Happy Fourth of July!

We spent the fourth of July in South Dakota. Here are Tori and her cousin Bethany in their flag shirts doing what they love best: taming the barn kittens!

We went up to Fort Pierre to a rodeo- there were a lot of cowboy hats!Barrel racing...
Tori and Bethany decided that they had a crush on the young cowboy in the red shirt, whatever his name is...

Here's something that could only happen in South Dakota- a horse traffic jam!We spent some time at Mike and Katherine's pheasant ranch with family, and then we watched the fireworks in Presho. The Authiers had a golf tournament that day. Scott played a total of 81 holes of golf while in South Dakota!

Scott wishes you the very best Fourth of July ever!

Black Hills, South Dakota

While we were visiting Scott's parents in South Dakota, we decided to get away to the Black Hills for some family time.

This is us at Mount Rushmore. It was so foggy that day from the California wildfire smoke, that it was hard to see the mountain!

We stopped at Storybook Island in Rapid City, where they have a bunch of story book themed playgrounds and displays. Doesn't Scott look cute as Raggedy Ann?

This is my favorite... They still have 80's playground equipment there. The same model I played on in Kentucky when I was little!

Giddyup, Horsey! We took a tour of Crystal Cave.
We camped overnight. According to Popcan, this would be sissy camping because there were flush toilets and showers.

Girl's Camp!

I was called to serve as assistant ward camp leader this year, so I spent 5 days last week at Girl's Camp. It was held in Conifer, Colorado, it was beautiful scenery, I guess that made up for having no showers! Gross! This is Cabin 6, the cabin that never goes to bed...

Any guesses what the theme was this year? The girls I were over were the 3rd years, the 14 year olds. They were all nice girls and I enjoyed them. The girls were split by year rather than by ward, it worked well. We got through the week with just a handful of drama.
Our girls were the ones that brought the silly string, shaving cream, firecrackers and the very loud singing voices at 1:00 am! We were ordered to quarantine them in the cabin the last night.

What's girl's camp without skits? These are some of the young women in our ward having a gummy worm race at our ward reunion.Girl's camp made me nostalgic for the girls I grew up with in the Country Oaks Ward. Who can forget Sarah doing the canoe paddle during our cheer? Or Carrie doing somersaults in the lake? Or picking leeches off our legs? I taught the camp the "Weinie Man" song, one of our favorites from Lake Lyman.

So I left with no mosquito bites, but dead tired. My cabin stayed up until 2:00 am for the first 3 nights, and then 4:30 am the last night!

Four Down, One to Go!

The last Melville girl is getting married on August 2nd. That will be all five girls married in five years! Emily is marrying Alejandro Valquinto, they met at BYU-Idaho. All of us Melville girls found handsome husbands! Here is a website with their engagement pictures:

http://www.ckph.com/melville/

A Day at Aurora Reservoir

Aurora Reservoir is pretty close to our house, and is a fun place to take kids to swim. There is a sandy beach, picnic areas, and playgrounds. This week I took Victoria and two of her friends to swim. We met up with my friends Shawn, Keri, and Stephanie and with their kids.
Victoria is helping the Brooke, Baylie, and Savannah build sand castles.

Friends Ellie Martin, Victoria, and Kayla Stanley

The beach keeps them busy for hours! The beauty of friends to keep your kids busy!

Savannah's Race

Saturday Scott and I participated in a fundraiser for Down Syndrome called "Savannah's Race", similar to the "Amazing Race."



Savannah Pachl in our ward was born in November 2007 with Down Syndrome. "Savannah's Race" was formed to raise awareness of Down Syndrome and raise funds for the Mile High Down Syndrome association.



















We were "Team Dynamite," the Yellow team. Our cameraman was John Sorenson, a friend in the ward.



The race started at 8:00 am Saturday, and we were sent to different locations around Denver where we had to complete various tasks.



Our tasks were:

• Finding a marked car in the Denver Airport parking lot (there were thousands of cars!)
• At the Bronco's stadium, finding a clue under a seat in the Bronco's mane
• Painting a plate at a ceramics store for auction
• Arresting, handcuffing, fingerprinting, and booking Scott at the Sheriff's office
• Eating an entire big sandwich
• Shooting 5 clay pigeons each
• Hurdles, shotput, and discus at Strasburg High
• Searching for letters at the bottom of a swimming pool and then doing word puzzles

All of this took about 7 hours and we put 200 miles on the car!

Me shooting a shotgun- Look out!!

Only in Strasburg...














Scott after I arrested him













We came in 8th out of 9 teams! Losers! At least we had a fun day.











"Chancho! When you are a grown man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room- it's for fun."

This is Nacho Libre, or Eric Martin, a friend in the ward. He and his wife won the race.








The website is www.savannahsrace.org if you'd like to see more pictures of the race. $12,200 was raised in behalf of Savannah.

My Very First Blogging Experience

It's finally time to hop on the Blog Train like everybody else. I've got a little more time now that I'm out of school for the summer, and I've been wanting to try it...

So far this summer, we've been:

Running our dog, Charlie,

Cheering on Scott as he installed our wood floors,

Reading books (I don't get to during the school year!)

Teaching piano and guitar lessons,

Taking Tori swimming,

Enjoying Scott's new motorcycle (a Honda Shadow)