Summer happenings

One highlight of my family coming out was Jessie’s first visit to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.  What an exciting day.  The baptistery was full with two other ward youth groups who had also come, so there was plenty of time to ponder and reflect on the opportunity to serve in the temple.  Even though it took almost two hours for each of us to do two names the time passed peacefully.  I can’t really describe it but serving in the temple is such a blessing.  Because of the lateness of the hour we only did baptisms and not any conformations.  Jessie was able to go back to the temple again with Rachel and Grandma a few days later and did more baptisms and conformations for some family names that my mom had found.The adults went out for a date – a game of bowling.  Pictures compliments of Heather.Here’s a little sprinkler fun.  Karina and Neil wanted to get wet, but couldn’t bring themselves to actually get into the water.  It was quite entertaining.  Jumping through the clown is still one of my kids favorites summer things.Here are our dancing queens.  Dressing up in spinning dresses is just so much fun!Heather and her two kids and my mom were able to an extra 2ish weeks after my dad left with Becca and Conrad so they could start school.  Ken’s mom invited us over for Sunday dinner – homemade Indian food and it was fabulous.  You could smell the goodness outside the backdoor.We also got to have Family Home Evening with the Albertson’s.  Jessie prepared our lesson to pass off one of her her Young Women goals.  It was about how Jesus served and how we can follow his example.  We acted out Jesus’ first miracle serving his mother turning water to wine at a wedding.  Abbie played the part of Mary.Jessie made us a little hand out to keep track of our gifts of service over the next week.  Then we roasted marshmallows and made s’mores.  Everyone wanted to light a match to help start the fire.  Here’s Mark, Spencer and Karina taking their turns.

Jessie had fun painting Karina and Spencer.

Karina shared her Pinkalicious game.  We had some creative songs come from this game.Ken picked up some flowers for me.  Look at these awesome little flowers.Spencer loves reading stories to others.  It’s fun to listen to him too because he has some great voices and is good at putting expression into what the characters say.  Chocolate animal crackers make the story even better.  This is one of our favorite books: The Day that Dinosaurs came with Everything.We made some deviled eggs to take to a family BBQ at Ken’s parents.  Have you ever boiled an egg with a double yolk?  (Ignoring the bit of green, isn’t that fun!)

Earlier this summer Spencer wrote a letter to Joy Cowley, an author of beginning children’s books.  She lives in New Zealand.  And what a day it was when he got a letter in return.    Her letter answered his questions about how she writes her stories and included a few funny stories of things that had happened to her.  What a fun lady.  She even decorated the envelope.Some thoughtful neighbors shared this large zucchini with us.  Abbie turned it into her Squash Baby and she and Grandma made up stories about it.