Dallin's 13th Birthday

Dallin had a great 13th birthday! We had all our family over for cake and ice cream Sunday evening, which was his actual birthday. 

Lemon-lime refrigerator cake - always a favorite!

For his friend party the next day, first we went to Barney Schwartz for ice blocking with cousins and friends.  

We had one injury when someone's ice block ran over Ethan's foot and caused a big abrasion. That was unfortunate, but he was tough and seemed unphased by it. 

We ate Oreo cupcakes and snacks and opened gifts.  

Then we went across the street to swim at the sports club pool.  

We don't have a membership to this pool anymore, so I'm glad we had his party there. Good times!

Renaissance Festival

We went to the Renaissance Festival with my mom and my niece Sabrina last summer. Although I went to the best ever Renaissance Festival in Maryland a few times when I was a kid, this was my first time going to this one. I'd always wanted to go. 

These two loved all the cool swords and daggers!

We loved seeing all the costumes!

It was a warm day, but it felt great in the shade. 

Fire swallowers!

So pretty!!

Musicians and Queen Elizabeth

This man wrote all the kids' names in cool calligraphy fonts with a feather pen. 

Awesome knight! The juggler was great; but the jokes got a bit raunchy, so we moved on.

 They just loved trying everything on!

It was a fun day!

Fourth of July

My family all got together at Sinsheimer Park on July 3rd. After a picnic dinner, we had a huge game of Ultra Frisbee. Unfortunately the actual park was under construction, but there was still plenty of space to eat and play.

My brother Josh and his family had just moved to California, and we've loved having them here!

As the sun went down we made our way over to the ball field to watch fireworks. 

I love taking pictures of fireworks! Here are a few of my favorites.

The next night (the 4th) we all got together at Kristen and Nathan's house for sparklers (leftover from Jonathan and Carla's wedding reception). 

We were excited to spend time with my nephew Jonathan and his new wife, Carla. They were here for their wedding open house. We stayed up late hearing their story. 

 It was a fun time!

High Adventure Scout Trip

Can you spot the adult leader in this group of fine young men? Dave fits right it! He took all these boys on their high adventure trip last summer. 

They stopped at a Japanese internment camp on their way there. 

They combined with the other Paso ward (which had more leaders than young men) for camping, bouldering, fishing and whitewater rafting. I wish I had more pictures, but our hard drive crashed last summer, and I lost a lot of pics. I posted a few to FB, so that's why I still have them. 

They especially loved the bouldering! 

 Dave and his boys!

I don't have any pictures, but they also went to see a bunch of Native American pictographs. They said it was awesome! I got these next few pictures from the leaders of the other ward:

The other ward loves their dutch oven cooking!  Dave did all the cooking for our ward. He did mostly simple stuff - spaghetti, soup, etc.

They camped at 2 different campgrounds. 

My boys love to hear Larry tell stories. They all start with, "I like this..." 

The other ward really likes fishing, so they all did a little bit of that. But mostly our boys like higher adventure type stuff, so they split up and did that with Dave. 

The highlight of the trip was whitewater rafting. They loved it! Luckily it was a really wet winter last year, so there were some great rapids. The guides kept saying how important it was to stay in the raft, but then when it was time to earn their merit badge, they had to get out of the boat, free swim for a bit and then get back in. Not everyone chose to get the merit badge, but Spencer and Tyler did it, so Dave tried it too. He lost his GoPro, but at least they didn't lose any boys!