In spite of the crisis...

Thank you to all who offered sympathy and chocolate. It has helped!

Even with Dad gone all the time, we're trying to keep processing food storage during the harvest season. The Crooks and Maloufs shared some delicious home-grown corn with us. The children helped husk it, eat some of it, and entertain Dallin while Mom blanched, cut, and froze about 7 lbs. worth. We recently got a small chest freezer from a friend who moved, and we are busy filling it. (Albertson's ice cream sales have helped with that too.)

Dad took the children fishing last Saturday when he was home,

and Erin was the lucky one to catch a German brown trout.

Comet, our orange tabby cat, has left offerings of dead wild voles and mice near our front doorstep in the mornings. Although we have plenty of domestic mice to feed our snakes, we didn't want a good fresh vole to go to waste. Our gopher snake was very pleased to ingest it.

Ian earned his Bear Award in Cub Scouts in August! He has awesome den leaders who keep the boys motivated and actively working on their projects. Pack meeting was a water party, hence the lack of uniforms (plus our photo of Ian receiving his award didn't turn out due to lighting issues). The children carved boats out of summer squash, then then played in the water. Each family brought a favorite treat made from zucchini. It was a fun night!

Ian didn't mess around with extra amenities! His boat was simple.

Erin embellished hers a bit more.

And speaking of Erin, she has had a lot of fun making arts and crafts for school.
This is her egg-carton grasshopper:

Here is her pencil holder, made with shells she collected
from our family vacation to the beach:

Midlife Crisis

After 38 years of life, 17 years of marriage (Happy Anniversary to us on August 8), 14 years of graduate student status at USU, and 5 years of employment at USU's Brigham City Regional Campus, Kevin has succumbed to a midlife crisis.

It started last fall when Kevin attended a sustainability conference, was introduced to electric bikes and decided to start a side business selling them. Then out of the blue at the end of June, he received a notice of a job opening at Snow College. One of his friends quit his job at Snow and took a position at a college closer to family in California. Kevin felt like he should apply and see what happened. Well...he was hired for a one-year position teaching anatomy and physiology courses. It could turn into a permanent position IF he obtains a graduate degree (which as everyone knows, he still doesn't have).

Kevin is now commuting to Ephraim from Sunday afternoons to Thursday nights. It's no fun for the family, but they survived this first week fairly intact. The children started a new year of homeschool as well. Megan is signed up for a weekly art class and has a scholarship to take some online computer tech classes which start in September. Ian is excited to start his Karate class again. Both are continuing with their piano studies. Erin is starting kindergarten curriculum because she wants to (she is still 4, but excited to "do school too"). She has been doing reading lessons all summer long at her request and has made much progress.

Ask Kevin how he feels about all this? GREAT!!!
He doesn't even realize he's having a midlife crisis.

Ask Kevin's family how they feel about all the changes?
They frequently burst into tears.

Add to all the above, Kevin's recent diagnosis of MS,

and you may be reading about April's midlife crisis in a few more months...

Anyway, here is our poster child posing on an ebike with her Snow College,
Future Badger shirt that Kevin won at a trivia contest last week.

April is accepting offers of sympathy (or at least chocolate).

Aunt Betty

Betty Emma Wandell Burningham Brown
December 22, 1943 - August 8, 2009

Aunt Betty was one of the sweetest ladies who ever lived. She will always be remembered for her wonderful smile, her laugh, her unwavering faith and optimism, and her love for Jesus Christ. She married April's Uncle David in 1994, but we met her several years before when they were dating. At our wedding in 1992, she whispered to Kevin, "Treat April right, or I'll embalm!" (She worked at a mortuary.) She struggled with diabetes for many years, but last October she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer which led to her quick decline in health over the past few months. Throughout her illness she maintained her positive attitude and continued to be a great example to everyone. We feel so blessed to have known her, and we will miss her, but we are happy she is in a better place now and free from her suffering.

Uncle David (center)
Cousins Dan and Gary Brown
Maxine Dykes and Maryetta Tsukamoto

Betty's Children
Brandon & Brandy Burningham and family, Brian Burningham,
Marcela & Jeff Brinkerhoff and family

Cache County Fair, 2009

Mom and the children spent Friday afternoon at the annual county fair.
We started off watching cow judging.

As we were looking at the pigs and sheep, we met up with Erin's friend Vonn and his family.

Dallin followed the example of the napping pigs.

Megan unsuccessfully tried to talk her mother into letting her buy another rabbit.
The rabbits were very adorable, but alas, we already have one.

Blue ribbon green beans grown by our neighbors, the Crooks!
We bottled 5 quarts of these for our pantry just the other day.
We also know the Takis family--they are fellow homeschoolers.

Fun display made from corn, legumes, and wheat
(click on the photo to enlarge and see the detail better)

Erin got to ride a pony again this year!
It is a fundraiser for the YM/YW of Young Ward area.

Ian practiced his roping technique.

And the fair can't be complete without playing on the large farm equipment...

Canyon Hike and Picnic

Mom and children took a little jaunt up Right Hand Fork of Logan Canyon the other day with the W family. It was nice and cool.

We ate a picnic lunch and the children went wading.

Dallin, as usual, fell asleep. What's up with this child?
He keeps missing out on our fun adventures!

Eleven Months

Guess who is almost a year old!
He's crawling everywhere and pulling himself up.
He's showing word recognition with "cracker," "Mama," and "Dada."

His current favorite activities are pulling books off shelves

and getting into the kitchen cupboards.

He's still super cute and sweet-natured, but he has started shrieking in a very high-pitched, ear-splitting scream. He does it most of the time just for fun and to get everyone to look at him. It is rather embarrassing when he shrieks at church.

Summer Vacation 2009--Part 7

The LONG Drive Home

We said "thanks" and "good-bye" to Grandpa on Friday morning.
After a few more games of Go, we started the journey back home.

We hope we can visit again soon.

The return trip was not nearly as exciting as the prior week, hence the lack of photos along the way. Our recommendation to future travelers is to not drive on Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas on a Friday! The traffic was similar to what you would experience between Salt Lake and Provo, except that it continued for hundreds of miles through a largely featureless landscape! With few places to stop and incredibly hot outside temperatures we made fairly good time and arrived in St. George by 9:00 p.m. We got some food and went to bed!

Dallin and Erin were difficult to awaken the following morning.

We know several people in St. George and wish we could visit all of them. This time through we visited another high school friend, Gordon S and his family. Gordon is a doctor who has a passion for photography (or a great photographer who sustains his hobby with a medical degree!).

They invited the children to swim in their pool and treated us to a pizza lunch. We stayed longer than planned, but it was a fun final playtime for the children. From St. George we basically headed straight home--no more fun!

We thank all our friends and family who contributed memories to this family vacation. We had a wonderful time together before the start of a new school year which will bring many changes...

Summer Vacation 2009--Part 6

Birch Aquarium, Carlsbad Beach, and Go

For our final full day in California we slept in again. Later in the afternoon we drove back to La Jolla and visited the Birch Aquarium, which we hadn't been to for five years. We love seeing the diversity of beautiful ocean creatures.

It was like playing a game of "I Spy" for Erin to find the different fish and animals in each
display. Dallin loved the giant window looking into the kelp forest.

Outside was a nice touch pool with sea stars, sea slugs, a lobster, and some other critters.

Erin opted for playing with dead starfish instead of touching the live ones.

She had no trouble examining the shark jaw display either.

We were taking the traditional photo of children in the shark

when all of a sudden...Gabe appeared!

Gabe was excited to show everyone around. He likes visiting the aquarium!

Gabe's mom and sister were close by too.

Human interest photo:
No, we didn't see any rattlesnakes, darn it!

They kicked us out at closing time (they don't let you stay an extra half hour like at Legoland), and the children played around the fountains while the adults visited a little longer. And we got a family photo with Grandpa T, since Emmy was there to be our photographer. Dallin and the adults should have been wearing tie-dye too!

Emmy loaned us their boogie boards for our final beach outing--thanks!!!

We had a little bit of time at Carlsbad Beach before the sun set.

Erin and Dallin played in the sand again while Megan and Ian tried to catch the waves with the boards. We realized post-beach that all the boogie board action was video footage, so we'll be sure to include it when we get a chance to edit all our video.
















Grandpa gave the children a Go board and stones, and he spent time teaching them the basics of playing a game. Apparently Grandpa is a pretty good Go player (ranked between 2 and 3 Dan), and belongs to a club in Los Angeles that meets a few times a month. Here he is playing one last game with Ian before we started on our long drive back to Utah. A nice feature of Go is that handicaps can be used that allow novices to play against experienced players, presenting a challenge for both sides. The board size is flexible for different levels too--currently Ian and Megan play on a 9X9 grid.