Family reunion-Thursday

We took about 400 pictures in 3 days while we were up in Salmon at the family reunion, and probably about 20 videos, so I decided to break it up into each day here on the blog.

We flew up to Utah Wednesday night, stayed with Jake's family (see previous post), then on Thursday around noon we headed up to Salt Lake to pick up Justin and Marie from the airport, then to continue on up to Salmon. We're really glad Justin and Marie got to come. We hadn't seen them since last July when we went out to Georgia, and Justin hadn't been to the farm since 2000, and Marie had never been there. So when we finally got to Salmon we went on a little tour of the farm, and went to see the cows that Rachel was SOOOO excited to see.

Here's Rachel with Grandma Knight and Nate (my cousin) hangin' out with a calf.

Emma had a good time playing with Rachel, and being a good, helpful cousin. And Rachel loved the attention. She also loved the climbing opportunities she found.

We celebrated Pat's birthday a day late with some yummy cake and ice cream.

Rachel got acquainted with Hannah, who is just a few months younger than Rachel. They had a good time following each other around and playing some over the weekend.

The Jolley kids played soccer, of course.

Well, that's it for day 1. We got there late, so didn't really do much. But there's more to come....

Utah stop-overs

This last weekend we had a Jolley Family reunion up in Salmon, Idaho. We flew in to Salt Lake, then drove the rest of the way, which allowed us one night each way to spent with Jake's family in Provo. It was definitely a speed vacation and we plan on making sure we have more time up there next time. But in the little time that we spent in Provo, we had some good times. Rachel got to meet her Aunt Cari, who she hasn't seen since she was a month old because Cari left on a mission to Alaska and just got back a couple of weeks ago. Rachel and Cari had LOTS of fun playing with each other while we were there.

They played ball together and climbed on the stairs (one of Rachel's favorite things).

Rachel LOVES tents, so she had a blast with this tent Cari got at a white elephant gift exchange, or something like that.

Sunday night, on our way back south we got to celebrate Sharon's birthday. Happy Birthday Sharon!!

Cari and Sharon's roommate Cassie made the evening into a beach party. Pretty cool.

And Rachel had a good time with the party hat and the balloons.
We're glad you we got to see you guys. Come visit anytime. And email me a copy of the family picture we took--we didn't have our camera out at that point. :)

Last week review

Here's the picture of the dismantled bed that I found for $20 at a garage sale a couple weeks ago. It had writing on it with a sharpie, like tic-tac-toe and such, so I decided to paint it.

On the left here you can see the after. And on the right you can see how Rachel spent the last coat of spray paint, only with the back door closed. She LOVES to play in the back of our 4-runner (even when it's 100 outside she BEGS to play in the back--of course, I'm a mean mom and say no--or maybe that's being a good mom, keeping her from heat stroke).

Rachel's most recent favorite game is hide-and-seek. She will hide and wait for us to find her, then laugh really hard when we find her, and immediately say, "AGAIN!" Usually that means she goes back to the exact same hiding place while we watch, then waiting for us to come find her. She's got a few things to learn about the game, though.

She will do the seeking, too, sometimes. It's really cute: she covers her eyes, begins "one, two,.." uncovers her eyes and starts walking, "tee, fou, six, seven, nine, ten. Ready, not, come!" We usually have to whistle, or hide with half our body hanging out of the hiding place so she can find us.

Rachel is getting more into her stuffed animals. She'll read to them, or put them in time out, or put them down for a nap. The other night she made me read to her, and Curious George, and Pooh Bear for her bedtime story.

Gardening and yard sales

After some good cleaning on Saturday, and some more this morning in an effort to beat the visiting teacher deadline (to avoid the "Is there anything we can do for you?.... like maybe clean up this pig sty you're living in?" offer) my house finally feels nice and clean. It took over a week to recover from the Girls'-Camp- and week-before-girls'-camp-busy-with-other-stuff-so-I'm-not-going-to-clean mess, but it's done. And it feels good.
In other news, our garden is still giving us some tasty treats. I had eggplant parmesean last week for the first time ever (first time ever eating eggplant, period). It was pretty good, I thought. We have tons of tomatoes, even after the birds hunt down their own tasty treats.

And I finally decided it was time to pick this watermelon. I weighed it with the Brian Regan method and determined that it's about 11 1/2 pounds. So that watermelon is about how big my "little" brother was when he was born. Hmmm...

It's currently sitting on our counter waiting to become refreshments for FHE tonight.

Saturday on my way to pick up some milk I got sucked in by some yard sale signs and ended up buying this lovely train, which Rachel loves-especially the caboose which has a switch to turn on the ABC song so it plays again and again and again and again. And again.

I also got this Little People set for $4. That way beats $72. And all the pieces are even there, plus 2 or 3 extra animals from a different Little People set that got mixed in. Bonus!

So we've had a good time playing with our cheap finds. I also found a twin bed for $20, which I ended up buying. I'm a sucker for a good deal, I guess. I know we don't need it now, but one of these days Rachel will be out of her toddler bed, and then that $20 will be money well spent.

Girls camp

This last week I got to spend the week up at Girls Camp up Mt. Lemmon at Camp Zion. Except for the first 2 1/2 days, which I spent on Mt. Lemmon hiking many miles with the 4th year campers. I was one of the assistant hike leaders and we had a lot of fun. We ended up hiking somewhere between 15 and 20 miles, camping out two nights. The first day after hiking in and setting up our tents most of us headed off for a "short" hike to the Lemmon pools for a little swimming. It turned out to be a bit longer than we had planned, and by the end we were racing the setting sun, and a lot of the girls were so tired they had to stop often to rest.
The next morning they were all surprised by how much better they felt compared to the exhaustion from the night before. After breaking camp and eating breakfast we were off for day 2. The second day had a stretch of challenging uphill, but everyone made it. And at the end of the 2nd day we had a surprise waiting for us. Brother Clark had come to cook us a DELICIOUS dinner, and had set up a camping potty and a huge tarp and had 2 grills, 2 camp stoves, 3 dutch oven, and a huge chest freezer full of food and POPSICLES. The popsicles did a great job at helping everyone to relax after the challenging hike. When dinnertime came, we all ate too much good food, and even had apple turnovers with ice cream to top it all off. It started raining right when dinner was ready, so we huddled under the huge tarp Bro. Clark had set up, and by the time dessert was over, so was the rain.
The last day we got up, broke camp, ate a delicious breakfast burrito or two, then set off on the last leg of the hike. Everyone was energized knowing that there was only a couple of hours of hiking, then we'd be at camp and they'd get to take a shower. The girls all did really well with minimal complaints. It was a great experience that I'm glad I got to be a part of.


I also got to stay the rest of the week at camp and that was a lot of fun. I was a little worried ahead of time about leaving Rachel all week, since I'd never even left her overnight. But she did great and had lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa Knight during the day (thanks!) and waking Daddy up bright and early each morning, and hanging out with him after work. And I had a lot of fun getting to know the girls and the leaders better. It was a good time all around. It was fun to see the testimonies grow, too, and see how the girls noticed each others' needs and struggles and gave hugs and love when needed.
Unfortunately I only got 3 or 4 pictures of actual girls camp because my camera was filled with the hike pictures (I took my smaller camera with less memory, so it doesn't fit 500+ pictures like our good camera does). So I'll have to get some camp pictures from other people.
So, overall it was a great week and I had a lot of fun. But I'm also glad to be home now.

Rachel pictures

Here are a few pics of Rachel from the last few weeks, and a little about what we've been up to:

Rachel is a true southwestern gal. We had nachos for dinner one night and all she really cared about was the salsa. She would lick it off the chips, then say "more sasa, pees" (more salsa, please), then lick it again, and again and again. She probably ate a quarter of a jar of medium salsa.

She's the same way with Salsa Verde Doritos--she licks the flavoring off (occasionally taking an actual bite), then when her tongue starts burning grabs a drink of milk, and is right back to the licking of chips. Wierdo.

Just a few minutes ago I went in to Rachel's room to see why everything was so quiet (usually a sign of trouble). This time I found Rachel laying on her pillow on the ground, telling me "nummy nap." I don't know where the nummy came from, but she always says it before nap. So I moved her mattress from her crib to her little toddler bed and she laid right down on it for her nap, an hour or two earlier than normal. I suppose I should be grateful to have a kid who LOVES taking naps. And I am. So far she'll take her naps in her bed, but demands her crib for nighttime sleeping.


A couple of weeks ago a friend invited me over because she got 100 hair clips, and was making some barrettes for her daughters, but didn't think she'd get through all 100, so she was sharing the wealth. Here are the barrettes I made for Rachel. So quick and easy.


Rachel has been getting really into pretending lately, and loves playing with her dolls and stuffed animals. Here she's reading a story to her rabbit. She does this with her dolls, too. It's great. It keeps her entertained for a good half hour, and it's pretty amazing sometimes to see how well she knows the stories as she repeats some of the words while she's "reading."

4th of July

Now that I'm back from Girls' Camp I am finally getting around to updating the blog. Here are some of our fun 4th of July pictures. Actually it was the 3rd of July-we went for a picnic with my parents up at Rose Canyon Lake and decided it would be less busy on Friday than Saturday, which was the actual 4th of July. We enjoyed ourselves and the cooler weather up on the mountain-about 20 degrees cooler.

On the actual 4th of July we mostly just hung out. I had a pack check with the girls going on the 4th year hike, but besides that we hung out at home, and went to the pool for a little fun, too. No fireworks this year--they didn't start until 9pm and we have 8 am church, so letting Rachel stay up that late would have made church into a torture session for all of us. Maybe next year....