Tennis Update

Alyssa is almost done with her tennis season. She has had a good season and made some progress in improving her game. During the summer, she participated in a singles tournament. She signed up in the highest division and she ended up winning her bracket. She got to take home this t-shirt as a prize.

She took 2nd place in the end of summer tennis tournament for the high school's summer tennis program. It was a close final match between her and her teammate. But it was a hot day, and she wasn't feeling good that morning, so I am proud of her for what she was able to do. She was excited to actually get her trophy this year. Last year they didn't have the trophies at the tournament and said they would deliver them to their coaches later, and then her coach took a job in Spain and Lehi had to scramble to find a new coach before the start of season and she never did get her trophy. She has taken second place in the division she has played in every summer. Hopefully next year she can get the first-place win.

She did well at tryouts and has constantly beat most of the girls on her team. She has never beat their #1 singles player, but she has beat the others. At the start of season, they put her in the #3 singles position because her coach knew that she wanted to play singles. However, after the first couple of matches, they moved the lineup around and put her in the #1 doubles spot, stating that the best 3 players on the team should be in the #1 singles and #1 doubles positions. She was disappointed, at first, but was excited to play with her partner, Kylie, and has had a good attitude about it. They won a lot of their matches in the beginning of the season, but kind of tapered out towards the end of the season and experienced some tough loses. They will most likely have to participate in the play in round of the state tournament next Saturday and then, hopefully, go on to the state tournament the following week. 

The only downside to the tennis season is that she never has a chance to rest. She has been having another form of back pain since the beginning of August. I finally took her into the doctor after a month and got the cortisone shot. It worked well and the pain mostly went away, but then she pulled a neck muscle or something last week and now has pain in a new spot. The back pain seems to be never-ending with her and I think the only way she will get rid of it is to stop with the athletics for a while (which she won't do).

 

Miner Family Reunion

For the week of July 25th, we were able to attend the Miner Family Reunion at Hidden Springs Ranch in Northeastern Utah. We had our reunion here 4 years ago and liked it so much that Mom reserved it for us again for this year. She made the reservation 2 years ago. When she found out early in the year that her health was failing, she was so hopeful that she would be able to attend one last reunion with her family. Even though things didn't go quite as she had planned, I think we all felt that she was still there with us in spirit. We were all a little nervous and sad about gathering without her, but I think we all agreed that it was still so much fun to spend that time together.

Hidden Springs Ranch is a huge property with a lot of fun activities to keep us busy. There was the rock wall, basketball, volleyball, paintball, skeet shooting, mountain biking, canoes and ponds, the swimming pool, and a game room with ping pong and foosball. 

On top of that, we planned an activity for each of the evenings. The first night was a discussion on different personality types. We all took a personality test at the beginning and then learned about each of the 16 personality types to see if we agreed or disagreed with the results of the test.

The second night was a little more chaotic. Christy brought a big saran wrapped ball of candy and money and we played a dice game to unwrap the prizes.

After that, we played candy bar wars, another dice game that involved stealing candy from others.

Then we moved outside for the tortilla slap challenge. This involved filling your mouth up with water and then playing rock, paper, scissors to see who would slap the other. The goal was to not let any water escape from your mouth during the slap.

The third night was more serious. The grandkids submitted questions to grandpa ahead of time. The questions were about anything they wanted to know from him. There were some astronomy questions, some spiritual questions, and some questions about marriage and mom. He spent about an hour responding to the various questions, some of which brought up discussion and follow up questions.

On the last night, the adults went out to dinner at a steak house and left the under 18 kids at the lodge. We had a very large group that filled up 2 very long tables.

We also played tennis 3 different mornings. On the way back one of the mornings, we came across this moving of the herd, right down the road we were driving on. I was a little scared for our car as we stopped and let them pass by. 

Ashley had a lot of fun catching bugs around the ranch. Her favorite was this striped beetle. She thought it was funny the way it would hiss every time she poked it.

On one of the afternoons, Pam put together a last minute surprise bridal shower for Rachel, who will be getting married in January. I think Rachel was surprised and it was a nice afternoon with just the women and older girls.

I don't have any pictures of this, but the younger kids spent a lot of time in the pool. It was so nice to have it right there on the property, and even nicer that our kids can all swim so it didn't always require us to be in the pool with them.

The favorite activity at any reunion for the kids is Grandma's bingo. We were a little worried about pulling it together this time, but I think it worked out well. Each family was responsible for buying enough gifts for the under 18 year olds in their family. Some brought extra gifts and we ended up with much more than we needed. I think the kids were happy with their prizes.

And, as usual, we split meals up between everyone. The food was really good, but the company was even better. My kids especially loved reconnecting with their cousins. Hopefully, we are able to find another place to hold the next reunion 2 years from now.

Battlecreek Falls Hike

At some point during the summer, I talked my 3 youngest kids into doing a hike with me. The only reason they agreed to it was because I told them they could bring Lula with us. Ashley loved that Lula pulled her up the mountain. She also thought it was funny to let Lula try to chase some of the wildlife. There were some fun stops along the way.

The waterfall wasn't flowing very much on the day we did this hike. But there was enough water flow to know that it was a waterfall. We played around at the bottom of the falls...

And we also hiked up to the top to see how high the falls are and to look over the edge.

I was so proud of the kids for making it to the falls. They wanted to give up 2 or 3 times on the way up.

Lost Ducklings

One morning this summer, Ashley was riding her bike with Lula running alongside her out on the trail and they came across a mother duck with her ducklings. Lula, being the kind of dog she is, went after the mother duck. She flew off, abandoning her ducklings and then when Lula returned, she tried to chase the ducklings, too. Ashley saved the duckling she went after and brought it home with her. Before she even had a chance to tell me the story, our neighbor knocked on our door to tell us that a little duckling just ran across the street and into the bushes in our yard. It must have somehow sensed that Ashley had it's sibling. In our haste to look for the duckling in our bushes, we forgor to close our front door. The loose little duckling ran alongside our house and got inside without us even noticing. When we couldn't find it, we went back to our front door and noticed it was open. Lula was in her crate going crazy and we wondered if she knew something we didn't know. So we closed the front door and let Lula out of her crate. she ran right over to the credenza below our TV and stuck her nose behind it while barking. Ashley looked behind it and found the lost duckling. Once she rescued the duckling, we returned Lula to her crate and put the ducklings in a box. She had fun playing with them for a little bit.

But now we didn't know what to do with them. We walked back to the trail where she and Lula had run the mother off and tried to find her. Ashley couldn't remember the exact spot and after walking the trail a bit, we called animal control to see what they suggested. They wanted us to bring them in if we could not find the mother. Ashley had dreams of keeping them and raising them in our backyard. At this point, the same neighbor who had knocked on our door and whose kids had come to see the ducklings had noticed a duck on a pond near the trail quacking a lot. We went over to the pond and caught glimpses of the duck between the reeds and noticed that it had one little duckling with it. As we took our ducklings closer, we noticed that they started chirping a lot and the mother duck swam closer to us, also quacking a lot. We let the ducklings loose from the box and watched a very sweet reunion between mother and babies. The best part of the story being that we did not have to adopt any baby ducks. :)

 

For the Strength of Youth Conference at BYU And Girls Camp

Alyssa and Ashley got to go to FSY this past June at BYU in Provo. Alyssa roomed with one of her best friends that lives down the street from us (Sara Sundquist). Ashley roomed with a friend from school (MaKayla Kissee).  On the night before it started, both girls were scared about going. Ashley was nervous to be away from us for a whole week and Alyssa was nervous about rooming with Sara because there had been some recent drama between them. Both girls ended up having fun, but I think that Alyssa was at the perfect age for FSY. She said that it was the most fun week she has ever had. Not only did she make a lot of new friends (mostly from Riverton), but she said it also gave her a spiritual boost (something that she hadn't realized she had been missing in her life recently). Ashley said it was fun, as well, and she made new friends, but she also said it was hard for most of the week. There was a lot of walking and hardly any down time. And she was forced to be social way more than she was comfortable with. But she also came back with a lot of stories about fun things she got to do.

While the girls were at FSY, Danny had deacons camp with the young men in our ward. Because there were so few boys going to camp, he was able to take Tyler and Camden with him, as well. They went up to Bear Lake and stayed in a cabin right on the lake. They got to do kayaking, boating, campfires, axe throwing, and kickball. They boys loved being able to go and Danny loved having his own boys there with him. I enjoyed 1 1/2 days with no one else around. I went to the temple, played volleyball, went to book club, and had a personal movie night. It was super relaxing, and I don't even remember feeling lonely. When I did have the boys home with me, we did some fun things. We enjoyed yummy treats...

We spent A LOT of time at the pool...

We went on bike rides with Lula...

And we visited the big Canyon Flag that Pleasant Grove hangs around the 4th of July.

We also went to a carnival one of the nights, but I didn't take any pictures of that. We had a lot of fun.

Dinosaur Island at Thanksgiving Point

Ashton Gardens has a new exhibit this summer called Dinosaur Island. We have been a few times already. They have 20 to 30 dinosaurs spread out throughout the gardens that move and make sounds. There is also an information plaque next to each one to tell you a little bit about that dinosaur. Here are some of our favorites.

The T-Rex

The Triceratops

The Brachiosaurus (well actually Tyler's favorite is the Brontosaurus, but they don't have that one).

The full T-Rex was pretty intimidating.

And here they are in motion

We went first as a family and then returned a couple of weeks later with Gawbie, Shannon, Kennedi, and Abbi.

The kids loved riding in the golf cart.

We sure love having our Thanksgiving Point membership and enjoying the different events that they put on in their venues.

Abandoned Waterpark

As a kid, I made a lot of trips between my home in LA and my Grandparent's houses in Northern Utah. Sometime in my youth, this waterpark appeared in the middle of the desert between Barstow and Baker. I remember asking my parents to take me there every time we drove past it. They never did. 

When we were headed back to Utah after my mom's funeral, my kids asked me the same question that I asked my own parents as a kid, "Can we stop there?" Although, 30 years later the waterpark looks a bit different. I didn't stop for them when they asked, probably for the same reason my parents never stopped for me. It is a long road between California and Utah and the more stops we make the longer it takes. 

Well, I finally fulfilled my childhood dreams and the requests of my children when we were on our way back from California in June. The kids had told me that they saw people in the parking lot when they were driving past in March, so I didn't think it would be a problem. I'm pretty sure we were trespassing because we had to jump a short fence to get in and then walk across the huge dirt parking lot, in the 109-degree temperatures!!! I was slightly terrified that we were going to have a cop pull up and fine us for trespassing. I am not much of a rule breaker, so I couldn't get through this pit stop fast enough. Plus, I felt like I was melting in the desert sun. I think the kids were also not that impressed once we got closer. The buildings all looked kind of like this. 

The waterslide hill did not look much different up closely then it looks from the distance. All of the slides have disintegrated from years in the sun. but some of the stands are still there.

The lazy river looked like this, completely covered in graffiti and all of the drains were these gaping holes in the ground that I warned them all to stay far away from.

Camden climbed the stairs up the slide hill but came back down before too long probably because it was so HOT!

The Mario Bros pictures were fun.

We stayed about 30 minutes in total. We were happy to get back to our car, get some water, and turn the air conditioning on again. It was pretty sketchy and there is a reason it is fenced off, mostly because of the huge holes in the ground.

Leo Carillo Beach

Our beach day was perfect. We headed out fairly early with towels, an umbrella, blanket, picnic lunch, sand toys, frisbee, boogie boards, and trackball. The kids loved splashing in the waves and got pretty brave going further and further in until a big wave knocked the boys over. Ashley tried boogie boarding after I gave her a quick lesson, but a big wave scared us enough to give it a rest for a while and we never tried it again. The big wave also knocked my sunglasses off of my head, never to be found again. I was super sad about that.

Ashley was happy to discover that Leo Carillo was a dog beach. There were so many dogs there that day and she was able to pet a lot of them.

She also collected about 500 sand crabs. She had intended to take them home with us, but I told her that they would not survive away from the beach, so she released them back into the ocean right before we left.

I was not as successful in talking the boys into leaving their rock collection on the beach. We did, at least, leave some of them, but brought way more than we should have.

 We left the beach around 4 pm and got home to enjoy dinner and the evening with Grandpa.