Trip to Logan

Ariel will be attending USU in the fall. We are very happy about this, Logan is where I grew up and is very close to my heart. We needed to take a trip to campus and straighten out her schedule and find housing. My sister Jennifer, a USU graduate, came along so she could show us around campus. We are so glad she did, even though she had to do her transcription job all the way up and back, which was not an easy task. Ariel has changed her major so we met with an adviser for the Communicative Disorders Department. She helped her plan out her schedule until graduation and registered her for the needed classes. We were so relieved that we got that done and went in search for an apartment. We found a great place right off campus, everything worked out better than we hoped. The campus was beautiful and Megan took pictures for us.

When we were done on campus, we went to Chick-Fil-A to eat. It was almost 2:00 p.m., so we were way past lunch. The final thing on the agenda was a trip down memory lane. I drove around River Heights and to the houses where we lived, and stopped at a park by my house where I spent a lot of happy times. I really wanted to see the inside of the River Heights Blvd house. I talked Jen into going to the door with me. A very kind lady opened it and when we told her we used to live in her house, she asked us if we were Freebairns. She had moved into the house right after we moved out and knew about our family from the ward members. She invited us in to look around. They had re-done everything in the house. The only thing that looked the same was the big rock fireplace. It looked amazing. I loved seeing the house. When we went down to our old bedroom in the basement, I couldn't believe how small it was. It is interesting how different your perspective is when you are young. I have so many happy memories of my days in River Heights. We left Cache Valley and made a stop at Brigham City Cemetery to visit our grandparents grave. What a great trip we had!

We got back to Bountiful just in time to help pull up the grass that had been dug out to make room for a larger concrete pad. Yesterday, the guys had used a concrete cutter and cut out the old stuff and hauled it away. By the time they were done, everything and everyone in the back yard was splattered with mud. It was fun working together and with so many people helping, it went a lot faster.

Sunday at Grandma's

On Sunday, most of the family came over for dinner. Three of us kids live out of state, so it was nice that we were all visiting at the same time. We spent the evening taking some family pictures, watching the grand kids play, and making some plans for the upcoming work week. A few months ago, Jon had asked us to all come the same week so we could work on projects that needed to be done at my mom's house. The day we arrived, they had just finished the roof. We felt bad that we missed re-roofing the house in the summer heat with everyone else, but we didn't feel bad for long. It looked like it was a huge and miserable task. My mom was so happy about the new roof. Everyone did such a great job and worked so hard. 

 

A Birthday Party For Two

 My two youngest nephews were born on the same day. Their moms wanted to celebrate their birthdays together so we went out to Stephen and Brooke's house for a family birthday party.

 My sister-in-law, Meg, has some serious skills when it comes to cake decorating. She made each of the boys  their very own "smash cake." I learned that if the birthday child doesn't sufficiently "smash" up their cake, the parents will do it for them.

 Cooper did not care to much for his cake. He picked at it but didn't want to have anything to do with eating it or getting dirty.

 Even though Tyler got right to eating his cake, Stephen thought he needed a little more help. So he turned it upside down on Tyler's head. He didn't care for that too much.

We enjoyed visiting and eating. The little cakes were very entertaining, especially when the parents smashed them on the children. I guess their philosophy was: "you're going to eat your cake and wear it to." After the boys opened their presents we went to the front yard. The city of West Valley put on a big firework show just for the birthdays...well, maybe it was for America's birthday...but it was a perfect ending to a great party!

A Miserable Drive

We headed for Utah the 25th of June. My two youngest nephews turned one today and we were hoping to make it to their birthday party. The girls and I left early, we were picking Todd and Aaron up in Parowan because they had been at scout camp this week. I was headed north on the I-15 traveling in the left lane and had just passed City Center. I looked in my drivers side mirror and noticed a car coming up pretty fast behind me. While I watched in the mirror, he slammed into the concrete barrier on the left and shot across all the lanes of traffic and hit a car in the far right lane. The car must have been going over 80 mph when it hit the barrier. It really shook me up how close he was to me when he crashed. It took me about 20 minutes to calm myself down, I don't like close calls. When we got to Cedar City, we went to Ariel's friends house to pick up "brown car" so we could take it up to Bountiful. Brown car was my dad's car and Ariel had been using it at school. Unfortunately, brown car had a dead battery. I put it into neutral and the girls pushed me down the driveway into the street. I had never jumped a car before, so I got Todd on the phone and he walked me through it. It was pretty easy, I am fairly sure I could do it again if I had to. We got some lunch and then picked up the guys. Sad story about brown car is that the drivers side window can't be rolled down and it has no air conditioning. Todd was gallant enough to agree to drive brown car and Ariel was a good sport to go with him so he wouldn't have to suffer alone. I imagine it was very hot inside that ride. About an hour into our drive, I followed Todd off the freeway and was told that brown car was over heated and couldn't go on for a while. He popped the hood and the radiator fluid had filled up the overflow and was literally boiling. We hung out at the gas station for about 45 minutes while we waited for brown car to cool off. During that time Megan wandered around taking pictures of old cars, Ariel tried to cool herself off after her miserable ride, and Aaron stretched out on the middle row and fell asleep. 

When brown car was strong enough to go on...we headed north again. This time Todd asked Ariel to ride with me and he unloaded some of their camping gear out of the trunk into the van. We made it about another hour before we had to stop and cool off again. This continued the rest of our journey. When we left Nephi after one of our cool off stops, we hit a serious traffic delay just as we were headed up a long, steep hill. All the way up the hill, as far as you could see, cars were bumper to bumper, travelling about 5 mph. Just what you want to see when you have a car that is over-heating. For some reason there were a lot of bees flying around. Todd was in front of me and all the windows were down (except the drivers side) the bees were flying everywhere. I was sure a bee was going to fly in the car and sting him. I called him on the phone and said you might want to roll up the windows because the bees are flying all around the car. He replied calmly, "I would rather be stung by a bee, then suffocate." We all felt very bad for him. After nine and a half long hours, we arrived in Bountiful,

Scout Camp

Aaron and Todd spent a week at Thunder Ridge Scout Camp

Todd took his hammock he had used when he was boy scout

Aaron got merit badges on all three shooting sports

Nice!

Todd spent a little time hiking 

The boys preparing to eat

Archery 

One of the merit badges was wilderness survival. The boys had to gather their supplies to survive a night in the wilderness. Aaron packed his pockets with his survival food: chips, popcorn, snickers bar, and a bottle of water. He headed out of camp with a tarp and some rope.

After a little supervision with building the fire, the boys were left on their own. Aaron felt pretty good about the shelter he built. I don't imagine it was a very comfortable night.

Todd said they didn't look nearly as "chipper" when they came straggling back to camp the next morning

Playing in the storm drain in Parowan

The scouts stayed in Parowan their last night at the Barton's home. They were the grandparents of one of the scouts from our ward. They had a great time with the horses and the heavy equipment on the farm.

Aaron got to do a little driving...

...and some illegal riding

Aaron completed ten merit badges this week and got one partial. He worked very hard and Todd had a great time being at camp with him. No near death experiences this year at camp, which was a good thing.