More Photos from My Over-scheduled Summer

I'm going to have to reassess my evaluation of myself as a person who isn't very busy. This summer has been the most intense of my life. I have never tried to have so much fun in so little time. Note previous posts about Disneyland and Arches, plus all the little things, like a movie every week with my sister, craft day every week, hanging out with friends more, playing baseball for the older two boys, and then there are still four more majorish trips we have planned for this summer. Zion, Yellowstone, another family reunion and climbing Mt. Nebo. I swear, this is turning into a travel blog. Sorry, I swear I'll stop after the summer is over.

In the past few weeks, we went to David's family reunion. His parents and all their eight children, their spouses and then all the grandchildren gather every other summer--the only time we are all in the same spot. It's an event.

Some of my favorite pictures from the week:

Maxton playing the piano at the piano recital.

Every reunion, we have a piano recital and a talent/variety show. Maxton composed his own song, since he hasn't started lessons yet. He really, really wants to start though. I need to get on that. (Look, I figured out the joy of photo captions.)

Xander playing at the piano recital.

We stayed in the tiny town of Joseph, Utah. This is one of the main streets, right outside the old church we stayed in that had been converted to a reunion house.

One of the places we visited was Cove Fort.

This is the door of fort.

This is also the door of the fort.

The next four photos are by the blacksmith shop behind the fort.

Wildly inaccurate photo.

The next stop was Fremont Indian State Park. Not sure why they had a teepee outside (probably to attract visitors), because the Fremont lived in adobe pithouses, but this photo sure looks cool, if wildly historically inaccurate.

View outside the museum at the state park.

So different from either more northern Utah or southern Utah. More rolling hills and much smaller mountains and the plant life isn't as sparse and full of sagebrush (although there is plenty of sagebrush) as southern Utah. Interesting place. We had to cut our visit to the state park a little short, after these clouds started dumping rain on us.

Petroglyphs so hard to photograph

They don't show up very well.

There was a playground near the house we stayed in.

Here's Griffin going over an arch.

Can't decide if I like this one of Aubrey better in black and white or this way.

We got home on Wednesday, then left again on Friday night to spend the weekend up in Logan with one of my aunts (in between, I went to dinner with some girlfriends and then the next night we went to see Harry Potter). Her town has a firework show you can watch sitting on her front lawn and a parade that throws a LOT of candy. Which I needed for energy after all that time traveling and sleeping in strange beds. That sounds bad. I mean, not in my bed, but in a bed only occupied by my husband, but which does not belong to us and in which we do not normally retire for the night.

Then we took a nearly four mile hike with all four kids up to the Wind Caves. They all did great, but David did carry Aubrey for a significant amount (nearly the whole way, except for some of the parts that she walked and some of the parts that my aunt Angie carried her).

The rest of the kids trudged up the trail and back down again with minimal complaining, although all of them fell at some point, ending up with skinned hands and/or knees. The one time I hike without my first aid kit.

The caves were neat. They were limestone and I guess were underwater at some point? How they ended up on top of a mountain is unclear to me, but they are large, roundish caverns and there are even a few arches around. I didn't get too great of photos, because I was too busy A. trying not to fall off a cliff (the inside is significantly sloped and gravely and slippery--not really much chance of going off the cliff, but I wanted to make sure I did not go off the cliff), B. trying to make sure I knew where my children were at all times, so as they would not go off the cliff, C. having my heart constricted by the fact that my husband is not afraid of heights and was therefore going very, very close to the edge of the cliffs, D. having sweaty palms seeing my cousin sitting on the edge of the cliff (see photo below). Can you tell I don't like heights?

However, despite the profusion of cliffs (and they weren't even that tall of cliffs), the caves were beautiful. I always wonder what it would be like if you were hiking along and you had no idea something like that was there, and all of sudden you see something so unusual and beautiful.

David and Aubrey hiking up the trail.

Angie and Aubrey

I'm in the largest cavern, while the kids are standing on the arch.

Maxton sitting on top of the caves.

Aubrey and Angie sitting on the top.

My cousin sitting on the top of caves.

 I'm at the bottom of the caverns, looking back up at her.

And then, here's a random shot.

Aubrey chilling in Angie's backyard.

And now, I'm off to try to get a very long list of stuff done in the house this week. I went to a crop this weekend and finished two layouts. I haven't scrapbooked in sooooooo long. Hopefully I'll share those two layouts on the blog this week.