too.  That was a nice break. I also mowed the lawn and weeded the beach with my kiddos.

Sam and Mark made these hooks in his blacksmith shop. 

We watched Project Hail Mary during a big wind storm.

There was a lot of wind but seeing this flag flying made me happy.

Singing Grandpa Ellis's favorites.

We watched one of the soccer world championships matches too. 

Ceviche in Garden City.

Mom, Seth and I finished painting the new bathrooms one morning before windstorms came through.

Seth cat napping.

Me, Renee, Janelle

 

fires

Utah is literally on fire this week.  There's been new fires every day.  One day was 16 new fires.  So far 3 firefighter deaths, and thousands of acres of damage.  Fireworks have been banned for the holidays. There was ash falling from the sky, so we went down to help clean debris off of Grandma and Grandpa's roof to keep it safer from possible fires.  

Syl defending her piece of cardboard.

The girls got off to YW's camp.  This is Ada's last year.  She's a YCL this year and did a great job with her lesson and her group. I'm grateful for our wonderful YW's leaders and my spectacular girls.

Seth got his bottom braces on today and will be getting his top ones on next time.  He was having a hard time with them but now that they're on, he's not noticing.

Grandma invited us to watch the new Persephone movie with everyone last night.  It was cute and well done.  The teenage girls (Maisy, Evelyn and Millie were all giggling in the corner and Sam, Cy, Jer and Seth kept laughing any time that they got really excited about a kissing scene.)

 

Father's Day

Father's Day, Amy made an amazing dinner and hosted everyone at their place.  It was very fun.

 

Misc

Seth and I took the cats in for a vet appointment and then to Petsmart for a new scratching post.  Vinn wanted to see everything and Syl kept trying to hide in the shelves.

Ice cream with cousins.

Nihowdy

Beth and I took the boys to the Lindon Pool for the afternoon before taking them to Jiu Jitsu.

 

Community service day

Sometimes serving and temple work is hard to fit in... but it's always worth it.  Jer signed our family up for Our Home town.  It's a community service project.  We helped a cute couple fix their fence and pull weeds from their yard.  These kids were adorable and capable.  Seth was dubbed 'screw boy'... because he was everyone's screw holder.

 

YM's camp

The next week was YM's camp.  It's Seth's first and maybe Sam's last.... I'm glad that they had a chance to go together.  They were so cute.  They each got there and went to chat with their friend groups.  Sam said that the testimony meeting was amazing.  They also did a 7 mile hike out to a lake and did a survival test... they had to build a fire, structure and boil water.  Sam's group won that challenge but failed the putting up a tent challenge.  I asked Seth how it went when he got back, he said, "Amaze, amaze, amaze, amaze!" (which is a quote from his current favorite movie 'Hail Mary Project'.)

While they were gone, Beth took Evelyn and I to an art night at BYU museum.  It was about movement in lines and making personal works of art as testimony to share with others.

Ada and Jer went hiking with the Tarkingtons.  Timp had too much snow, so they only made it about 1/3 of the way up.

Jer cleaned the garage and the cats were worried about all the activity out there.

Evelyn passed the drivers test after spending two days reading the drivers manual.  Now to drive together a lot.  She was so nervous driving home for the first time.  I'm glad that we're on to the next step.

I went and got Tigress shaved for the very hot summer.

 

Saying goodbye

We got together to say goodbye to Elder Tarkington.  He was set apart, did his home MTC and the MTC and is now off in his mission.  He's going to be amazing.  He is the kindest and smartest guy.  He'll do well. 

Sam and Eli were pacing on the wall back and forth.  Millie and I thought it was so funny and we did a time lapse video and a panorama photo of them.