Miner Family Reunion

We had our biannual Miner Family reunion over the week of July 4th. My parents found this ranch out in the middle of nowhere in northeastern Utah. They basically rented out the whole place for the 5 days we were there. Here are some of the activities that we got to participate in that week:

Skeet Shooting

Canoeing

 Swimming in the Pool and relaxing in the hot tub

Climbing the Rock Wall

 Paintball 

 

 Yes, that bruise was a paintball wound. I think I scared anyone away that was considering doing it.

The boys had fun playing Legos with the other younger kids.

Playing in the game room.

This is a picture of the lodge that we stayed in. The cow pasture was all around us.

  This is the back of the Lodge.

This is a picture of the Red Activities Barn, where we could rent the equipment that we used and climb on the rock wall. There was also a basketball/volleyball court up there, but we had a sand volleyball court right next to the lodge, so we used that for volleyball one of the nights.

 Something new that we did this year was the human piñata. We covered a shirt and a pair of shorts with candy and let a couple of the older cousins wear them and run around while the younger kids chased them and collected the candy. We had an older group and a younger group. It was fun to watch. 

We also had our normal Grandma's Bingo, card games, Dr. Mario, and early morning tennis. Mostly, it was just fun to be with my family, catching up on life and watching our kids interact. Alyssa had a lot of fun with her cousin, Conner. Ashley played with Tamma, Claire, and Jane. Tyler had fun with Grant, and Camden had fun with Jacob. This is the group picture of everyone that made it this year. It was taken on the one morning that everyone was there. We were missing a couple still, Nathan and Cayden-both on Missions & Bunny and Chris-both had to stay home for work. We missed having them all there.

I enjoyed being with my sisters and my mom. They are all such good examples to me and I am so blessed to have them in my life.

I am so thankful that Mom and Dad put so much work into finding great locations and getting us together every other year. We love you, Mom and Dad, and thank you for the way you have raised all of us. We never have any drama or problems when we get together at these reunions and I believe a huge part of that has to do with the example you set for us and the way you raised us.

Camping in Honor of Casey

We decided to go camping for Casey's birthday in honor of him. We invited Gawbie and Grandpa to come with us. We had a hard time deciding on a location and when we finally decided, we had waited to long and there weren't any campgrounds available. We ended up at a CamperWorld Campground up near Echo Reservoir. It ended up being perfect because the campground had a little fishing pond where Grandpa could teach the kids how to fish.

Unfortunately, they were not able to catch anything, but they still had a chance to try it out.
We also headed over to the reservoir to enjoy relaxing by the lake.

The kids had fun dipping their feet in the water. We were going to try fishing here, but couldn't find a good spot to fish from the shore, so we just hung out a little by the water. Casey would have loved this part of the camping trip.

 This tree that we are sitting on had some really cool roots.

The kids also enjoyed swimming in the pool at the campground. I think we were there for a couple of hours.

I didn't get any pictures of this, but we also had campfires and s'mores both nights we were there. The kids love campfire nights. It was a relaxing getaway and it was fun having Gawbie and Grandpa along with us.

Basketball Court

We finally poured our basketball court in the backyard in the middle of June. We have been talking about doing this for 2 years now. As excited as we were about finally ridding our backyard of the weed infested planters, there are a few plants that we will miss, including these 2 beautiful rose bushes that happened to both be full of roses at the time we were ripping them out.

Here is the before picture.

This was after day 1 of concrete laying.

The boys were especially excited to watch the big pump and cement trucks drive in and park by our house.

 Here is the after picture, before we painted the lines on.

 After a few days, we installed the hoop.

 And then the following week we painted the lines.

We are happy with how it turned out. Mostly, we are happy to be rid of the weeds. We are waiting on 2 things before we can really use it. One, is the net that we bought to protect the things connected to the house that could break if a basketball hits them. The other is to install the chain link fence along the garden to protect our veggies from stray balls.

Soccer Season

 Both girls decided to play soccer this spring season. Ashley was fortunate to be able to play on the same team as one of her best friends. They live right behind us and the girls dad also coached the team. There ended up being 4 or 5 other girls on the team that also live right in our neighborhood, so she had a lot of friends on the team. It made all the difference in the world, having friends on the team, and a coach that knew her. She loved playing this season and was sad when it was over.

Alyssa played with a couple of friends, as well. She has played with both of these girls for the past 3 or 4 years. They have fun. Danny ended up coaching the team, again, this year even though we tried to get him out of it. Not only had he just been called into the bishopric, but he also had a work conference that he had to do some extra work to prepare for, plus he was teaching a class at UVU, on top of all of his normal responsibilities at work and at home. I told him that I would handle all of the secretarial type work if he would coach and we managed to make it work. Their team didn't have as many wins this year, but Alyssa didn't ever give up a goal while she was playing as goalie. She also scored a couple of goals this season, as well. We were so pleased with how well she did this year.

Brian, Maryn, and Kids Visit

We always love when we have the chance to see Brian, Maryn, and their family. Our kids match up so well and always play so well together. This visit didn't disappoint. We met them at Gawbie and Grandpa's house and let the kids play for a bit. Then we headed to Pizza Pie Café for a big family dinner. After dinner, we went to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens and walked around. The weather was perfect and it gave the kids a chance to run off a lot of energy. The gardens were pretty empty that night, so we didn't feel like we were disturbing anyone's peaceful stroll through the gardens. The kids enjoyed splashing in the pond...

 feeding the fish...

 posing for pictures...

and rolling down the really big grassy hills(I didn't get a picture of this).
We went back to Gawbie and Grandpa's the next morning for breakfast and a little more play time. Then Maryn and the kids headed up to Star Valley in Wyoming for a family reunion. They returned 2 days later and we got to spend Father's Day with them.

The kids were so sad to say goodbye. We think cousins are awesome!

End of the School Year

The girls finished up school towards the end of May. Alyssa was pretty proud of the Elementary Students who managed to raise over a thousand dollars in just 2 1/2 days of school. They donated the money to Tabitha's Way, a local food pantry. She said it was a neat experience being in charge of this fund raiser and being able to go to deliver the money. She said they cried when they saw how much was being donated. I think she said that they told her that money would provide 5000 meals.

I attended the last day of school awards ceremony. The boys were not on their best behavior and we barely made it through the 20 minutes we were there. Alyssa was honored for being a part of student government. She missed her 4.0 honor roll because her art teacher gave her an A- for one of the 4 terms. She was pretty sad about that, but still is an amazing student.

Ashley, on the other hand, was one of 6 students in the 4th-6th grade that did get a 4.0. I was so proud of her for achieving this on her first year of actual letter grades. She works hard and all of her teachers love her.

 There were some tearful goodbye's when school was out.

Both girls had a great year, even if Alyssa suffered through most of her history lessons. She was not digging the 6th grade ancient world history curriculum this year.
To celebrate the last day of school, we took the girls to an escape room. They have both been talking about wanting to do one for a long time. We thought it would be a good distraction since they always get a little bit sad when school is out for the summer. Unfortunately, the escape room we chose, messed up big time and they were not in the building at our reserved time. We waited for 45 minutes before heading to lunch. They finally called us as we were finishing up lunch and offered to let us do a different room, since another group was in our reserved room. We chose a room called Grandpa's Attic. The girls had fun and were actually quite helpful in solving the puzzles. We made it out with about 30 seconds to spare. In the end, we found grandpa and his gold.

They told us that we had to pose with a prop for our picture at the end. Alyssa put on the Chewbacca costume. We aren't even sure why that costume was a prop for this escape room, but she had fun wearing it.

Because of the mix up, they offered to let us come back for free and try out the room that we had originally reserved. We still haven't made it back, but we plan to go soon.