A fond farewell to June

After a slow start, June definitely picked up and turned out to be an awesomely busy month, leading up to the culmination of last week: I taught at a summer day camp all day every day, Chuck worked and then had all day training for three days straight and some of Chuck's family came into town for a wedding and stayed with us.

The summer camp job was pretty last minute; I've done it in summers previous but wasn't planning on it this year. Then the director had to drop out so my mom (who usually directs it anyways) took over and hired me, which I really appreciated. It was a great opportunity to earn some money and look ridiculous doing it:

Every day of camp has a different theme and this was "wacky outfit day". My mom actually thought she could dress wackier than I could, obviously she was mistaken.
I absolutely adore the kids at camp, and luckily they adore me too! Neal was hands-down my favorite this year, even though he was one of the oldest campers (going in to 6th grade) and had the attitude to prove it. This was doodled on the 'staff' table in the cafeteria.
Karsyn was another sweetheart who we had last year as well. It's nice of her to include my mom here too, although the size of the names clearly indicates who the favorite is :) Camp can sometimes be stressful, but this year went really smoothly. The other teachers were our good friend Matt and my cousin Amanda, which meant a lot of fun (maybe too much) cleaning up the last day and divying up the extra camp supplies.

Between Chuck, my brother Cody, and my good friend Leslie we had childcare Monday-Wednesday figured out, but that still left Thursday and Friday. Luckily we found out that Chuck's dad Dave was coming into town on Wednesday evening and we promptly secured him as our nanny for the last two days of the week. 'Pops' and the boys had a great time!
Here's a tired Will at dinner on Wednesday night; Pops treated us after he got into town.
The next night we had a picnic dinner at the park and Chuck and Clyde enjoyed the swings, as always.

Saturday night my mom and I (and the little boys) went to a beautiful backyard wedding reception. I didn't get any pictures of the bride, but I promise Kiley looked gorgeous!

Clyde excitedly awaited as Grandma doled out the treats they had selected together. Despite his apparent eagerness here, Will turned his nose up at everything, even cake. Nut.

Mom got to catch up with some good friends, including the mother of the bride.

And I was grateful to survive the evening; Will refused to stay still. He kept running off to stand next to the big speaker and dance to the music, which meant I started many conversations only to apologetically run off when it looked like he was either going to blast his eardrums completely or start pressing buttons.

Lastly, this weekend felt a bit like Christmas - as in, I got spoiled! First up, Chuck's parents bought us a beautiful upright freezer for our garage to say happy anniversary:

Don't mind the fingerprints; I'm obviously not used to stainless steel appliances!

Oooh and aaah for as long as necessary before moving on. It also came with the promise of my mother-in-law cooking some meals for us to freeze to help out with the upcoming fall semester. Yay!

And then my sweet husband came through on something I've been wanting forever: bikes and a bike trailer! The summer after Clyde was born I had an old Huffy with a child bike seat on the back, but it was stolen (technically, it was traded - they left another bike in my front yard and took mine. Weird). Chuck's dad actually bought me another one before Christmas, but we hadn't been able to get it up here so Chuck went ahead and picked up a new bike for each of us and a bike trailer for the little boys. He stayed up late Monday night getting them all set up and we went for two fun bike rides today:

He was actually reaching for the camera to take a picture of me, but I took a picture of him instead. I'm sneaky like that.

Here I am with the little boys! We ordered an extra bracket so that we'll be able to more easily move the trailer between our two bikes, which is good because it's HEAVY! I will totally admit that there were a couple steep-ish hills today that I had to walk the bike up.

Clyde and Will really like bike rides, although they are not big fans of the helmets. Sadly for them, I'm a big fan of keeping their heads and brains intact, so the helmets will stay!

More Utah fun: Hogle Zoo

Well, we have officially used this year's zoo pass more out of state than in state - we went to Hogle Zoo again while we were in Utah to visit Chuck's grandma! Grandma Thomas lives in Pennsylvania, but visits Utah and Nevada each June to see her western U.S. children and grandchildren. Grandma Thomas does her part to keep the boys outfitted in cute clothes (for example, the shirts the boys are wearing in the following pictures!) and well-read. It's fun because since she's a children's book author (Red Sled, Nature's Paintbox, Firefly Mountain, 'Stand Back' Said the Elephant, etc.) she sends a lot of autographed books by other authors to the boys.

We were excited to meet up with Grandma Thomas and Grandma Izatt and decided an outing to the zoo would be a fun way to spend the afternoon. Thankfully it was much warmer than the last time we attempted a visit there!

Will decided to take advantage of the fact that he could walk this time around, and wiggled out of the stroller at every chance. He walked ALL OVER the zoo; luckily Aunt Terri was willing to patiently hang back and walk at his pace most of the time!

Although sometimes he moved faster than anticipated and had to be caught up with! The boys were pretty spoiled with a two-to-one adoring adult to child ratio for the afternoon, plus a spare adult to take pictures.
Clyde and Will loved watching the elephants, of course.

Will loved this elephant too, although the music that plays when you get close to the trunk startled him a bit.

Cute boys! Although doesn't it look like both of those legs belong to one boy? I kept thinking Will was riding side saddle, but they're definitely both left legs.

Yay for Madagascar! Grandma Thomas was especially excited and picked up a t-shirt and stuffed animal for Elder Lehi Thomas (Chuck's cousin) who is in the MTC right now prepping to go to Madagascar in a couple of weeks.

Naturally, we hit up the gopher exhibit, which seemed to bring out a bit of claustrophobia in both of my children.

The boys LOVED the carousel; Will was so excited for it to start that he kept shaking the pole and wiggling against it. Clyde's latest favorite animal is the giraffe (sorry, rhinoceros) and he didn't even mind that the one he chose didn't go up and down.

Grandma Izatt also treated the little boys (and Sam and Terri!) to a train ride. Again, in an effort to get things moving Will excitedly shook the railing in front of him. It worked . . . eventually!

We had such a fun time at the zoo; we were there for like four hours and still didn't see all the animals - we'll definitely have to return sometime. But our favorite part was hanging out with the grandmas!

Grandma Izatt and Clyde

Will, me, and Grandma Thomas

Elder Braden's ONE YEAR mark!

So, it's been exactly a year since my baby (brother) embarked on his two-year service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He spent two months in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah and then headed down to the California San Fernando Valley Mission (Spanish speaking). Quinn really loves what he's doing there and I'm so impressed with his maturity, obedience, and love for the Lord and the people there.

It was Elder Braden's birthday last Saturday, so I made him another t-shirt. For Christmas he got a shirt with a picture of the little boys in white shirts, ties, and bike helmets with the caption "We love our Unky Elder Braden!" For his birthday t-shirt, we replaced the bike helmets with party hats and the caption said, "P-days? Good. B-days? Better!" Here are a couple pictures from that photo shoot, we went with the second one for the actual shirt:

I obviously miss Quinn a lot, but I'm so excited about the experiences he's having and it's been great to hear from him every Monday through e-mail. I love it when I'm near the computer at the same time and we can write back and forth a little.
Elder Braden sent me one of his camera's memory cards a while back to empty and send back to him; it's fun to see all of the pictures he took his first few months out. Although sometimes it is confusing to see just the pictures without any kind of caption or story:
I guess he just really liked this lunch!

I also found pictures of the various ways Elder Braden was able to prepare for the mission field in the MTC, including levitating:
and running up brick walls:
Here's his desk set-up in one of his areas in California:

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of sharing the knowledge I have of our Heavenly Father's existence, His plan of salvation for all of us and the role of our Savior Jesus Christ in that plan. Sometimes I worry too much about offending someone or my own discomfort instead of focusing on the joy and happiness that the gospel brings to me and the possibility of helping other people come to that same joy and happiness. SO, hopefully my various friends and family will indulge me as I try to be more vocal about my testimony of the Church. . . . . . Still there? :)

Especially since my sweet younger brother is knocking on doors in Southern California trying to share the gospel message of truth and hope and encountering doors like this:

(I will totally admit that I laughed when I read it.)

In which I meet Shannon Hale

Last Saturday the little boys and I embarked on a five day trip to Utah to visit Chuck's Grandma Thomas and stay with Sam and Terri. We were sad to have to leave Chuck home, but someone had to work to fund the adventure! We had lots of fun (and I took like three hundred pictures) so this is merely the first post about the trip.

After I planned what dates we would be there, the heavens smiled upon me and I read about a book signing by my current favorite author, Shannon Hale, on Saturday evening in Salt Lake. Her newest book for adults, The Actor and the Housewife, was recently released and to celebrate she spoke and signed books at a local bookstore.

Jana and Shannon, yay!
The theme of the party was 'aprons and pies' so I decided to create an apron to wear. It took all of my craftiness (which is not that much) and some paint, letter stamps, and hot glue - here's the finished product:

The boys and I drove down that day and met Sam and Terri just in time to accompany them on their last stop of the Parade of Homes Tour - see Sam's take on that here. We then headed back to Salt Lake to the bookstore. We got there at the end of her address, which meant just in time to wait an hour and a half to get my book signed. Luckily they had plenty of pie (Sam was delighted!) and Sam and Terri did a fabulous job keeping my children entertained.

Sam was in charge of the double stroller, and tried several times to test its limits.
Luckily Terri was there to ensure the boys' safety.
Then Sam found a snail, which provided almost an hour's worth of entertainment (and not only to my children, note the extra boy and girl).

We kept nonchalantly returning to the gallery next to the bookstore where they had the pie so Sam could sneak another piece (or two), and I took the opportunity to take some cute pictures of Sam, Terri, and the little boys. At one point I noticed an official sort of man behind me trying to take the same picture, so I stepped to the side. Then he said he actually wanted to take a picture of me taking a picture of them, so naturally I obliged.

(Photo courtesy of Andy Hall)
After he took the picture I decided to be brave and ask him to e-mail it to me, which he obviously did. I talked to him for a few minutes and it turns out that he's Shannon Hale's brother-in-law!

Here I am talking to him. This is also the best picture I have of me actually wearing the apron.

Finally, here is my lovely copy of the book- thanks to my mom for funding the purchase! I also picked up a copy for my sister-in-law Melissa as an early birthday present since she loves Shannon Hale as much as I do.

And here's the inscription! She liked my apron :)

So, it was definitely worth the long wait (at least for me, I won't speak for Sam and Terri since Clyde and Will got rapidly more grumpy and needy as we waited) to meet Shannon and get my book signed. She was really sweet and nice and now I love her books even more!

We made it to FIVE and we're both still alive!

June 12, 2004

June 12, 2009

To celebrate our milestone fifth anniversary, Chuck and I went on an overnight camping trip to the camping destination of my childhood, Silver Creek Plunge. (An sincere thank you to my mom for staying with our boys!)
Despite an on-and-off drizzly rain, it was SO beautiful.

(This is obviously not us swimming; it's just some people who thought I was weird for photographing them this morning.)
We hung out for like two hours in the divine 'hot pool' - it's like a regular swimming pool but is heated to 98 - 100 degrees. It rained a lot of the time we were in the pool, which actually made it more fun. Chuck impressed me with his old swim team skills by repeatedly beating me in various races, and I enjoyed being in a pool without having to ensure the safety of toddlers the entire time.

Fire pit, obviously an essential part of the camping experience. This was pre-fire, of course, but later on my husband the Eagle Scout made a fantastic fire and we ate hot dogs, chips, macaroni salad, and s'mores for dinner.

Our cozy tent. Inside were the new sleeping bags that Chuck insisted we needed - and boy, was I grateful in the middle of the night! They were really warm and nice; I think I slept better than I do at home.

I'm so glad we could have such a fun outing to celebrate our anniversary. The first five years of marriage have been wonderful, hard, delightful, challenging, fun, growth-promoting, and exciting and I wouldn't trade them for the world.