Brigham City Temple

Part of the benefit of homeschooling is that we can pretty much do what we want, when we want, and call it school.  We decided to grab the grandmas and head up to Brigham City to tour the new temple before it was dedicated.  It was another beautiful and hot day.  The kids watched some historical videos on the way up, and we talked about Utah history a bit.

 Ama Ancy, Amabuela, Clara and Josh

 That might be me with the kids.

 After the tour, we stopped in Ogden to visit with Ama and Papa GG.  The kids went swimming while the rest of us visited, and then Uncle Ken and Aunt Pennie came over to say hi.  They brought their doggies, Chewy and Leah with them.  My kids love their dogs (especially Clara the animal lover) so that was a big treat for them.

 Clara didn't want to let Leah go!

We always try to get pictures of the kids with their Great-Grandparents when we visit.  Papa GG is 92 this year and we are so lucky to have him around still!

Snowmass Village, Colorado

We are avid fans of Snowmass Village, Colorado.  It's about 10 minutes from Aspen, and one of the most beautiful places on earth.  Our dear friends, the Bultmans, live there, but also have a house in Grand Junction, where we go for Memorial Day.  Recently they upgraded to a 3 bedroom condo, so now we have a room to stay in when we visit.  That meant a trip this summer to get out of the heat!

 Clara and William on the trail to the Maroon Bells

 Dave and Josh

 Josh

 Clara - about to get very muddy.

 Josh and William playing with the rocks.

 My favorite Ms. Ginny!

 Rockstar!

 We took William and Clara on a walkabout.  Josh had a headache from the altitude, so he didn't come along.  We walked up a little trail and ended up seeing a whole bunch of cool stuff.

 I love this girl!

 We ended up at a stream that was just lovely.

 I love this picture - I don't remember what they were talking about, but it was clearly a great debate.  Ginny is fantastic about asking William questions to make him think.

 I did manage to get a picture of the two of them, although they were reluctant about it.

 The rest of the time, they played in the field behind the condo with the dogs and the neighbor kids.  It was great for them to be able to be outside so much and just PLAY.

On the way home, we saw the American Idol tour bus.  They were having auditions in Grand Junction and happened to be at the park we stopped at for lunch.

The Rest of the Summer 2012

I am embarrassed to say that I really didn't take any pictures the rest of the summer other than a few here and there. We spent a great deal of the summer at the pool, going most days and meeting our besties there. That being said, I didn't take pictures. We also started homeschooling at the beginning of August. We did manage one day to take the kids down to BYU to get them excited about being Cougars someday. It was hot, but we ate ice cream and bought t-shirts. 
 

My dad's first cousin Chris passed away so I went to the wake with my dad.  I hadn't met him, but I knew it was probably the only chance I would have to meet some of my dad's other cousins.  The black and white picture is of my grandfather and his immediate family.  My grandfather is on the bottom right.  I did meet his father (bottom left) when I was an infant.  The picture below is of my dad and his cousins, Alan, my dad (Kirk), Larry, and Marcy.  It was wonderful to meet them all and to be around the Rasmussen side of my family. 

 Josh has really made some strides with playing the piano over the past year.  He is taking lessons from his Amabuela.  Some weeks he works hard at it and some weeks he hardly practices.  Let's just call him a normal kid.  He threatens to quit regularly and I threaten to take away his Nintendo DS if he doesn't practice.  We are a well adjusted family.

We took a few drives up to the cabin this summer.  We love it up there, but never are able to spend as much time as we like.