MIKES HOME FROM EFY

Saturday morning at 7:00 am (getting up at 5am) went and picked Mike up from EFY. After going to girls camp for one week, sleeping on Saturday, going to church on Sunday then sleeping some more, we sent her off to EFY for a week. Mike said they had a lot of good classes this year and had fun. She did text me with a crisis on Friday where she didn't have anything to wear and no shoes for the dance because the ones she needed to wear had given her blisters. Lesson to be learned....wear flat shoes at EFY! And she should now this by now but she thought she could tough it out with high heals....NOT. I told her to go buy bandages and keep them bandaged up. It must of worked because I didn't hear from her again until about 6:45 saturday morning asking "where are you...are you coming" "Yes Mike we are about 10 Min. away". Impatient child. So we got there grabbed her a sausage Mcmuffin on the way home and then she slept the rest of the day. I think as of today, she is still trying to recuperate. Here are a few of the pics that she took while she was there.

FIRE WORKS

YEAH! We finaly got to have our firework show. Kurtis said this has been a weird year for fireworks! This was the first year that they have had to canceal fireworks since any of these guys have been on, and when they did the show last night they had more fire issues than they have every had. The embers were low and they were drifting clear across the freeway. They stopped the firework show at one point because they wind was just taking the embers to far before they were dying out. Fireman were posted all over and were prepared for it, but those dry weeds can go up in flames so fast. But they did a good job and it takes a lot of time to prepare for the fireworks and to tear them down at the end of the show. They sacrafice a lot of time to do this for us. Believe me I know...while everyone else is having their family and friend bbq's they are off getting ready for the big night. Me and the kids just do our own thing. But I am glad they do it. It does make me a little nervous where Kurtis is one of them setting them off. He is right in the action. He says he never gets to see what it looks like becuase he is to close and directly under it. So this year I took some pics for him to see. I wish they would have turned out a little better. I didn't realize I had my camera zoomed in while I was shooting these, but here is what I have.

THIS POST WILL CATCH ME UP!

Yes I think I am caught up now with our July craziness....but July isn't over yet and we have some fun things planned to finish out the month. But for now I will be caught up. Last week I got to send Mike and Sam off to girls camp. Boy was it peaceful at our house. Me and Steph had some fun times while they were gone. She gets a little spoiled during these times. One day though me and her got up and worked on the yard. I had not done anything with the yard all summer. So I picked one of the hottest days to finally go out and work on it...but it needed it. I tore all the weeds out of our front mound. I need to decide what to do with it. It has issues where it is on the hill. All the good dirt rolls off with the rain and watering and leaves nothing but rocky yucky dirt. So I think I will wait for bark to go on sale and just fill it in with bark. Hmm or maybe I will fill it in with rock. Not sure. Ok so while the girls were gone Steph had her softball tournament. She either pitched or played first base. They did good. They won there first game, but lost their second. Steph wanted to know though if 4th place got a trophy. I laughed...that was all she was worried about was a trophy. But they didn't do trophy's this year so she didn't have to worry. The girls had fun at girls camp. They said that the leaders did a great job. Mike said she felt like they did a great job to make every have a good time. Lots of activities were going on. In fact Mike said that they were almost to busy, but they enjoyed it. They must have been busy because I sent them with a camera and they came home with no pictures in it. But I am glad they had fun! So like I say.... I am caught up.

UTE STAMPEDE BABY

Yes, it never fails....Sams Birthday has almost always fell on the UTE STAMPEDE. I think there has only been one or two b-days that didn't hit the Stampede. Do you know how hard it is to have a B-day during this time....Well Sam does! I always think next year I will do better and we will celebrate her B-day better....but then it rolls around and bam....CRAZY time! So I am a little late with Sams B-day video but I guess better late than never. HAPPY LATE B-DAY SAM! Pause my music and click the movie to watch Sam grow up! Sam asked me to add "THE CLIMB" by Miley Cyrus to her video because the song has personal meaning to her with situations that she has had to deal with. This is for you Sam!

Adding More to the July Craziness

Yip,Yip, I am now ready again to add a few more tidbits about our crazy month of July. Lets start off with Mike. With her being on drill team she got the opportunity with her drill mates to teach Mini Drill. They were required to sign up a few girls for this even, so being a good sister Steph decided to sign up. They had 3 classes then got to have a little performance where the girls got to dance and the drill also got to dance. I did have photos of them dancing, but when I cleaned my computer desktop off I think I threw one of my files out. NOT GOOD OF ME! So if I come across those photos I will post them. ( I have been sitting here searching for them for about 1 hour!). So next comes all the Ute Stampede fun! We went to the horse parade on Thursday. But do you think me and the girls watched...heck no we were busy fighting over Gavin.
I think Becky had her arms full!
Ok so we snuck out of the parade early to get down to the fairgrounds for the rodeo. We debated where to sit this year. Should we sit in our normal spot or should we sit in the new section. Kurtis and Debbie battled over it (LOL) and Debbie won. She wanted to be on the east side so she had easy access to her corn dog from the carnival. I kinda like our normal spot too. We waited for the sky diver to come down with the flag, but it was to windy and he couldn't make the jump. So the flag was held up in the arena.
As you can see in these next few photos that yes the wind was blowing! ok, so maybe you can't tell how bad it was blowing, i just remember it felt like my hair was all over the place...even in the neighbors food...JK
And of course we weren't paying to much attention to the rodeo, Gavin kept us entertained.
Ok, so we got our Thursday night rodeo done. It was nice to have the Wild Child back. That is the best part of the rodeo. I could have defiantly done without the wind though! Maybe next year. Any way Friday was the Mammoth parade. Me and Sam were the only ones watching the parade out of our family. Kurtis went through with the fire dept, Steph and Mike both went through with Mini Drill. The fire dept. looked very nice in their formal uniforms.
Hey Look! It's Kurtis.

And of course Mike would have to be on the opposite side of the truck then us! Geez Mike! LOL at least Steph was on the right side!
Here she is sneaking a peak at us while trying to do her dance.
Hey thanks Steph for choosing our side!It was a good parade. But I didn't have Steph with me this time to go get my candy for me. So me and Sam went without candy. Ok so on.....Friday night we went to the carnival. Mike went with Jake. He bought her a wrist band for the rides and guess what.........She got sick and threw up. Nice one Mike! Steph and Kloie rode the rides until Mike got so sick and Jake became her new partner. Sam went with Bailee on Saturday and she ended up getting sick also. Tough kids I got there right! And I almost forgot to add that Mike got to dance at the Bathing Beauty judging. I am so glad she the entertainment and not a contestant! Ok that's enough about July for tonight. More to come soon!

Some July Catchin' to do!

Ok ok!!!!! So where does July think it is going so fast?????? I blinked and it is about over. Lesson for ya....don't blink! So anyhoo--- I got alot of summer catchin up to do so here it goes. We had our 4th of July celebrations. Me and Mike did the Veterans Memorial at the park for the 4th of July carnival. I love doing this. I have done it now for many years, and each year that I pull out the pictures and read them over again I just feel like I get to know the Vets more and more and have a greater appreciation for them. I also get so excited when I get more brought to me each year. So I will continue to do the memorial as long as the committee will let me do it.
We spent some time down at the carnival. Mike had to dance so we got to watch her preform with the drill team.


Steph hung out with Kloie and Marissa.

Sam was hangin with Bailee.Then that night we tried to have fireworks. But the rain and wind would not cooperate with the fireman, so fireworks were canceled. It was a tough decision for them to make, but a wise one. It was sad though because the fireman that helped out with it spent most of their 4th of July getting them ready. But what good men they are to reschedule and do it again on the 23rd for us. Ok so on to the next event. Sams softball tournament. They won the tournament. The championship game was very intense! The game lasted about 2 and a half hours. At one point we thought that there was no way we would win the game which would leave us having to play the team one more time because we had not lost one yet, but by some miracle....we won. Wow what a game. Sam hit a home run too! She has some great talent in softball...obviously not inherited from me! Congrats Sam!This post is just the start of our busy July that just whipped by! So don't worry, more July events to come! Remember though.....DON'T BLINK!