July 8th, 2007

Ah, I’ve missed the last two Sundays because we were out of town. Two weeks ago we were in Cascade, Idaho at my grandparent’s 65th anniversary. It was one of those family gatherings that you don’t really want to attend but turns out to be pretty fun. We rented a jet ski one day and loved playing in Lake Cascade. We spent a lot of time talking to relatives, eating waffles and swimming. I forgot my running shoes and discovered that running in flip-flops is not all that bad. We hiked to a natural named, “Vulcan.” The water was way too hot to play in!

After two days at home catching up on our work we took off for California. Two trips in a row is amazing for us since we didn’t get past Provo last year. The drive to Anaheim went pretty well and by Wednesday we were in Disneyland. We stayed together most of the time at Disneyland which made it especially fun.

Jeff, Karen and Gracie Weichers met us at Disneyland on Friday. We loved seeing them!

By Friday we’d had enough of Disneyland and drove to San Diego. We stayed in Ruth’s house(her family was vacationing in SLC). We loved staying at her house with their simple lifestyle and incredible weather. When we weren’t at the beach we were playing Connect 4 or sleeping. On Sunday we went to church and snoozed away most of the day.

The best part of San Diego is the beach. Everyone but Gabriel and Mary loved riding the waves and the little ones loved playing in them. We built fantastic sand castles and a huge “bath tub.” Mary swims in the ocean like a little fish– diving under the water and swimming in circles.

We went to Trader Joe’s on Monday and LOVED it! We bought so many treats it was embarrassing. We had a ton of fun buying thank you gifts for Ruth’s family. The Mitchell’s weren’t there with us of course but we all feel so much closer to them after staying in their home– it’s interesting how generousity works!

After a miserable trip home through 115 degree weather we arrived happily at home Tuesday night. We were up the next morning in time for the annual Millcreek 4th of July Parade. It’s just a cute little community parade full of decorated wagons and kids throwing candy but it’s also a great way to see lots of neighbors and to start the day in a totally irresponsible, festive way(eating lots of candy and skipping chores).

Later we went to Kenny’s 4th of July party in our old neighborhood. We loved seeing our old friends. It made us very homesick. They had incredible fireworks which were surely illegal.