April 2012

During the summer of 2012 (writing this in 2013 summer), Rich picked Kristina up from school, then she finished her goal of going to see each of the Utah temples.  They stopped at Vernal, then went fishing on the Green.

She and Rich also made pinewood derby cars and entered in the ward competition.  Rich being a prize winning pinewood derby car racer "back in the day"; it wasn't too surprising that she won 1 of the heats.  The car turned out really cool too!

with Jessica Johnson

Fishing Trip

For Rich's birthday & Father's Day, I gave him a guided fishing trip with the girls. The guide was great with Katherine since he teaches elementary school as his "day job." They caught some nice sized fish and had a fun time in the beautiful Platte River area.

Summer Boating & Work

This summer, Kristina spent another summer working at Bailey's Moving & Storage. She really was a great help to them during their busy time & came to appreciate the people who work there, too.

She also was very busy with the Young Singles activities at church (almost every night there was something fun to do). She also took some of her YSA friends out boating on Saturdays. She's becoming quite the amazing waterskiier!

Pikes Peak or Bust! August 2010

Kristina had always wanted to go to Pikes Peak since we moved here. Finally, before we took her to BYU in August, we went to Pikes Peak. It was a LONG drive up to the top, but a beautiful view once you got there. I tripped on something taking a picture and spent a LONG while in the nurses station, so it wasn't one of my favorite excursions we've went on, but was a fun day trip. We tried their famous hot donuts, but they weren't that special after all.

On the way back, we stopped at 11 mile for a little fishing trip. It was actually pretty fun. We saw a buffalo herd and I practiced some pictures of the barbed wire fence I thought turned out rather western. They are the pictures at the top, followed by the pictures from Pikes Peak below.

Education Week and starting BYU!

After we came back from Bear Lake, we had a busy week of cleaning up the house and getting ready for Kristina to go to college. There are a lot of things to pack when you're going to be gone 2 semesters, and she wanted to get together with some of her high school friends she hasn't had time to see (because of working so much this summer) before she left. Plus, there were missionary farewells of some special guys in her life, and a boating trip with them that kept us very busy that week.

It was my first time to drive over the mountain passes (like Vail) by myself so I was rather nervous that I could do it or that our old Acura could do it either! The car had some trouble getting up the high passes but in the end, we made it to Provo.

Then we checked into the dorms for Education Week. We had such a fun time going to classes and spending some time together before she started school. I enjoyed showing her around campus, too. We met a lot of our friends from Texas there, and that was a highlight for me. One of my friends, Debbie, I hadn't seen since high school!

Kristina's already having a great time with lots of activities and new friends to meet. I'm so grateful she worked so hard to get into BYU because I know she will have so many incredible experiences and make some of the best lifelong friends there!

Bear Lake

We went to Bear Lake for a family reunion with Rich's sisters (and their families), his parents, and Grandma Jones even came up for a day. Most of the days were spent boating, tubing, waterskiing, and playing on the beach. The lake has a pretty nice beach which we enjoyed playing in. One night, I walked along the beach in the evening with Rich and the mountain in the distance looks a lot like Diamond Head. kind of reminded me of romantic walks on the beach at Waikiki. :) We went to a cowboy cookout and saw Crazy for You and the lead singer is a BYU Young Ambassador (so you know the music was incredible) at the Pickleville Playhouse. They had "Sweet" and "Dill" restrooms. The resort had so many fun things to do--a pool, tennis courts, mini golf, rock climbing, arts and crafts and a playground. We didn't even get to the basketball courts! It was so much fun for the cousins to spend time together, to talk about memories from when the adults were kids and eat lots of yummy food.

Rich's dad had his kidney replaced and it was a great incentive to get back to being active so he could join us. He bore his testimony about how the gift of the organ was like the Sacrifice the Savior made for us. Going to church in Garden City was a lot like going in Palmyra with people all the way back to filling the stage and 20 deacons passing the Sacrament (only 2 coming from their ward). Quite a cool thing when they requested "boys in white shirts" and seeing them all lined up to pass the Sacrament.

We ended the week with Raspberry Days going to the craft fair (where I bought some really cute purses) and getting raspberry shakes (that Bear Lake is famous for) out on a sunny afternoon--too fun! The only thing that would have been better would have been if Jill didn't have a broken foot and if Doug's family had come. Jill was a trooper though and still got out there and went tubing and kayaking--she didn't want to miss any fun! What a great memory we will all have of being together at Bear Lake!

4th of July

We went to the Ward's pancake breakfast and I was asked to do the photography for the 5k event. Kari Ginn runs in marathons and was the easy winner (followed shortly afterwards by her father). It's always a fun way to celebrate--especially with the kids patriotic bike parade afterwards.

That evening we went over to help with the Parker Let Freedom Sing running the kids games. It was a good feeling to help the kids and see how cute they were trying to win prizes. We bought some homemade rootbeer and popcorn, yummy. There was a brass band that did Sousa marches before the fireworks. It was Katherine's first time to see fireworks up close and spectacular. The parking was a fiasco & it took us almost an hour to get out of the parking lot, but otherwise it was a fun evening.