He got him!

Ethan is taller than Grandpa Pack. I think Ethan was surprised he was taller. 

Of course Courtney had to check how close she is to passing Ethan. 😉

Dance Camp

Courtney had dance camp this week. It was an intense 3-day camp with 8 hours each day. They fed her lunch, which she liked. On Saturday they had a show off for the parents. They learned 4 dances and they performed them. It was fun to watch them and she had a good time.

Courtney is back row in the grey shirt.

Can you see her? (I tried to put her in the middle of the pic so she was easy to find.)

Pants!!

We bought her pants!! Courtney lives in leggings and it drives me nuts. But she agreed that I could dress her once or twice per week so I had her try on pants when we went school shopping. And doesn't she look gorgeous!?!? She actually liked them too. 

Dinner

Ethan made steak kabobs for dinner and it was yummy!

Painting

Courtney finally picked a color for her bedroom so she and Bryan (mostly Bryan) painted it on the 24th. It turned out cute!

Catching up

Some people at church told Bryan that they thought Ethan had him beat in height. So after church we had to check and, nope, Bryan is still taller...for now.

Fire Lake Park

Last week the kids and I went to Fire Lake Park (Ivins Reservoir) to swim. It was super hot outside and we thought it would be fun to cool off. There weren't very many people there, which was nice. But we soon realized that the lake smelled like sewer. We didn't stay long because the water had algae in it, that's why it smelled. But we cooled off.

Peeling!!

We bought some stuff called "After Sun" to use for Courtney's sunburned face. It has aloe in it but also a bunch of other things. She said it didn't hurt like aloe so I was happy because she used it! I think it made a huge difference because she wasn't in pain from the burn.

Now her nose is really peeling and it's crazy. I think the after sun made it peel differently. 

Doesn't that just look like fun?!? She won't let me peel it off though. 

She's home!

Courtney got home Saturday mid-morning from camp. She had a great time but was sunburned and exhausted, so she was a bit grumpy. 😖

They went to Clear Creek Ranch by Zion and had so much fun. They slept in cabins and ate good food. There was a pond and they did paddle board and kayak races. They went into Zion for a hike to the Emerald Pools and then swam in the river. They made up skits and gave treats to their secret sisters. 

There was a rope swing from the tree next to the pond and Courtney wasn't afraid to use it. She was first and earned herself the award of "young, but mighty!"

I am so glad she had so much fun.

Her sunburned face:

Crafts:

Yoga

Ethan had an assignment last week for Flying Monkeys to do "yoga for the back." They sent a yoga video link to everyone and so we decided to try it and IT WAS HILARIOUS!

Ethan is not flexible and I'm not much better. He can't sit "Indian style" because his hips don't rotate very well. We were laughing so hard because the lady used words like "sit bone" that would crack us up. 

My favorite line was "Lay here and let te body die."  😜

That was the one pose Ethan could excel at!!

Girls Camp

She is off to girls camp!! She has been packed for days and was so excited to go. I drove her to the church and when other showed up, Courtney turned to me and told me "Ok, leave now mom." So I did. I got one pic of her and then another mom sent me a pic. The dark side of raising an independent child. But I would rather have independent than clingy!

Her stuff:

The 2nd person to arrive:

Good friends!

Rainbow

While I was at our Ward Relief Society meeting Tuesday night it rained. When I came out, there was a huge rainbow over our subdivision. It was so cool.

Barker Recreational Area

We left Friday to go to Barker to go camping. It is about 4 hours from Ivins. You go toward Bryce Canyon. We saw the fire from Panguitch. You could see the flames from that far away. It was crazy!

You continue on toward Bryce but you don't turn to go to the entrance. Instead you go through Tropic and continue on SR 12. We hit road construction and a rain storm along with some crazy hills.

There's a turnoff about 10 miles before Escalante you take and then you drive on a dirt road for what seems like forever! 

The place is beautiful and the campground want even close to being full. It rained on us when we first got to the campsite so our dusty bikes turned muddy.

When the rain let up we set up camp and the went exploring. Ethan drove us up to the lake where we hiked in about 1/8 of a mile (or less) and he started fishing while Courtney drew and Bryan and I explored.

Ethan didn't catch anything but we were eaten by the mosquitos! We went back to camp and made dinner. We went simple with the food this time so it was hamburgers and chips. We brought a watermelon but not a knife...oops!

We had s'mores and roasted marshmallows.

We decided to explore some more so we went to the upper lake. It is so pretty up there.

While Ethan had been fishing, a couple of guys stopped to chat with Bryan. They were at the same campground we were and warned us that there had been a bear in their camp the night before. It had rubbed against their tent but ran away when they turned on their flashlight. This was not a good thing to tell Courtney. They also said that the camp host has chased away a bear before from the campground.

The people in the site next to us had a dog. It didn't bark at all (I was amazed) but it patrolled all night. Courtney had a really hard time sleeping because she kept hearing bears outside. She saw a shadow and was sure it was a bear. Bryan honked the car horn a couple times in the night to scare things away. But I think the shadow was actually the dog doing its patrol around the camp area. We were really grateful it kept the bears away. I did hear it growl a couple of times but it could have been at anything.

We woke up from our restless sleep (Ethan had a fabulous night sleep on his sleeping pad), Bryan made breakfast, we packed up camp and were off for adventure. 

Ethan went fishing again at the lake while I sat and listened to the fish jump and the bugs fly around. Bryan and Courtney went for a mountain bike ride. She wasn't too sure about it. She likes riding on flat, predictable surfaces (me too).  There were some tears but they saw a snake and had a good ride.

Bryan wanted to take another ride and Ethan was tired, so the kids and I waited for Bryan to ride another loop.

Ethan didn't catch any fish but neither did any of the other anglers. That was a bummer but he still had fun trying. 

Then we headed home. Bryan wanted to check out Escalante so we drove the few miles into town. There's not much to see. We stopped st Nemo's and got some shakes (Bryan had peach and he loved it!). 

We drove home through some rain showers but that was good because the bikes and the van were filthy! Our old van got us there and home!

It was a long way to go for an overnighter but we had fun and it was very pretty!

Progress on the room

Courtney's new duvet cover came today so all we have left is to paint the accent wall. I think she has finally decided on a color, but we will see. 

This is the accent all which will probably end up being a light blue color.

Pickle juice

We had an empty jar of pickles in the fridge and so I was going to toss it. I turned to Ethan and asked if he wanted to drink the pickle juice. He said "okay." So we strained the seeds out and put it in a cup for him to drink...and he did!!!

He chugged it right down and then the look on his face was priceless!! 

He ate lemons as a kid even though he made the same face. What a kid!!!

Young men's at Gunlock Reservoir

The priest quorum is small so they sometimes invite the teachers quorum to go along with them on their activities. Tonight they all went to Gunlock Reservoir boating and swimming. 

The ym president sent Bryan some photos of Ethan.

Here he is behind a boat:

Here he is in mid-air jumping off a cliff (crazy!):

Cute hair

Once in a while Courtney will let me do her hair. This week was it! She found some cute hairstyles on line and asked if I would do them.

This is inspired by Star Wars. It turned out cute.

Fireworks!

Monday night we had a neighborhood fireworks party. Our neighbors have a snowcone machine so they brought it along. Everyone pooled their fireworks and the RM boys (whose parents wouldn't let her lifht fireworks before) took control of the show. It was pretty fun.

Here are some pics of Courtney.

4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

We have a tradition of biking to Snow Canyon and having breakfast at the picnic tables near the sand dunes. We didn't think the kids would want to do it this year but Courtney asked if we were going to do it this year. So we said sure.

 I made cinnamon rolls and oj. Courtney decided she didn't want to bike so the boys took off and we met them at the dunes.

We ate and then played frisbee for a bit before loading up and coming back home. It was a fun morning.