Honoring "The Tour"

June 30th is the official start of the "Tour De France."  This is a bicycle race where the riders ride thru France. It takes about 1 month for this race from start to finish. Mike has loved watching this race for years.  So, in honor of the "Tour" starting, Mike and I had our own tour of sorts. We called it the "Tour de Greenbelt."  We rode our bikes from our house along the river to Julia Davis park downtown. There we ate chicken salad on croisants, fruit salad, and had grape juice mixed with Perrier water!  (very French.)

For dessert, we had napoleans!  (Also very French)

YUM!!!...............

Now we get to spend the rest of the month watching the race and the Pelaton!  Which Mike says is loosely translated from french to mean, "alot of bike riders, riding very fast and very close together, each one fervently praying the guy in front of him doesn't crash!"

Viva la Tour de France!

Snap shots of June

The summer is now 1/3 of the way over!  I can't believe how time flies! Here are a few snapshots of some happenings thru out the month.

Megan participated in a "roadshow."  Our ward did a spin on the 70's show "The Brady Bunch." We were the "Mountain View Bunch."  This is Megan and her friend Kaycee Carollo.

We had Greg home for a few days, so we visited the Idaho Aquarium!  It's not the Oregon Coast Aquarium, but pretty good for Boise, Idaho!

Megan's summer PE class had to hike Table Rock one morning, so I joined them. Our first hike of the year!

July will also be busy. Cabin trip, a wedding, and a trip to the Oregon Coast!  Drew will even be joining us for some of it!  I can't wait.  I love summer!



Temples, baptisms, and Father's Day

My neice Emma, was getting baptized on Saturday of Father's Day weekend. So the whole family was traveling down to Salt Lake City. Mom and I decided to go a few days early and visit some temples and Rachel's family.
On our 1st day, we did a session in the  Salt Lake Temple. Then we went across the street and checked out the new City Creek shopping center. It was awesome!  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, but we still had fun.

That night Rachel brought her kids to the hotel to go swimming. While the older kids were swimming, Logan stayed in the hotel room. He managed to find my stash of yogurt pretzels.

The next morning, Mom and I went to Lizzie's music class! It was the last one before summer vacation!

Here is Lizzie playing the piano while Grandma watches!

Everyone put their hands in the air!

That afternoon, Mom, Rachel, and I did a session in the Draper Temple. It is a very beautiful temple.

Saturdy morning Emma got baptized. Again, I forgot to take my camera!  (I  must be getting old!)

That afternoon, Mike, Greg, Megan, and I went to Temple Square to hang around.
Here we are at the Conference Center.

We saw the Joseph Smith movie, and hung out in the Family History Library.
This is one of the few times that Mike is actually getting help on the computer!

Mike and Colleen on Temple Square.

The next day was Father's Day. After we got home, it was present time!
Meg made Mike a pillow out of Univ of Utah colors!

Mike also got a "zero gravity" chair. He loves it!

And the two combine quite nicely!

He also got tickets to a Hawks Baseball Game. We will go later this summer.

We ended up skyping with Drew that night. It was so good to talk with him!

Happy Father's Day!



School's Out!!!

School is finally out for summer! The last week was very busy. Megan was studying for finals, and I was closing up my office for the summer. During the last week of school, there was the 9th grade awards assembly. Megan got 3 awards! One academic award, one honor roll, and the "sciencitific curiosity" award.

Here is Megan with her favorite teacher, Mrs. Smith. She taught Meg's accelerated biology class. She was a teacher who changed Meg's life. 

So, what do you do when school gets out?  You have a girl's weekend at the cabin! I took Megan and her friend Emelia Munson to the cabin for 3 days!  We played games, rode the 4-wheelers, and slept!

We went to McCall and had dinner and bought a carmel apple at the McCall Candy Co. 

YUM!!!!!!

The new Jeep made it's maiden voyage to the cabin. It did great!  It really looks good in the driveway at the cabin!

I'm so glad it is finally summer! It is going to be so fun!    





Memorial Day Weekend

We always wonder what to do for Memorial Day Weekend. With the long weekend, the draw is to head out of town. Usually we go to the cabin, but this year Abby graduated from Centennial High School Saturday afternoon. So we stayed in town for that. Rachel and Marty came into town with their kids, so a good time was had by all!

While we waited for graduation to start, I got little Logan to finally warm up to me!

Megan with Lizzie!

Abby with her siblings and cousins! 

That night we had a family dinner to celebrate Abby's graduation and Mikaela's b-day!

Logan after eating red velvet birthday cake!

So, what do you do with an empty bedroom, and a child who is out of the house?

You turn it into a sewing/craft room!

Mike and Greg painted Drew's old bedroom 2 of the "Top Ten Empty Nester's Colors."

Another good use for the long weekend!

I will show pictures when the room is done!

What a great way to spend a long weekend in town!

It's Spring Again!!

It has been an interesting weather year so far this year. Snow was very late in coming to the area. But once it came, we had a lot of it, especially in the mountains!  When it came time for spring, we would have days is the 80s, but the next day, rainy and in the 30s.
Spring is my favorite time of year, because I love to see the flowers starting to come up after the gray drab winter.  This is what we have been seeing in the neighborhood lately.

Another sign of spring around here is what we call "The Rooster Tail."  In the spring, the Boise river get lots of run off from the mountains. There are 3 reservoirs above Boise that the water people (whoever they are!) use to manage the run off. From the base of Lucky Peak damn, which is the lowest reservoir, there is a special valve that they only turn on in the spring. It releases ALOT of water at one time, and shoots it into the air, hence the rooster tail. This year we Mike, Meg, and I decided to go up and see it. Mike had never seen it. We invited Grandpa and Grandma to go with and off we went! Here is the rooster tail:

On the way back, we stopped at a restaurant called The Brick Oven Beanery and had dinner. I had the vegetable cheese soup. And yes, that is a scoop of  mashed potatoes right in the middle!  Yum.....

I  LOVE  SPRING!!!