June

Since October 2024, I've been a gospel doctrine teacher in our ward. It was uncomfortable in the beginning as I don't enjoy getting up in front of people and having the attention on me, and I was intimidated to be teaching an adult class that often has 40 + people attending, but I'm pleased to say I've mostly gotten over my insecurities and with practice and lots of help from the Spirit, it's feeling much better. (I pray daily about this calling as I'm preparing, to know where to focus, what inspired questions to ask etc, and that I'll have the gift of discernment so that I can understand what they're saying and how to respond). 

My sister's been living with us since April this year. She works full-time, starting early, and is home around 3pm. Since it's summer, us girls have been able to catch a couple of $5 Tuesday movies that have come out which has been fun. There were a couple out recently that we enjoyed like Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon.

June means the snow on most of the mountains have melted and we can hit the trails again! Penny LOVES coming with me, and I love having her along. 

The kids had youth conference; it was over 3 days. One night was an overnighter down in Manti and they got to go to the Manti temple (one of my favorites) and the next day they went fishing and played at the water. Jane had been asking to go fishing so this was a dream come true! 

When I asked Scott what he'd like to do for Father's Day, he said, 'go camping'. So I got him a tent for Father's Day since we had given away our last family-sized tent a few years ago (because we only used it a couple of times ever) and I booked us a camping trip for the following weekend at Bear Lake when we had more availability in our schedule. Plus I was teaching gospel doctrine Father's Day weekend. 

Nora's soccer team is practicing a couple of evenings a week and one morning a week Stef, Amber and I lead them in a track workout. We usually have anywhere between 6-12 people show up which is good. It's getting warm outside, and even at 830am, we get pretty hot and sweaty! 

We've always wanted to get patio furniture, and with our upcoming family reunion at my house, with family flying in all over, we decided to do it now. We found this set on Wayfair on sale for $1000 and they come with individual weather protection covers which is awesome! 

We're trying to get to every temple in Utah. Annabelle and Nora hadn't been to the Draper temple so we went to that one and then met Scott for lunch and stopped in to see his new office. 

I haven't done as much trail running this year as last, but when I get out, I am always grateful! Kim and I hiked up and jogged down Dog Lake via Mill D North Fork Trail which took about an hour and a half. 

Friday morning we loaded into the car, heading to Brigham City and Logan for the temple and then onto Bear Lake for camping, paddle boarding and boating(w/Hepworths). Even with the roof top storage on my car and filled, we still had to put down two of the 3 backseats and completely filled the car with our stuff. Poor Nora was really crowded back that, but she was a good sport about it. It's a 3 hour drive. She got a little more room on the way home because Elisabeth met us up there Saturday after her FSY session and she was able to put some of our camping gear in her car. 

Brigham City temple is newer and it's tall and beautiful. 

Logan is one of the oldest temples and so it's got a lot of character which we love. 

It'd been awhile since our family camped together (Scott and Charles go annually; but the girls don't care to as much) and there's not much to do besides hangout together which was AWESOME! No individual rooms to escape to with their phones, no tv to watch, so we just visited and played at the lake! We should do this more often. 

Saturday morning the Hepworth's and Elisabeth met us at Bear Lake North Beach. We bought parking permits ahead of time which I'm grateful for because they sold out! That was Haley's idea, bless her. They brought their boat from Pocatello and we put it on the water after some time paddle boarding and eating lunch and everyone got to take turns water skiing. The Hepworths are all pros. It was my first time and I couldn't even get up. Annabelle did for a couple of seconds. The others all got up! It was fun to just hang out together. 

After we boated for a few hours, we loaded back in our cars and before heading for home we stopped in town to get dinner at Zipz. They have yummy shakes and food. 

Elisabeth drove to Pocatello from there and stayed with the Hepworths over her birthday and came home Tuesday just in time for our family reunion to begin! 

May 16-31

We're still doing our weekly date nights with the kids, although it's probably more like every other week. One of our favorite spots is Menchie's Frozen Yogurt. 

On one of the last days of school, we had a celebration for all of our English language learners. A couple of them got awards for passing out of the WIDA test, and then everyone got recognized (and we had treats and music and balloons) for improvement with their English. 

I love that Scott gets to coach Nora and Annabelle's soccer teams. He's an assistant coach for Annabelle's team. But this way, he can spend more time with them, he's involved with their hobbies and they can connect on different levels. He loves doing it, too, which is nice. 

Nora has braces and didn't want them to be seen in any of her pictures. But It think she looks great with her braces! 

We decided to go out to Idaho over Memorial weekend. Bella had just graduated and was having a grad open house so we went for that as well. Tayson and Pepa came along so we needed two cars, and so Pepa and I decided to leave a day early, on Friday, instead of Saturday morning which is when the others needed to leave. We stopped off at the Syracuse Temple open house on our way. They did such a great job with the open house. I loved how they had white temple clothing on display and how they had someone in each area/room of the temple explaining what goes on there and why. 

Becca did a beautiful job, as usual, on the food and decorations for Bella's party. I started feeling sick, mostly with a lot of mucus, and some coughing. But it got pretty bad to the point where I'd have to run to the bathroom as I coughed uncontrollably and it even made me throw up a couple of times. No bueno. But I still enjoyed my time with family and was glad we went. 

We got home Sunday night and Memorial Day we were able to set up our new trampoline (that we bought off of Tayson's brother who sells them) and get our tomatoes planted. Scott wasn't feeling well either at this point, but we took some medicine and then went to work before we relaxed and rested up. 

We had room for it on the patio, so we decided to keep it there so we don't have to move it whenever we mow which is a pain. And this one is heavier than the last, so it would've been even harder. 

Elisabeth's been saving her money to buy Scott's car off of him (we gave it to her for half it's value), and Scott was able to get a awd vehicle and something that fits all his soccer coaching gear better (balls, bench, wagon etc). We were able to put a good chunk down, but we still have a car payment again which I don't like, but we're planning to pay it off in about a year. So hopefully that works out. 

I really hope the garden does better this year than it did last. I think we didnt' give it enough water last year. We shall see. Oh, and we put rock down under the garden beds this year! This is what it looked like before we got the rock (we borrowed a friends truck and got bulk rock from Rock Utah). 

I love it so much more with the rock on the bottom! We had to lay down more weed barrier fabric too because most of that had been destroyed since we put it down a couple of years ago and we never covered it. 

Charles got to play pickleball for the first time on his mission! And now he plays it whenever they go to Presidents for interviews. 

I love our weekly temple dates. We often have Elisabeth and Pepa come along. We switch up which ordinances we do each time. 

At the end of Spring season, Scott got some gift cards from his soccer teams and we used one of them to get an Italian dinner after our temple date. Elisabeth and Scott are our Italian food lovers!