Olympic Park

We had a fun, fun day today.  Some weeks ago I bought a Groupon to the Olympic Park in Park City.  This is the venue where they did ski jumping, the long kind where skiers launch themselves into the air, flying through the air for really a long time before landing way down the mountain.  Also, it's the training site for those who do aerial ski jumping and where the luge track is.  Rather than having the sites remain unused, the area is now used during the summer months for recreation.  There is an alpine slide, zip lines, several ropes courses, and extreme tubing down the ski jump hills.  As our Groupon expired today, we had to go, and we took along Blake, Makenna, and Luke because they had expiring Groupons, too.  

We exhausted ourselves having such a good time.  We did the alpine slide twice, with Blythe and Makenna crashing out of the track on the second trip down.  They were riding together to give Blythe more weight, but they were not well balanced and ended up with burns on their hands and knees.  A very nice medical guy cleaned and bandaged them up.  Most of us did the zipline, though not the biggest one.  Brandt was unwilling to zip, but he did ride the chair lift.  We all did a very tricky ropes course, with probably fifteen or so obstacles, all elevated above the ground.  Brandt and Makenna were hesitant to do it, but were great.  We did extreme tubing down hills, though Brandt and Blythe were not old enough to do the really big hills.  They did a smaller one and everyone got the rush of zooming down really fast.  The lines were a bit long, probably because lots of people were using up their Groupon, but we did everything we wanted to do and wore ourselves out.  

 

 

The tub run everyone could do.

Makenna and Blythe ziplining.

Blake and Luke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Strange Children

Here are a couple of funny pictures from today.  

The children are very strange sometimes.  

Often, actually.

This threatening looking masked man is none other than Brandt.

He's wearing a sweatshirt, balaclava, dark glasses, and a hat.

It's about 93 degrees outside.

Strange.

Very strange.

Blythe built a fort in her room with blankets, chairs, and her art easel.

Then she insisted on sleeping in it.

There's no room to turn over and her feet are sticking out.

She's in there with Big-o-Pota.

Strange.

Very strange.

An Email Update

I have been cleaning out emails and found this one I wrote to Uncle Charles.  It's informative and gives a good update of what we've been doing.  I liked it and thought I should have it someplace slightly more permanent.

Good evening (it is for me),

It has been raining this evening.  We got a rush of very windy, very wet weather for a bit, then it all blew over leaving a lovely smelling coolness to the summer air.  All the green growing things have perked up.  Me too.  I love a good rain.  

I have been working on laundry today, as well as clearing off the desk.  Once a month or so, about the time I need to pay bills, I have a good desk clean off and organization.  I helps me feel like I've really accomplished something when I can see the top of the desk in more than 8 square inches.  I discovered the letters Kent wrote to his parents that I mentioned to you when we talked a couple of weeks ago.  They had gotten buried.  Typical of papers that end up on the desk.  So I have attached them for your reading enjoyment.  

Kent is a good writer.  He should do it more.  Instead, he's been dedicating all his extra energy to cleaning out the house of a friend of ours who died in May.  He was single, never married, no children, little family (1 brother who lives in Oregon, 2 nephews in Salt Lake).  He left his affairs in order, designating Kent as the executor of his estate, but he did not leave his house in any order at all.  He was a hoarder, making several trips a day to our local thrift store.  The house was really, really bad.  It's up in my mom's neighborhood, and Kent hired some neighborhood youths and a man who lives around the corner from David's to help clean things out.  He had a large dumpster delivered to the house and they filled and had it dumped three times before everything was gone.  That's not taking into account the multiple trailer loads of stuff they hauled back to the thrift store (much of it still priced, saving the workers at the thrift store considerable effort), and things the nephews and brother wanted.  It has been a chore.  David, however, generously left Kent a third of the house sale profits for his efforts.  Kent is earning it.

Brandt, Blythe, and I have been enjoying the summer.  We have been swimming at my mom's, the neighbor's, the rec center, and a local water park.  We're all very tan.  We've done a bit of hiking, some bike riding (me lots of that), and have been taking in a weekly summer movie at an Orem theater.  The children are also spending a considerable amount of time playing with friends and raiding the freezer for popsicles.  We've had an outdoor movie night with cousins which was so fun, the kids want to do another with friends in the neighborhood.  We're going canoeing, doing some more hiking, and will be going to Cedar City for the Shakespearean Festival the first week of August.  We're taking the kids and will see four plays: Mary Poppins, The Coconuts (originially a Marx Brothers production), The Three Musketeers, and Much Ado About Nothing.  We'll do some hiking down there as well.  And we are looking forward to your visit.  It's always good to see you and catch up.

Christopher informs me that you've had your surgery early.  I'm glad it went well (per Christopher's report) and hope your recovery is going well.  I tweaked something in my leg today at a weight lifting class at the rec center and realized how grateful I am when my body works the way it should without me really thinking about it.  I know I have hamstrings, and I'm grateful I have them, but I have given them little thought prior to today.  I've given them a lot of thought today.  

I need to go help the children get to bed.  Blythe is whining, Brandt won't go upstairs without an adult, and I need some adult time away from our dearly beloved children.  I will sign off.
I love you and really do look forward to your visit.
Kisses!

Finding Dory

After months of eager anticipation, today we went to see Finding Dory.  It was wonderful.  It made us laugh and cry and we all loved it!  Unfortunately, Brandt was not with us because he was at Webelos day camp, but I promised him we would go and see it again.  I know it will be wonderful a second time.

Lyla, Ellie, Mazie, Ava, Alison, Crew, Lucy, Makenna, Griffin, Nora, Luke, Collin, Blake holding Cora, Brick, Blythe, and Ellen