August 2024

Once again, I forgot how to upload pictures in the right order (could be over a year off of updating this thing) so here's August in no particular order.

Holly and I hiked Adam's Canyon during the first back to school week after doing a session at the temple. Back to a kids routine has its advantages.

Day one, back to school. Thomas and Ezra get to get on the bus at 7:15, and Lincoln catches his bus at 7:30. Oliver walks to school at 8:15, so he gets to sleep in. But he was kind enough to roll out of bed for the picture. 

What the heck, Lincoln is in 8th grade and the last year of middle school.

Thomas is in 4th grade at Indian Hills in the Extended Learning Program (ELP)

My 1st grader Ezra, also at Indian Hills ELP program

Oliver is a 6th grader at Highland Park Elementary. He's loving ruling the school and I think he's pretty okay getting to and from school without taking his brothers along. 

When I dropped Ezra off on the first day, he didn't even look back or act nervous, just walked right along with the rest of his class. 

We've been doing some clean out and the boys came across their trophy collection. It's not hard to fill when everyone gets a trophy for everything. 

This was our one last day out of school. We hit a couple of bounce houses and I grabbed them some pizza we ate in the parking lot. 

This was one of my very favorite parts of summer. My goal was to get my boys and my whole family to the top of Mount Timpanogos. They killed it. Complained a bit, but totally summited without any major problems. I, however, had a hard time walking for a full week. I have now recovered and LOVE looking at the pics from the one-night trip.  

There were so, so many mountain goats, so close!

This is Ezra at the saddle! He was all smiles...except when he fell, but then he was up and going again.

Ezra and Oliver stayed back with me as we made our way to the top. Oliver loved the switch backs.

Here we are, just beginning the adventure.

We had a fun scavenger hunt at City Creek with the Blackhursts. Landan, Thomas, Ezra, Me and Holly vs. Lincoln, Oliver, Peyton, Claire. We found some frogs.

And a security guard.

I have a picture of this crew from several years ago. We reenacted the same picture at the train stop.

Oliver has picked up cooking and baking this summer. He was so proud of the way these crepes looked!

Every night was slumber party in Lincoln's room. Oliver lived in the room all summer, and occasionally the other two got to join the fun. 

I went to the mall to shop the Saturday before school started. I could not believe how many people still shop at the mall. It was packed!!!

In preparation for Timp, I tried to get the boys on a few hikes. This was up to Dog Lake on the Big Cottonwood Canyon side. It was a slow 3 miles up, but they were smiles and laughter the whole way down.

Awesome wildflowers all summer long. These were smiles on the way up to Dog Lake.

And Thomas is a tree hugger!

Ezra tried so hard to spread the seeds by blowing this dandelion 

More of Oliver's kitchen creations. These were creme puffs in the shape of a swan. The cream puff part was delicious, the swan part needed some imagination.

I got tickets to the Bee's game for a work party. Our tickets included all you can eat hot dogs, churros, drinks and nachos. We made such a mess, ate so much food, and the bees played some ball too I think.

What's a bees game without a picture of Bumble.

Before the Bee's game, we were coming home from Idaho and stopped at Bear World. I can't believe how much fun we crammed into a couple of days. Ezra's getting hatched from a dinosaur egg.

Thomas and Ezra on one of the bear's

Ezra and Thomas at the petting zoo at Bear World.

Peyton and Ezra with the goat.

There's some bears swimming!

And before Bear World, we stopped at the St. Anthony Sand Dunes for some long jump contests and wiffle ball.

These Bear Cubs were pretty adorable! Thomas and Landon are pretty cute too.

Lincoln took a panoramic picture of our accommodations. It was a pretty sweet shelter we found on Hip Camp.

We took a day trip to Yellowstone and ended the day with this hike to an awesome view of this hot pot.

After we left Old Faithful, we realized we had left a water bottle there, so we came back, had dinner and played some card games while Old Faithful went off for the 4th time that day, while we were there.

Holly and her kids and me and my kids. This is a fun crew!

Oliver and Ezra on the back of old Faithful

Thomas and Old Faithful

Lincoln and Old Faithful

This was our first pull out and little hike, Ezra was hating the smell, or the hike, I don't remember which.

Landon and Oliver

While we stayed at the yurt, we were close to a little lake. They let us use their canoe and paddle boards. Lincoln caught a snake.

Everyone caught turtles, but this was the very biggest one!

This was not the biggest turtle, but it is a good picture of my awesome Lincoln 

While we were at Yellowstone, we happened upon an event where all of the emergency vehicles were letting the guests practice being first responders. Ezra and Claire are the firefighters

Lincoln and Oliver are learning how to turn the hoses on.

Ezra is putting out the fire

Lincoln took a turn hitting the cone down.

Oliver, Thomas and Lincoln are taking a turn in the back of the police car.

Peyton is knighting Lincoln his Jr. Ranger award with a pocket knife.

Because we were at old faithful for almost the whole day, we were also there to watch Beehive Geyser which only goes off once a day. It was far more powerful and lasted longer than Old Faithful, we felt lucky we got to see it.

Holly was loving the Beehive Geyser:_)

Me and my boys at Old Faithful!

Right as we walked off, we saw Old Faithful go off. We couldn't believe our luck!

We had some lunch and played on the logs while we waited for round 2.

This is the awesome little lake by the place we stayed. We had a full day there just playing, soaking up the sun, catching frogs, snakes and turtles and riding the ATV on the sand dunes.

Oh, and climbing all over the old structure by the lake

Our first night at the yurt/cabin we had some delicious s'mores.

The first weekend in August, we went on a trip to Bear Lake and Logan with our friends the Birds. We stayed the first day at Bear Lake and loved the beach, the raspberry shakes, the kayaks, paddle boards and sun. The next morning we packed up and headed to Logan stopping for a fun, scenic hike along the way at the top of the pass into Logan Canyon. Then we did a bunch of activities on the get out pass. This is at Zootah in Logan. It was a good ending to our trip, but we were all pretty tired by this point. 

We stopped at a gymnastics gym, and Ezra had to get a shot in the ice cream truck.

Thomas climbed to the top of the rope. I didn't think it was possible, but Thomas is good at doing things I don't think are possible.

We played at a fun trampoline park in Logan. Ezra may not win this battle, but he's willing to try.

Here's a fun stop on the hike where everyone got to practice making their cairns. Ezra was pretty salty to be on the hike, but cheered up to make a cairn.

There were some funny looking trees on the hike. We learned they were shaped this way, likely because of the snow.

Our night at Bear Lake was pretty magical. The sunset did not disappoint. It just kept growing more beautiful as the night went on. 

A bunch of happy boys cleaning up the beach.

This is a very happy place for me. Some of my favorite things in the whole world!

A perfect, sunny day on the lake!

This is another attempt to get the boys ready for a hike. We hiked the Brighton Lakes and put in almost 6 miles this day. We had our ups and downs, but they did it, and the views did not disappoint. 

Ezra was practicing a selfie.

And practicing being a photographer.

This was our last lake we visited Lake Martha

Lake Mary!

We've taken this picture more than once. Sometimes in the winter and sometimes in the summer.

There's Lake Solitude, the first lake we hiked that day.

 

Lincoln had his first mountain biking race at Beaver Mountain. We camped the night before the race and found this beautiful lake up by the race. Me and Heather hiked around the lake, and Beck posed for a great shot.

 Oliver came along to cheer. He was a lot more smiles during his first race than last year. Still nervous, but less nervous. He did great!

Here's Lincoln getting called into line. 

Here he is at the finish line, pretty tired, but awesome!

Ezra has been taking swim lessons from Goldfish Swim School. He tells me he hates it. But he goes, and actually loves it. Mom, take my picture! Can't imagine that this is "hating it"

Graham Family Pictures came off without a hitch. Okay, that's not true. plenty of sad kids, but I'm excited to see these!