The boys

Here is a photo of the boys after Fat Mans Misery.

Scout camp- water day

On Wednesday the boys went to Gunlock Reservoir for a water day. Ethan loves the water and loves swimming. I knew he would have a blast. Here is a photo someone sent me:

That's a cool high dive!!

Snow Cones

We have a couple in our ward who have a bunch of fun toys. They have a cotton candy machine and a snow come machine. So once in a while they will just put a sign outside their house saying "free snow cones" or "free cotton candy."

The power is going to be out for about 5 hours Thursday so on Wednesday the couple made snow cones for the neighborhood so they could use the ice in the freezer. The entire neighborhood showed up and there were a ton of kids. It was great!! Now I want a huge snow come maker too!!

Mountain Biking

I forgot to post about this so here it goes a bit late.

Bryan and Ethan went mountain biking early on a Wednesday morning a couple of weeks ago.  Ethan tired but he ended up having a lot of fun. He loves his new mountain bike and was amazed at how easy it was to go up hills and run over rocks.  He is having a blast with it!

Here is a photo Bryan took of the biker boy.

Cute Girl!

Courtney and Bryan saw a fire on the side of the road as they were running errands last week.  Bryan gave Courtney his camera so she could take a picture of the fire.  When we downloaded photos off his phone the other day we found this gem.

She's getting pretty good at taking selfies.

Book Club - Week 2

This week we read 2 books for the book club Courtney does with her friends.  The first one was called "Journey" and is about a little girl who is lonely so she uses her red crayon to draw a door that leads to another world where she helps a purple bird and finds a boy who is also lonely and draws with a purple crayon.  It's a cute book without any words so the girls were able to tell me what they thought was happening.

On doing research for activities to do with the book, I found the author's website where he told of how he came up with the idea and the process he went through to make the book.  I thought it was interesting to we watched it.  Here it is if you want to see it yourself:



Then we read "Count the Monkeys" which really doesn't have any monkeys in it because they are all scared off by other characters.  It was a great book that the girls really liked.  Usually I let them each read a page of the book but I was able to find a youtube video of the author reading the book himself and he was great.  So we watched the video while I held up the book so they could see the pictures better.  Here is the video from youtube:



When we were finished reading and watching, they filled out the Barnes & Noble summer reading guide.  When they read 8 books they can return the guide to Barnes & Noble and get a free book.  There are 4 or 5 books to choose from.  All the girls have to do is write the name of the book, the author and then explain to whom they would recommend the book and why.  I keep these each week and when they have it all fileld out I will send it home with a brief synopsis of the free books and their parents can take them to get their book. Then they did a monkey activity where the girls had to put together a wheel and then count the monkeys.  It was fun.  I can't believe how fast the time flew by!

Scout Camp

Ethan left Monday morning for scout camp!  It's a ward scout camp this year so they spending 2 days in Pine Valley, 1 day at Gunlock Reservoir, and 2 1/2 days in Zion.  Ethan was still sore from Fat Man's but he was excited to be going to Scout Camp.  Bryan got him all ready, I bought the extra stuff they needed, and Courtney double checked everything to make sure we didn't miss anything.

He had to be at the Church by 6:40 a.m. and so we got him ready to go with his backpack full of stuff and his camel back for the hikes.  He took a walking stick too and I hope he used it!

He was loaded down but won't have the big backpack when he's hiking.

Bryan and Courtney drove Ethan to the Church to see him off but they came back after 30 minutes because the boys still hadn't loaded up.  Courtney really wanted to go with him.

Ethan's leader has a tracking device with him and gave us the internet link so we could watch their hiking progress.  They had a hike Monday and then more hiking on Thursday and Friday.  This tracking system was a blessing and a curse.  It was great to see how they were doing but it was awful to watch them and see that they were still hiking at 9:07 p.m.  They hiked FOREVER and most of them were still sore from Fat Man's Misery.  But I bet they slept well Monday night!  The leader is able to check in a final time each day and leave a message so parents can see how they are doing.  Last night he wrote "Day 1 all is well."  But I had to turn the computer off because after 6 p.m. I was obsessively checking for updates every 10 minutes.  Ugh!

Tuesday they are staying at camp in Pine Valley and working on merit badges, both individually and as a group.  Ethan wants to do the fishing merit badge, photography merit badge and movie making merit badges.  I think he will have a lot of fun doing them.

Wednesday they are spending the day at Gunlock Reservoir.  A couple of leaders are taking their boats up there and they have rented kayaks so the boys will have a full day of playing in the water.  I hope they remember sunscreen and wear swim shirts.

Thursday morning they are breaking camp and meeting Bryan at the Church at 7 or 7:30 a.m. (I can't remember which) and driving to Zions for the last 3 days of camp.  Bryan will lead a group on a hike that is in the Narrows.  I am not sure if they are all going down the Narrows or if they are splitting into 2 groups with one going down and the other going up.  But Bryan will be helping with that hike.  I believe it is another 12-13 mile hike like Monday's was.

Friday is another hike in Zions.

Saturday they will break camp and be home in the early afternoon.

I am sure he is having a blast.  He had a bit of stress last week when he broke his glasses during a water balloon fight with the neighbor boy.  Ethan get nervous putting in his contacts so he wanted to wear his glasses at scout camp so he wouldn't have to deal with it.  Personally, I would rather deal with contacts than glasses because they are so much more convenient.  Anyway, I special rush ordered him some glasses but they didn't get here until Monday late afternoon.  So we sent him to camp with a bunch of contacts and a mirror so he could see.  When the glasses came I called another neighbor whose husband was going up Monday night to meet the boys for dinner and asked if he could take the glasses up to Ethan.  So I hope he got them okay and hasn't stepped on them or something.