june: church stuff

Someday when my great great great grandchildren are forced by my great great grandchildren to dust off my old blog books (that I will print! someday...) in an effort to "connect" with their "ancestors", those poor great great great grandchildren are going to be like, "Seriously? Did this lady's life revolve around trips to Utah and 'church stuff'? Did she ever write about anything else?" and my ghost whisper response will be "Nooooooo. Sorrrry. I threw away all my angst-filled diaries from junior high, so you're stuck with my boring adult life that did, indeed, revolve around family and the good Lord. Also I'm haunting yoooouuuuu." I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited for that day.

But in the meantime, here are cute Sunday evening Jack and Carma to kick off this post about all the church-related activities the Izatts hit up during the month of June!

OH man, the orchard. I actually don't blame my descendants for skimming over this - but I can't not include a cute picture of Carma so here it is. AND here's a photo illustration of what thinning looks like, before and after! #educational And thus ends the pictures from the orchard... until like August. Then we went back five times to pick the fruit!!

Ward Temple Night was early in the month. The amazingly sweet Kiki watched our kids and I knew Carma would be a handful and our ward succeeded in getting a lot of members to the temple that night so Chuck and I opted to do initiatory. I ended up having about fifteen minutes afterwards to sit in the main corridor of the temple waiting for Chuck, which I loved. Sitting in a beautiful, peaceful environment is always so soothing, and I took the opportunity to look around and ponder how to better replicate that same feeling in our home. I jotted down some of my ideas later that night and it's something I think about a lot, but I haven't focused on as much as I want to...

That weekend was the Youth Carnival Fundraiser, aka the culmination of months of hard work from both the youth aaaand their leaders.They had a bajillion different booths/activities and then some entertainment and a spaghetti feed and a dessert/service auction and the whole thing was so well done. (For the record, aka in case we do this again sometime, here were some of the booths: four way tug of war, 'kissing booth' aka guess how many Hershey's kisses are in a container, fishing, family photos, Jedi training academy, bean bag toss, washer toss, dunk tank, I Spy... I might be missing some...)

Chuck volunteered to head up an 'I Spy' activity so we put together this board and then had a paper with 15? 20? items to find. I'm not going to lie; I was ex.treme.ly. proud of this. In my head, it was the most popular activity there.

 Okay, the actual favorite one was probably the dunk tank, generously lent to us by Brother Walker Sr. The Bishopric + Chuck were recruited as the dunkees and my jump in the lower left is when I knocked Chuck into the tank hahaha. Good times!!

  

The ridiculously darling Brooklyn and I (and Carma!) sneaked out for an adventure one night. We admired the cool jewelry at Savers before hitting up the books and CDs and cookies at Target. Brooklyn is very up on all the cool bands and youtube stars and so I shamelessly grilled her so that I can fake my way through future conversations with teenagers. And even though she declined to try my orange milanos, I still love her so so so much and I'm glad she fit me in between driver's ed and Supernatural netflix marathons ;).

As previously mentioned, we headed back to town quickly from Utah for a temple sealing - my grandpa's! Grandpa passed away two and a half years ago and still hadn't been sealed to his parents, so we were able to see that ordinance completed on their behalf. My aunt and uncle had all of their kids + spouses in town for the weekend and Chuck and I loved being able to be there as well, especially since it fell the day after our anniversary and we were in the same room (well, pre-remodel) that we were sealed in all those many (eleven, hahaha) years ago ;). Hearing those beautiful promises about eternity is always special. And it was so fun to see so many cousins - although we joked that with facebook, it seems like we all see each other pretty often!

 Chuck was back at the temple the following Saturday for a youth trip - these kids were able to go and be baptized for family members and others who have passed away, and now have the opportunity to accept that baptism. Good looking group of leaders and youth!

 That night the Elder's Quorum hosted a Father's Day BBQ/party at the church so the ambitious Izatts biked there! You can't go wrong with hot dogs, ping pong, icees, and water balloon volleyball in the sand pit.

Towards the end of the month Clyde got attend his very first Cub Scout day camp! As a veteran of such camps (I went three years in a row back in my Cub Scout days. Feeling a bit nostalgic now...), I was thrilled to pack his lunch and send him out the door, haha. He was thrilled to shoot a bb gun and do archery and hang out with Brenden and Andrew! (pictures courtesy of Sister Eckert, thank you!!)

 

 And June concluded with this ridiculously handsome fellow spending a week up at Scout camp! That'll be its own post because I'm tired and there's a bajillion pictures associated with that week. But definitely keep an eye out for that one, maybe even some day soon... ;).