This past week ...

First of all, the kids started school today. I'm so sad to see summer come to an end. I missed them all so much while they were at school. They all seemed to like their teachers and classes. Here is a picture of my handsome boys this morning. The girl's escaped before I could take their picture!

Last week we got our apricot leather done. I did it a little different this year. When we picked the apricots, the weather wasn't all that good. So, the boys helped me get all the apricots cleaned, pitted, and ground up. At this point, I usually set it out on the tables to dry, but because of the weather, I froze it. A couple weeks later, I let it thaw and put it out to dry. It turned out great! Here are some pictures of the leather. I actually got 4 tables full of the stuff! After all that hard work ... a week later, it's just about gone!











Here is Nate with a sheet of it!

And the boys rolling it up and putting in bags.





My beautiful girls decided to have a play day in Salt Lake. They had so much fun shopping and hanging out together. They wanted to do one big sister thing before Em left for school.

Happy Tagging!

Thanks Emily!!

The Rules:
• Link the person(s) who tagged you.
• Mention the rules on your blog.
• Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
• Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them.
• Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged!

- I love to vacuum! It's my favorite household chore!

- When I start a project, I like to finish it! I like to get things done in one sitting. If I'm doing something and have to stop or put away my project to finish later. It really bugs!

- I'm somewhat of a germ freak! I'm always telling my kids to wash their hands and it's the first thing I do when I walk into the house from going somewhere.

- Oatmeal is my comfort food!

- I love chunky sandals/shoes! I wish I had 50 pair! I'm always looking through the Sierra Trading Post catalog to see if there are any good deals on Keen.

- I like to work outside in the garden and flower beds. I like to weed and beautify my surroundings and make sure my flower friends are all happy. Most of the time they are. Sometimes, I don't get to them like I should and they start to droop ... like the three plants I have sitting under my deck. They have been sitting there since the beginning of June ... just waiting for a home. My tub in the front yard is waiting too. I'm going to plant flowers in it after I pull out the tree in the flower bed. Also, I'm planning to pull out a couple big bushes, but haven't done it yet. Funny thing about me and plants/flowers. Whenever Mike gives me flowers, I keep them until they are absolutely and positively dead. I feel bad throwing them away. So, I keep them until almost all the pedals have fallen off. I had a couple potted plants downstairs ... I had these things for years and they were starting to get buggy and not look well. So, I still kept them because they were plants and all and I just couldn't throw them out. Well, one day I had it ... and I tossed them. It was in the winter so the poor things went into the freezing garbage can. No joke ... the next day we watched Mythbusters and it was about how plants have feelings. I just about cried!

~Julia~

I tag Emily S, Mayme, and Jenn N!

Well this has been a pretty uneventful week. We are looking forward to Aimee coming back home from Aspen Ridge on Saturday. It will be fun to have a full house for a week or so and then Emily is off to college.

We have been watching the Olympics the last few days. Julia's favorite event is Syncronized Swimming. She was trying to convince Sydney that it is a cool sport but Sydney just giggled and said that it was goofy. It was much easier for Mike to convert the kids to the sport of Beach Volleyball.

Sydney went on a backpacking trip Wednesday to Saturday with her grandfather, uncle, aunt, a couple cousins and another family. They were going to go to the Windrivers but there was a fire in the area they were going to go to so they changed to the Sawtooth Mountains. It was either raining or swarms of mosquitos were attacking so they came home a day early. She did have a great time though.

Julia went to a Relief Society activity on Friday and Saturday. We gathered at Sister Taylor's in-laws home and camped in their backyard. It was a great location! Thank you Taylor's for being so hospitable and allowing us to campout in your backyard and use your flushable toilet! We had a wonderful speaker, Bishop McKay. He was my Seminary teacher back in the day. It was great to see him and his wife! We had a delicious dutch oven dinner. We also brought white elephant gifts. Holy cow! That was fun! We laughed and laughed and Sister LaRose kept trying to make everyone steal someone elses gift. Luckily, Jamie got her paint! ;-) We then played games until late in the night. It was so much fun and we learned some fun things about some of the sisters in our ward. We also roasted marshmellows! Yum! After that I went to bed. I couldn't find a spot in a tent so I slept under the stars on my matress. Thank heavens for air bed matresses. Sister West and Sister Higgs joined me a couple hours later. We had a delicious Mountain Man Dutch Oven Breakfast. Thank you Schroeder's! Then we made some fun necklaces out of dried up potatoes. lol! I can just see Ali and Britt reading this and thinking ... dried up potatoes?! lol! It was a great time and all of our sisters are just so much fun to be around. Thank you everyone for a wonderful time!

Being some of the older folks in our LDS Ward we have been harassed, cajoled, encouraged, made fun of, felt bad for, etc., because we did not have a blog. We have taken a large leap and finally are ‘Bloggers’. We are not sure our life is exciting enough to warrant a blog, but here we go.

This year marks 20 years of wedded bliss for us. We also have the milepost of our oldest daughter Emily heading off to BYU this fall. It seems like just yesterday Julia was saying ‘no’ when Mike asked her to marry him and yet here we are. (Obviously he was able to change her mind with his suave wit.) Someday we might bring you up to speed on the last 20 years but for now here are the last few days.

Friday was Mike’s Client Appreciation Pool Party. It’s in its third year with much success! We had a lot of fun visiting with family, friends, people we don’t know very much (except Mike … he knows them pretty well since he did their loans) and eating lots of food and snow cones. The little kids loved the Rubber Ducky Derby (little rubber duckies float around the lazy river … the first one around wins!) and the older kids loved the Twinkie Eating Contest! I think Jeremiah West still holds the top Twinkie eating count at 15! We all had a great time! And … if you’re thinking this sounds fun and want to come next year, talk to Mike about a mortgage or a re-fi, he’d be glad to help you and we’d be glad to see you at next year’s pool party!!

Saturday was spent putting things away and cleaning. The boys have recently got into Pokémon. Brandon got a deck of Pokémon cards for his birthday awhile ago. They have been playing non-stop for the past couple of days so we went to Target and found another deck. They were so excited!

Today being Sunday; it is the lovely day of rest. Emily takes that literally! She sleeps all day long. The Bishop came into Relief Society today and commanded us to start a blog. Ha! Ha! Just kidding, Bishop! Although, Elder Ballard did mention it in last month’s Ensign. So, we are doing our part to share the gospel with our family and friends via the Internet.

Also, a dear, dear friend of ours passed away this week. Our dear friend and sister, Barbara Cozort. She was in the Mount Lewis 5th Ward. She was our sacrament Grandma when Mike was Bishop in that ward when all my kids were little. She helped when Nate spilled water all down the front of me while Mike just laughed from the stand. She helped bounce Brandon on her knee when he was fussy. She brought quiet toys for the kids to play with. She made the girls gifts. Every week she was there. She was amazing! We will miss her sweet, loving example. For now, we know her spirit is in heaven and look forward to the day when we will meet again.