Summertime smatterings

Justin got a new toy! He's been hemming and hawing about getting it and then one day he finally did! He got a nexus 7 tablet. It's basically an Ipad but with Google instead of Apple. ( Justin is kind of anti apple. ) 

He's been having lots of fun with it, playing games mostly but also doing some writing. I have been having fun with the games as well. Sometimes...Justin will even let me take it to work. 

This little bro of mine had a birthday and turned 15. He's is getting so big and tall. I used to be able to win any argument by taking him down, I don't think I can do that any more. =) He's a fun and energetic brother. We love him.

This was by our mailbox one day. I love it for so many reasons. The spelling of lemonade, the attempts at how to spell house, and the fact that I have no idea where "lizzy house" is. Got to love all the kids in the neighbor hood. Our neighborhood has been great. We've had our lawn mowed twice by secret service neighbors. We are so grateful. 

My sisters and I worked on one of my mom's summer bucket list items. To summit Mt Timpanogas! It's different then the cave hike, it's on the other side of the giant mountain. It was a really pretty hike, but very long about 6.5 miles round trip. I was surprised by how green everything was in July especially since it was when all the fires were happening. 

Yeah....we were going to go to the top of that bad boy.I was kind of being a wimp and had to take lots of breaks. I was sorely out of shape but we still had fun.

When we got to the almost top we saw cute little mountain goats. Just hanging out. In all my hikes around Utah and other places I have never seen a Mountain goat in real life. So I thought it was pretty cool. By the time we got to this part we were all so tired and really didn't want to summit. But the views were still pretty.

We had fun and were super tired. We came home to an awesome dinner made by Justin. We've been having fun this summer and hope that you have too!

The Mormon Miracle Pageant

So I have been slacking on blogging and that's ok it just means there is more to catch up on! Justin and I have been trying to make this summer more fun and do some of the activities we've been wanting to do. Well both me and my sister Suzanna really wanted to go to the Mormon Miracle Pageant down in Manti. So...we did. We went down and stayed a while with my brother in Lehi and then made the trek to Manti. 

We left pretty early in the day because we wanted to go to the temple and do some service work there. It's a special temple for our family since we lived in the town right before ( Ephraim) for about 10 years. I grew up always seeing the temple out by my house, I went by it everyday going to High School. It was always just there. 

It was really neat to be able to go through more of the temple then just the baptistry which is really cool but the other parts are cool as well. 

Bright during the day. It was a beautiful day when we were there. Hot...but really pretty.

I love when the temples are all light up at night. 

This is us waiting for forever for the pageant to start. I was kind of excited to see the Pageant because every summer after I was 12 I was in the Pageant and sometimes when the moment is right I quote it and Justin never knows what I am talking about. 

The Pageant goes through the Joseph Smith story very quickly with a few scenes from the Book of Mormon, then wraps up with the Saints traveling from Missouri to Salt Lake. It goes through all the history really fast. They have been doing it for I want to say 50 years, we got a newspaper about it but I don't remember hehe. So the lines are sometimes really cheesy and the performances are pretty good. It was a fun little trip down memory lane, remembering the cues for certain parts and spending the summer nights with friends on the temple hill. 

We had fun but would probably be ok not seeing again for another 10 years. That's how long it's been. 

Check one for our summer bucket list!

Bear Lake Half

After our Friday hikes we made our way to Logan to get ready for the Bear Lake Half Marathon with my sisters. Justin was our chauffeur/picture taker/cheerleader. We got there super early so we were pretty loopy by the time the race actually started. 

Here we are so ready to go! Well Natalie is at least. =)

Here I am bringing it in.

To the finish!

Here comes Suzanna.

Almost there.

Last but not least Natalie! I love this picture of her, check out those muscles! She looks like an athlete.

So happy to be done. It was really fun to run this with my sisters. None of us really trained that hard. Natalie got up to 9 miles and that was the highest. At times we ran together, at times one of us would be ahead. I am actually the most proud of this race because I didn't train very well but I felt awesome! I got a major burst of energy about mile 10-11 because the song "What makes you Beautiful" from One Direction came up on my ipod. hehe.

It was a really pretty race going around the south west corner of the Lake. The weather was great, a little bit cold in the morning but after we started running it warmed up. It was warm but not to hot and had the cool breeze from the lake going by. It was a nice course the only bummer part was that traffic wasn't stopped as we ran along the road so we'd have to slide to the edge whenever a car came. It usually wasn't bad unless you were trying to pass someone. 

As always it was fun to do something with my sisters and we had fun talking in the car at 4 in the morning, dancing to stay warm before we started the race, and making fun of the people who run with a whole bunch of gadgets.