August Family Dinner

August Family Dinner

Shaileen and DJ playng ball.

 DJ loves wearing hats backwards, silly boy!

 the yumminess!

 DJ playing baseball.  He loves any type of ball.

 DJ getting a ride from Brayden.

 DJ and Mommy

 Kurt!!!

 The girls

 Shaileen being silly

 Bret tied Maddie up to the swing set with a jump rope.  I used to get tied up all the time by Bret when we were younger.  So this brought back memories, but the difference was that I loved trying to get out of it.

The girls loved playing on the swing set.

Me and Shaileen

Grandma and Grandpa

I have been blessed with a wonderful family!  I love getting together for family dinners!

Makeover

Our backyard has gone through a big makeover this summer, not to say we are finished with it, but big changes were made!  We started by pulling out a bunch of weeds and planting grass.

 I am so glad these weeds are gone!!!

 Here are all those yucky weeds out.

 We tilled it all up and planted grass seed.

The grass grew, but the fence was falling down and Samson learned that he could escape.  So we had to start the process of replacing it.

 Yea, it was actually like this when we moved in.

 We have been told that it has been up for at least 30 years.

 DJ on the other side of the fence looking into the yard.

 Quality work, huh?

 Jason dug holes to get out the concrete.

Then taking down the slate was the next task. DJ got in on that work for a little while, but the hammer was too heavy for him, so he didn't last long.

 Here it is with no fence at all.

 Since Jason was making a different type of fence he had to fill in all of the holes from the old posts and dig all new holes.

 DJ hammering like Daddy.

 Here is the fence finished.  It is really nice!  Jason worked a lot of hard, long hours on it!

 Just hoping the grass will come back that we had planted earlier.

 Here it is from the street behind our house.

 Great work Jason!!!  He did it all, but a few parts totally by himself.

Ride for Fallen Officers

We participated in the annual ride for the fallen officers this year.  It is an amazing event to raise money for officers that have died in service.  This was our first time participating in something like this.
We got together early with some people we knew to ride out through Tooele and into Provo.  That was fun, but since it was early, it was chilly.  Everyone met at the Harley Davidson.  I couldn't believe how many bikes there were.  Here is a shot of just some of the bikes there.

 Another section of bikes.

Jason and I getting in the line to start the ride.  We felt pretty out of place, but it was for a really good cause, so we didn't care.

We rode up through Provo and over South Mountain.  It was really pretty!

 Here is a shot from over my shoulder.  It was great because it was police escorted so we didn't have to stop at any lights.

 Look how much fun I was having, I don't think Jason even likes to ride the motorcycle.  Ha Ha

The ride ended at the capital.  Here is a shot through the city.

 They had flags there, one for every fallen officer in Utah. 

 They also did a 21 gun salute.

 This is the group we went with.  We didn't know most of them, but they were all very nice!

We are looking forward to another ride soon.

Wheeler Farm

We went to Wheeler Farm today to see the animals with Grandma.

We saw the geese. 

 This one was coming right up to us.

 Here are the chicken and roosters.  It was fun to hear the roosters say, cock-a-doodle-doo!

 The goats were fun, but they make a scary sound.

 Here I am with the horse.  Probably my favorite animal that we saw.

 This one shows me petting the cow. 

 It was fun to see all of the farm animals!

Steamboat Springs

We went to Steamboat Springs for a family vacation.  Here are some highlights.

We arrived safe and sound.

All along the road on our way there we saw signs posted for a certain store, so we had to go check it out.  Yes, DJ did walk away owning this horse. 

 DJ riding a horse out in front of the store.

 We played in the Yampa River.  It actually wasn't that cold.

 The next day we had a photo excursion.

We came upon an old property for sale so we decided we had permission to be on the property and take some pictures.

 Since we are starting up the process to adopt again we needed a current family picture and thought this would be a great time to get one.  Here are the shots we got.

 This one is inside the creepy old house.  We didn't venture upstairs because we were scared of what we would find or fall through the stairs.

 At about this point DJ was done taking pictures and I don't blame him.  He has his mom and dad telling him to look at a camera with no one behind.  I am amazed we got some good shots.

 Steamboat country

 It is a beautiful place!

 We went to a botanical park.

 Here are 2 shots that I thought are amazing of the flowers we saw.

 Playing around after the flower park.

 DJ loves baseball so when we saw this diamond we had to stop.

 I love this picture of him.

 We went to a small park close-by and thought it would be fun to try a shot on the merry-go-round.  I think it is a super fun shot!

 

The next day we hiked up to a waterfall.

  It was all uphill, but very pretty!  This is the upper falls.

 This is the lower falls.  You can see this from a overlook.

 After the hike we went to a rodeo.  DJ loved seeing the cowboys riding their horse.

 Steer wrestling

 The clown and his pony.  DJ now loves the word 'pony'.

Here we are enjoying the rodeo.

  We most certainly need to go to more rodeos.

 Each morning we had something special happen right outside our room.

 Here is DJ pointing it out.

 He thought it was so neat to see a hot air balloon everyday.  We would watch it land each morning.

 Of course we couldn't have gone on vacation without going swimming.  

Here is DJ after jumping into the pool to Daddy.

 DJ is such a big boy.  He is learning to stay afloat in the pool all by himself!  We all enjoyed having him 'kick, kick, kick' to us.

 Here he is kicking his way to Mommy without any help.

 He kicked his way across the entire pool a couple of times.  And yes, he was exhausted that night!

  We had an amazing vacation and are sad that it is over.  DJ did very good on the 6 hour car rides both ways for being so young.  We are looking forward to going back someday!