Savouring Little Things: July Happenings

Whoa, summer is racing by! School will be starting in a month! It's been a good one. I haven't had time to blog for the past few weeks because I'm either making messes in the kitchen, cleaning up messes in the kitchen, putting out fires between siblings or taking them somewhere to keep them busy! Ah, the good 'ol summertime!

I thought I would do a little catching up today. Just a warning: This blog post will be a modgepodge of randomness! And the quality of pictures is horrible because we had to use camera phones all month. My camera shutter died and I had to wait for weeks to get it fixed. I got it back a few days ago, and now it's got a short in it or something. It turns on only when it wants to. UGGG!

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I took this picture off of Jeremy's facebook page. He had taken his staff to a motivational lunch where Mark Eaton was the speaker.
He said it was an amazing talk where Mr. Eaton shared his story. Look how tall he is!

I thought this would be a fun memory for Jeremy to look back on in our blog book.

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One day I was sitting at the computer in the office/laundry room and I heard the sound of wheels on the tile floor, then little voices saying, "Mom, Mom!"

I looked over to the door and saw that Eli and Anya wheeled their little suitcases in.

"We're going on an airplane to see Hazel!" said Eli.

So sweet. Every time I mention Hazel, he insists that he is coming with us

when we go see her. He has noooo idea how far away she is.

Or how insane we would be to bring him along. Ha ha!

I long for the day that Hazel is out of that orphanage and

wheeling little suitcases around the house.

An online friend of mine is in Hazel's city right now, spending time with her little guy

who just happens to be in Hazel's groupa. She told me that when she brought her boy back to the groupa room yesterday, all the kids were in their undies because there's no a/c and it was too hot to play outside with so little shade. So sad. Oh, how I wish she could go scoop up our daughter and tell her that we're coming soon. If only she could speak Russian! And on that same note, how amazing it would be to plant some trees all over the orphanage grounds and put some air conditioners in the groupa rooms. It's only a few months out of the year that it's hot there, but that's got to be miserable!

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See that big cloud in this picture? That's smoke!

I had Sadie take this picture when we were stopped at a red light.

The mountainside in Alpine caught on fire the first week of July. It's so dry that just a spark from a backhoe started the fire! It took them about 5 days to finally put it out.

There were a bunch of homes in Alpine that were evacuated, but miraculously, none of them burnt. One was completely surrounded by fire and lost it's barn, but the house was saved. It's sad to see the mountainside all charred now, but thank goodness no one was hurt or lost their home.

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We got up early on the 4th of July and drove down to Provo for the Grand Parade.

Jeremy loves big parades. So we go almost every year.
I always put down the idea because you have to park far away and the crowds
are crazy! But the kids always say, "it's a tradition!." At least the younger kids do.

Landon and Sadie have officially lost interest. :(

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The next weekend, the Fillmore family all met at Jeremy's brother, Ryan's house for a camp out. He has a great property for camping. It has easy access to the back/side yard for RVs and he lives in a tiny town where it's OK to camp out in your yard! They were so nice to let our family use their 5th wheel trailer. Most of the kids slept in tents. I didn't think about taking pictures with my lousy camera phone, but here are a couple that Jeremy took.

We rented 4-wheelers. The kids had a blast riding around on them.

Jeremy and Landon bought some long boards this summer so they can go out together. I'm amazed that Jeremy can even stay on the thing at his age! I tried it and promptly jumped off for fear of crashing! He's good with stuff like this though.
This has been a great bonding activity for a dad and his 16 year old son.

This family reunion ended very sadly for us. We found out that Saturday afternoon that one of our dear friends, Scott Archibald was in a horrible cycling accident. He was riding downhill in a canyon and the road turned and he ran into the side of a pick up truck several times, then skidded down the road.

Luckily we had two cars there at the reunion. Jeremy and Landon took off to the U of U hospital while I packed our things to go home. The doctors weren't sure Scott was going to make it that night and Jeremy wanted to be there.
Miraculously, he pulled through, but he's still in critical condition after two weeks. He's already undergone many surgeries. He has upwards of 25 injuries, but they're waiting to go in and reset all the broken bones when he's more stable

Scott has a wife and three kids under 13 years of age. He just has to get better.

The Archibalds are part of the "cabin crew" that we meet with every year. The husbands were friends in high school and we have all stayed in touch, getting together on New Year's Eve at a cabin in Midway. They are friends we will have forever!

The Cabin Crew, Summer 2007 The Archibalds are the couple in white in the back.

We've been praying soooo much for Scott and his family these past two weeks, hanging on every update we hear. His wife, Terri has been so incredibly strong through all of this. She has so much faith and feels peace that it's all in the Lord's hands and although it's gonna be a hard road, there's a bigger picture that has yet to be seen.

Please keep our dear friends, the Archibalds in your prayers.

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Last week, Sadie and her friend, Jenna went to Retreat for Girls for their 2nd year. It's a week-long conference for girls ages 11-15. They have amazing speakers, service projects, crafts, lawn games, and most importantly good food! They also get to stay in the dorms at USU. How fun is that for a 13 year old girl? She looked forward to this all year and helped pay for it with her babysitting money. It's hard forking out money for these kinds of things, but I love what they learn there. The theme of the conference this year was "IN JOY" or how to find joy in everything in life. Sadie was challenged by her counselor to read the entire Book of Mormon in 100 days. She has accepted the challenge and it has motivated Jeremy and I to do the same. I love when our children lead us. They may need kicks in the butt many times, but sometimes they have a way of kicking our butts into gear, as well. :)

At the end of the conference, the parents are invited to come to the "closing ceremony" AKA one big commercial for the retreat. Ha ha. The best part is at the end when all the hundreds of girls link hands around the perimeter of the auditorium and sing a song for the parents. I was sitting in the back and Sadie and Jenna happened to be in the back for the song. Sweet! Can you see Sadie over there?

Sadie and Jenna, two beautiful young ladies, all pumped to serve the Lord and "IN-JOY!"

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This week our young women went to Temple Square to see the movie at the Legacy Theater called "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration" on the huge screen. It was an amazing movie! It made me so grateful for the groundwork that has been laid by the early saints to establish Christ's church. It made me wonder how much I would be willing to sacrifice for something I believed in so strongly. Every time I think about how far our church has come since those early days, it gives me goosebumps all over. It's truly miraculous that we now have so many million members all over the world.

We rode the elevator to the top floor of the building and looked out the big windows at the Temple. Wow, what a view! And can you believe we have this many girls ages 12-18 in our congregation? Actually, we were missing 8-9 that night.

I stole this picture off of facebook. Thanks Maddy H!