Pineview Reservoir

Every summer we spend a couple days up at Pineview with Mike's family. It's one of our very favorite places in the whole world! It so fun to go relax on the beach and play in the water, go for rides on the boat, etc. and just be together as a family. It's fun to visit with Mike's siblings and parents while all the cousins who don't see each other that often get to run around and play together! Always a great time!

Shawn trying to water ski. He got up for a second but I didn't get a picture fast enough. Darn!

And then there's Mike showing off his skills! Ha!

Brady loved the long board. And he was good at it too!

Connor and Kamree are only one month apart in age and they are such good friends!

This is my favorite! The cousins were all playing out on the long board so we had them all line up for a picture with Grandma McDougal. I love it!!

Brady found and caught a butterfly! Don't worry he let it go!

One more pic of the cousins and grandparents at the swimming pool since the littlest ones weren't in the one at the lake.

We love this tradition of going to Pineview! Hopefully it will continue for many years!!

Summertime!!!

While I was at girl's camp, Mike left home with the boys and drove up to South Jordan, Utah. On their way they camped a couple days in Lake Powell with Mike's brother Jared and his family. They had fun playing on the beach and going for rides in the boat! Great father/son time for sure!!

The night after I got home from camp, I flew up to Utah and met them there in South Jordan at our parent's house. That's where we spent the next couple weeks of our summer!! We love to go to UT in the summer - to visit all our family and have fun together while getting out of the AZ heat for a while! The first day I was up there we took the boys and their cousin Cade and went to Lagoon. We hadn't been there in a long time and it was so fun to go with the boys now that they're older and can go on more of the rides and stuff! We enjoyed the park as well as the water park, Lagoon-a-beach. Mike's mom joined us for part of the afternoon and his sister Kristina and her husband Jacob were with us all day. It was great spending time with them! Where we live so far away we don't get to do that much!

This was Connor's very favorite ride! He wanted to go on it over and over! Ha!

They also enjoyed the swings:

This is my all-time favorite ride!! Yikes! It is so scary and yet SO fun!!!

Mike and I both hate the Ferris wheel (give me the heebie jeebies! Especially one this old!) but Connor had begged to go on it from the moment we walked in to the park! We gave in when it was almost dark and rode on it with him.

 

This trip was also the first time we got to meet our niece Sara. She is Steven and Marianela's daughter. (First niece on my side of the family! All the rest including our kids are boys!) She is SO cute and has SO much hair!!! She was born the end of April so she is a little over 2 months old here...

Another afternoon we drove up and spent it at Snowbird. Absolutely gorgeous up there in the mountains! We had fun riding the ski lift and going down the alpine slide (I know that's not what it's called but I can't think of the name of the little car things) And absolutely enjoyed the scenery through it all!!!

Girl's Camp 2013

The last week of June was girl's camp for the Young Women in our ward. Since I was the 2nd Councilor (over the Beehives) I got to go! I LOVE girl's camp! It is so fun to camp for a few days with the girls, get to know them better, have spiritual experiences with them, and fun activities. Tons of fun!! I didn't take lots of pictures, but did get a few!

These are some light strands that I made to decorate our campsite with. Every ward (it was a Stake camp this year) was assigned a certain color and we got hot pink! Fun color to decorate with!

The overall theme was "Decide Where to Stand" which goes along with the Youth Theme for the year which is "Stand Ye In Holy Places". Each ward got to pick a temple somewhere in the world to be their temple for camp. Then we got to use that country as our ward's theme - we could decorate with that, make up a dance for the talent show with that, etc. Our ward chose Paris, France! It was so fun because we could do the whole black and white thing to go along with the hot pink color. WE also did a devotional with our girls every day where we took one of the main symbols of France and turned the meaning of them into a spiritual thought, then gave them a charm of that symbol for a charm bracelet we made for each of them. It tuned out really cool!!  Here is our ward's flag:

One of the days we got to go on a hike with the girls. Here are a few of them I was with during the hike. (While we were resting and listening to a spiritual thought from one of the Stake leaders)

The girls practicing for the talent night. We did a dance that was a mix between a mime show and the can-can. It was super funny! 

That night we all wore our black and white striped shirts and pink berets that were made for us. The girls looked so cute!!!

 

Pic of all of us in front of our cabin with our cute sign and Eiffel Tower!

Headed to the talent show! Here are our mime's cute faces all painted and ready to go!

After the talent show we tried to get a picture of us leaders that were there together...

...only problem is that we couldn't stop laughing!!!

The last day there they always have a special lunch for all the girls and leaders who earned their YW Medallion that past year. (Medallion Club Luncheon) We had quite a few girls who had gotten theirs that got to go! So proud of them!!

Karolee and I had also gotten ours so we got to attend as well this time!

Also the last day there is Bishop's day where the Bishoprics come spend the day and we play all sorts of games, etc. and then have testimony meetings that night with them. Here are a few pics of one of the activities we did...

The bus ride home is always fun (not!) But the girls enjoy it together laughing and talking all about camp and other things.

And some of them are so wiped out from the week that they just zonk out! Haha!!

I was so blessed to be able to attend camp with these girls! They are so amazing and I learn so much from them all the time. It is so fun to have time with girls - talking, laughing until we cry, being crazy, and feeling the spirit together. They have such strong testimonies and it is a blessing to be able to hear and feel that from them all! I would chalk up girl's camp this year to a success!!