Weekend Mirths, spanning 2 weekends

It's time for my favorite I'm-way-behind-in-blogging-so-please-accept-my-photo-essay catch-up game! We've been delightfully busy lately having way too much fun and I'm still waiting on the handsome geek to finish his computer so I can bombard its 2 terabyte hard drive with pictures, and have I mentioned that 3 months after moving we still have not finished unpacking? Do you know me? Do you know how I tolerate mess and disorder? I don't. But I do love long summer weekends spent with my bestest making memories we'll never forget, so I'll leave the boxes and to-do lists out of mind for now. These days are just too good to waste.

{stopping to play Pooh sticks}

Our weekends start at 1pm on Fridays-that's when I finish my work and school week and when Jeffrey finally decides to crawl out of bed. :) One of our favorite Friday activities is to grab lunch at Molly's-the BEST lunch place in Provo-then work off their delectable chocolate cream cheese cake riding our bikes around town or going for a walk. Sometimes we brave the shady Provo River trail, dodging bums and plump shirtless men, focusing our attention instead on the gushing river and abundance of trees.

Two weekends ago we joined with our cousins for a Cousins Camp-out at Payson Lake, and may I just say that camping with kids is really fun. My youngest cousin present, Timm, was the resident bear watcher for me, so he was the maniac making sure all the food was picked up and put away, which left me time to roast more s'mores.




We L-O-V-E glow sticks in my family. A party just isn't a party without them.

Dan was camp chef extraordinaire, cooking up the seriously most edible, even delicious, camp food I've ever had while roughing it.

I think it took all week to get the smoke smell of of my hair, so when the weekend of July 4th arrived we were ready for something a little more fancy. Friday night we drove through the canyon to Sundance, where the Utah Symphony was holding an outdoor patriotic concert. We were lucky to have a beautiful, clear night, so the sounds of America rang out over the gathered crowd.

The Symphony played patriotic songs, scores from All-American movies and plays, but our favorite was when they honored service men and women and families by having them stand when their songs were played. I felt remarkably grateful for so many people who honor and serve our country.


Two old favorites: Red Vines (now available in pull-n-peel!!!!) and my trusty red flats made for an All-American celebration.

Saturday night was the big fireworks show, and our pals Shane and Robyn joined us for explosions and strawberry shortcake. The fireworks were so beautiful this year, I almost cried with delight.

{fireworks awe}

Sunday night we decided to trek up to Jeffrey's grandparents' home to spend the holiday with them. Some force in the universe conspired against us though, and no sooner had we set out than we got a flat tire! With a little help, we switched out the bad tire for the slightly less bad spare tire...and braved the back roads up over the mountains at a daring speed of: 40 mph :)

We discovered that we much prefer the back road and will most likely take the extra time to drive the scenic route when we again head north.

{we made to grandpa's house}

Miraculously we found someone to fix the tires on the 4th of July-what a relief- but the grand summation of the entire Independence Day weekend was our drive home through the valley that night. Fireworks broke up the night sky on either side of the interstate, for miles ahead of us and miles beside us, and accompanied our travel the entire way home.