July was filled with camps and tournaments, work and play. I love watching the kids in their element, doing their thing, sitting on the sidelines cheering them on. Some highlights included watching Nora play goalie in a tournament with another team, and their team won the tournament; hearing about Annabelle's high adventure camp in Moab where they went water rafting, as well as Girls Camp, watching Jane perform at her cheer camp (it was my first time seeing her in her concussion helmet, and it made me feel more at peace with her continuing to cheer after her concussion), having Saige over a couple of times a week and seeing her and the girls bond through dress-ups, Zombie's and laughing about boys, our anniversary trip to Moab/Monticello, hiking canyonlands(see the sweat in the pictures on our backs! It was pretty hot out) and all the temples we were able to do work in, and whenever we got visits from Elisabeth (she was an FSY counselor, traveling to different locations each week) and our Monday visits with Charles. I'm sure Jane would consider getting her permit as a highlight...for me, not so much. It's good and an important next step, but it's a little scary being in the car with them when they're learning their firsts in driving: first time parking, first time on a residential road, first time on a highway etc.
A couple of not so great things were: the fires in Grand Canyon that burned down the lodge and all the cabins at the North Rim thereby cancelling our trip next month, our garden or the lack thereof...we literally got one tomato out of our 3 tomato plants, a few 'quarter-sized' white onions, and everything else died (peas, herbs, carrots etc). I'm thinking our really high raised boxes might need more water for the plants. I was watering about once or twice a week, but it doesn't seem to be enough. Sad. Also, another not so good thing, but at the same time a tender mercy, was that while at Jane's cheer camp performance in downtown Provo, we went early and had lunch down there (because she forgot her uniform and we needed to get it to her an hour before they went on) and where we parked had a 2 hour time limit. Well after 2 hours we were still watching the performances although nearing the end, and Scott remembered and decided to go out and move the car. He did so and moved it about a block away and then within 20 minutes, the performance was over so we went out to the car and to our surprise, there was a huge fountain of water exploding out of the ground right where we HAD BEEN parked 20 minutes prior! There were now police cars blocking that area off, no one was getting in and out over there, and the cars that were parked there all experienced damage and flooding (rocks came out of the ground too and shattered glass). We were grateful Scott had been prompted to move the car and followed through, especially since we were in his new car and we had a temple appointment we were hoping to make and wouldn't have had we been in that mess.
