It was nice to be less busy and decide for ourselves what we wanted to do as our summer vacation started to wrap up. We were still active, but that's not the same as busy. (And I'm just not good at staying home for an extended period.)
The kids had a movie marathon in celebration of Harry Potter's birthday on July 31st, and we finally got around to making him a quasi-Hagrid-style cake a couple of days later. Eliza had been itching to make fondant so she was in charge of the pink base layer, and she and Jack did the lettering together.
We did some more bike-riding practice with Luke, going on a little
family ride around the neighborhood. He did great!
Cat's season opener!
As always, the kids were excited to go to Cat's game and cheer her on... and make friends with all animals present.
Rockstar girl scored thrice.
All smiles!
Still exciting for Cat to practice driving!
I was amused when Cat didn't get out of the car after driving, because she wanted to finish listening to the song that was playing.
I took these three to the Lindon pool for a couple of hours.
We had a quick visit from Uncle Andy so he could buy a truck almost identical to Ben's.
We went to Sundance with some friends so we could ride on the lift and have a little picnic. It was cooler up there and so beautiful!
I helped Cat make some masks to wear to school.
We finally took the boat out for some family tubing fun:
Well, though it's fun to have a post dedicated to the chickens every week or so, this one (and the next few) will mostly be centered on Bandit.
Isn't he pretty? And when he's all grown up his tail feathers will be long and beautiful and I would love to see that.
Unfortunately, Bandit's voice speaks louder than his looks (and his personality, which is also quite lovable), and it doesn't look like we'll see Bandit full-grown.
He's getting loud. At this time he crowed semi-loudly periodically throughout the day, and especially in the mornings and evenings. While some of our neighbors don't mind him, and even like hearing him ("He makes it feel more country here!"), the neighbors who live directly behind us do NOT like the crowing, and have been very vocal about it. They yell across the fence at us, at the kids, and tell us to get rid of our rooster.
Then they called the cops. A police officer paid us a visit telling us that an unnamed neighbor complained about our rooster. We knew that we were not breaking any laws - in our town families are allowed to keep a rooster - but of course didn't want to create a feud with our neighbor. (We also found it funny that the officer made sure to also give us advice on raising chickens and which breeds he prefers.)
We love Bandit - his guard-dog habits, his bossiness, his feistiness, and even his crowing - but know that getting rid of him is the right thing to do in this case. We wouldn't kill him, but we couldn't think of an alternative. We'd talked about it a little bit before the police came knocking, but discussed it more seriously afterward.
As for the rest of the flock, they like the raspberries so much that there are none to be found in our little patch. And this week they met several new people among our cousins and neighbors. After the family reunion I asked some of the cousins what the highlight was for them and Dylan didn't hesitate. "The chickens."
Things definitely settled down when all of my side of the family headed out of town. We sure loved hanging out with everyone, but it was also nice to feel like we were getting back to normal. We did have a few things going on that week, though, as happens.
Sunday Visiting Our SIL Sarah and niece Dayna were in town for a quick visit and stopped by to say hello and introduce us to Dayna's fiance.
Sunday Puzzling
Sunday Walking
Eliza tried on a ribbon from when I was a cheerleader in high school.
After frustrating COVID-related delays, Cat finally took her driver permit test. She kept studying, even while we were turning in paperwork with a DMV employee.
She passed on the first try! We picked up a treat on our way home and she drove once we were in our neighborhood.
Eliza grew a few extra limbs.
Luke got wheels too! Bike riding clicked for him and suddenly he was stopping and starting on his own, and doing controlled turns. So exciting! (See below video for proof.)
My cousin Stacie was in town from Cleveland so our families had an afternoon walk in Provo. The first stop was the Provo City Center Temple, where an overheated security guard in a suit and tie brought us bottled water and told us that this fountain is a replica of a fountain that stood at the intersection of University Avenue and Center Street in Provo's early days. I had no idea.
We took some pictures at downtown murals, and Eliza found a new pint-sized friend.
We finished off the outing with a stop at the BYU Creamery.
Eliza was surprised when Cat pulled up to pick her up from gymmastics. Cat did a great job!
A shipment for B&S turned into climbing equipment.
We were watching three little girls for our neighbor and I loved seeing Jack reading to the 12-month-old.
I bought a Baby Yoda toy I saw at Costco on a whim.
It was a hit with these guys. They will protect the child.
Getting cozy on the stairs.
Toy Story play at 9pm - one of the perks of summer!
Just a quick photo (and video coming soon!) recap...
And evidence of a sampling of the kind things we observed during the week.
Followed by a sampling of the funny things we heard during the week. We had both of these posters (which Cat labeled for me!) taped up in the living room at the house we were renting, and we added things to do them throughout the week.
Just looking back at the pictures and videos from the week bring a smile to my face, reminding me of the great time we had. I'm so incredibly thankful for my family and the week we had. It was so fun, and it was so meaningful! And considering the circumstances of getting together exactly 11 weeks after Grammy's passing, I think it was really good for us to create some new memories together.
I'd initially planned the timing of this family reunion carefully to coincide with some of our favorite Pioneer Day festivities, none of which happened. I finally resigned myself to having the odd experience of hosting out-of-town families in Utah on Pioneer Day with absolutely nothing exciting going on, but then I decided to give the Heber Creeper one more call. I'd ruled out a run-of-the-mill train ride, but asked what they had going on for Pioneer Day. It turned out that shortly before I called, they decided to do their traditional Pioneer Day train ride, since they found out that the city of Charleston, on the banks of Deer Creek Reservoir, would be putting on their fireworks show after all. This train ride included a fried chicken dinner, bluegrass entertainment, a gunfight, a train ride to the back side of Deer Creek to watch the fireworks, and a ride back to the depot, and it was very reasonably priced. It turned out so much better than I could have even hoped for.
After hanging out at the train yard and eating our (admittedly, mediocre) dinner and watching a sheriff take down a couple of bandits (one of whom was holding a rubber chicken, ironically), we boarded the train. Groups were kept separate on the train cars for social distancing purposes, so since we had such a big group we were in an entire care by ourselves, with just one additional single rider: an older man named Kent. "Thank You" from Moana started and that was all it took. We started singing along, our teenage hosts started singing along, and the party just got more and more hyped from there. We were scream-singing at the top of our lungs, clapping, dancing, and having so much fun that I felt like I was back at a stake youth dance. It was a blast. I felt sorry for the single-rider stuck with our rowdy group, but it only took a few songs before he was standing up, singing and dancing with everyone else.
By the end of the train ride, we'd established ourselves as the party car so much that a delegation from our car was asked to visit a couple of other train cars in an attempt to bump up the fun factor for other groups. Also, I'm pretty sure that the car-to-car fiddling troupe was not received as enthusiastically by any other car - and they seemed more than happy to satisfy us with some "Devil Went Down to Georgia."
The grands (minus Sydney)
Dinner in the trainyard
Gotta catch those lilly-livered not-for-nothins.
Don't worry, it was all pretend. Now let's take a picture together.
Beautiful Sunset in Beautiful Heber Valley
Andy was doing The Carlton.
I'm not sure what I was doing...
It was a late night, at the end of a busy week.
Some of the kids were pretty worn out.
Whit adjusted his mask to suit the current need.
The teenagers exchanged Instagram names, and wanted a picture together, and we all love that Kent jumped in there too!
We slept in a little bit in the morning after being out so late, but Ben and Andy were still willing to drive to Lehi so everyone could enjoy some Lehi Bakery Doughnuts before the end of the reunion. So yummy!
We got everything packed up and were out of the house before 11:00, then everyone hung out at my house for a little while. We used leftover reunion food for lunch, the kids smashed the last of our extra geodes from Memorial Day, and then Cat and I drove with Megan and her family to Salt Lake so they could have a balcony visit with Oma.
Andy and Suz and their families headed out in the afternoon/evening. Megan's family had planned to leave on a red-eye Saturday night but their flights were changed to leave Sunday afternoon instead so we made the best of the time we had left: dinner at Waffle Love and entertainment at Comedy Sportz in Provo.
We were a little early for Comedy Sportz, which worked out great - it was really nice to just enjoy the Provo City Center Temple and take a few pictures.
Like the night before on the train, these guys got really into the pre-show music, singing and dancing at the top of our group's designated touch zone.
And.... one more chat on Sunday morning before it was time for Megan's family to drive to the airport. Hooray for conversations and card games.
