Stowellzone

Man, this has been a busy summer for us!  Seems like there’s always something going and we aren’t home too many weekends.  It’s been great so far though, we’ve had a lot of fun!  Here are a few things we’ve done…

IPSC had their annual work party at Boondocks this year.  Lucky for us, it is pretty close to our house!  The kids had a great time, everyone rode on the boats (well everyone but me cause I had run back home for the stroller) and then we all played mini golf, which Mason LOVED!  We thought he’d like a few holes, then get bored, but he played hard the whole time.  He was even the only one to get a hole in one!!!  Jeremy just happened to be videoing when he did it too!

Here’s a few more pictures of the day, they had a blast on the bouncy things.

We went to the parade for Herriman Days and WOW there were a ton of kids!!  The parade route was fairly long so we weren’t really worried about finding somewhere to sit then we got there and the streets were packed with families and a million kids.  One thing we love about there area is that there are so many young families.  The kids enjoyed the parade, they got some candy and McKinley loved watching the dancers and cheerleaders.  Mason is not a fan of loud noises so he stayed back to watch all the fire trucks.  Later that night we went to the little carnival and Mason jumped on as many rides as we would let him.  We were actually a little surprised, as active as he is, he isn’t much of a daredevil, but he loved them!  He even asked to go in the haunted house!

We, of course, went to Delta for the 4th of July, there’s just nothing like Delta on the 4th.  We get to usually see our high school friends cause most people go home for the 4th.  It was my 10 year reunion, and even though they almost ALL live in Delta, none of my friends that I hung out with at school were there!  I couldn’t believe it!!  But I had a good time catching up with people.  The kids loved the parade again, McKinley has a hard time giving up her candy though, she doesn’t even want to put it in her bag so she can get some more! That girl has such a sweet tooth.  My dad sneaks down and backs his truck up in the middle of one of the roads right before the parade starts every year and we end up with a really good spot!  The derby is always fun, but with limited seating this year and knowing McKinley probably wouldn’t enjoy it, she, my mom, and I stayed and watched a chick flick while the boys went to the Derby (well the boys and Kay, LOL).  Mason LOVES the derby and usually for months after we get play by plays with his own cars.  It was, as always, a great holiday!

The cheerleader threw us about an entire bag full of candy!  Go Ali!!!

Jeremy has been really busy with his photography.  He just does it as a side job, but more and more people are calling him.  It’s pretty fun, I think he does a great job.  While we were in Delta for the 4th, he took some pictures of a guy I went to high school with who was leaving for Iraq soon.  I’ll just show you one of my favorite pictures of him!  Good luck, Nate, and thank you for serving our country!!

Our grandma Camille Nielson passed away on June 24th 2010.  Just wanted to say that we love you and are going to miss you!

Grandma couldn’t walk very good the last part of her life and she loved to go for walks, I think Kelli said it best “We love you, Grandma! Go for a walk.”

Thanks for all the good times!

–Till we meet again

Jeremy got  a little gardening bug!  He went and ordered lots of strawberry plants and a few blackberry and raspberry plants.  Then suddenly, they showed up and “oh, where are we going to put these!”  So off to Home Depot we went.  Well, our little Rav 4 probably isn’t meant to hold lots of bricks and a ton of dirt, but we piled it all in and with our bumper almost to the ground we went home.  We build a little garden on the side of our house for the raspberries and then dug a hole in another garden spot in the back for the blackberries.  I guess I should mention the strawberries haven’t come yet, so I guess that’s a different post.  Anyway, here’s some pictures!

Here’s some pictures of the kids playing while we worked.  Mason loves his bike helmet and once it’s on, it’s hard to get it off of him, LOL!  So it’s on in most of the pictures I took.  In this first one, he was not wanting his picture taken!

We have some scrub oak in our backyard and it’s just awesome right now, so I made Mason stand there (helmet and all) to get some pictures.  (Jeremy is hard at work while I’m taking all these LOL)

McKinley was sleeping through most of the yard work, but I made Jer take some pictures of her when she woke up cause look how cute that outfit is!!

And finally, Jeremy has been talking about being able to bike to work since we started looking at houses in this area and now with the weather finally warming up, he decided he really wanted one now.  Well, anyone who knows Jer, knows that if he really, really wants something, he’s bound to get it.  After talking about it for a week straight (almost non stop) he drug me down to the bike store to “see if I would maybe want one, too”  In other words, if he can get me interested, better chance of him getting it!  Well, of course, it worked, I saw and rode one I liked a lot and soon we were walking out the door with 2 brand new road bikes.  My only condition?  We had to USE them!!  So (gulp) we are going to do a triathlon in August!!  What??!! I know!!  It’s a pretty small one, only 3 miles of running (thank goodness), 14 miles of biking, and 500 meters of swimming.  So not too bad, hopefully it will get us in shape!  Here’s some pictures of the bikes!  Jeremy riding his with Mason shouting at him “Dad, you’re doing so good!!”

Look how cute my bike is!

We had our first big thunder storm in the new house tonight.  For those of you who haven’t been here, from our back deck, you can see all of the Salt Lake Valley, clear to downtown.  It’s gorgeous, we never thought we’d get another house with as great as view as our Springville house but we did it!  We spent the evening out on deck watching the storm roll in.  It was amazing, you could actually see the rain moving in sheet across the valley.  We had to dash inside a few times when the rain (and then hail) came on the deck, but when he could, Jer had his camera going to try and catch some lightening.  We only got one good shot before the battery died, but it’s a good one!