Boating at Hyrum Dam

After we left the cabin, we went to my parents' house for a couple of nights, mostly so that we'd have access to the boat!  We went to Hyrum Dam for the day, and it wasn't nearly as crowded as Pineview had been over the holiday weekend.  My mom bought a new tube for our Bear Lake trip last year, but since it was so cold we never had a chance to use it.  We made up for it this trip.  It was such an awesome tube!  Since our kids' heads are all at different heights, we were able to give all four of them a ride at once.  But the fewer kids we had, the rougher ride we could give them.  It was a real challenge getting kids to fly out of this tube, but we managed it!  They could whip around turns, go up and over bumps, and handle almost anything we could throw at them.  

Most of the time Kelton was in the middle and was at the mercy of his sisters' flying legs.  He was smacked a couple of times, but never flew out of the tube.  We finally managed to get each girl out at least once.  

I rode with Daxton once and just enjoyed it.  Everyone had a chance to ski.  The boys were on the inflatable training tube.  Kelton was really starting to practice maneuvering the tube and was really comfortable up there.  

Daxton just liked the simple ride.

  

McKenzie wanted to practice wakeboarding.  After just a couple of tries she popped right up and rode.  

Cambrie tried and tried to get up, but just couldn't get the feel of it.  We'll try again on skis next time and see if that helps.  She decided she really liked driving the boat and trying to get her siblings to flip out of their tube.

 

It was a perfectly hot day, so we wanted to get the lake after drying off in the boat.  My mom and Daxton hung out a lot in the shade of her lava lava while Jeremy and I were working with the boarders.  Remind me again why we don't go to the lake more often?  It was awesome.

4th of July

On the Fourth of July we didn't want to go down and go boating at Pineview with the other 500 boats, so we spent a quiet morning at the cabin before heading down to Ogden.  Bruce and Barbara opened up their pool so we could go swimming!  (I was just grateful that the kids had some kind of bath to wash off the layers of dirt!).  Bruce pulled out all of his toys and we swam all night.  The kids practice doing tricks off the of the diving board.  For some, simply jumping off was enough of an adrenaline rush. 

 For the older ones they tried diving, spinning, belly flopping, and playing basketball while mid-air.  

When they had enough of that, Jake and Jeremy started tossing the kids into the pool.  They could really launch Kelton.  

The rest of the kids didn't want to be launched, so they just enjoyed floating and relaxing in the water.  

Bruce and Leesa were up in Morgan, and swung by to say hi and give Kelton his birthday presents.  He now has a new bat for baseball this season!

When it finally grew dark enough, it was time to light fireworks.  We went to my Grandma's house to light them.  Jake and Jeremy had both brought things to light, and they were perfect for the kids.  We decked everyone out in our fourth of July gear and started rotating through the stash.  

The kids took turn choosing their fireworks and we watched flowers, fountains, and flying balls.  Only once did a firework explode a little too close to the ground for real comfort.  I was thrilled that all of the kids loved it this year and we didn't have to pull out any ear plugs to mute the explosions.  And I was really thrilled that none of Grandma's neighbors complained about the ruckus we were making!

My mom and Grandma enjoying the festivities.  

Cambrie tried to create a portal with her sparkler like Dr. Strange.  

We finally finished up around 11:00.  It was a really late night.  As we drove back to the cabin we enjoyed watching the hundreds of fireworks exploding all over the valley.  No cities held firework displays this year because of coronavirus, which meant that every family had a firework show of their own.  It was pretty impressive.  While Jeremy and I were listening to our "Proud to be an American" and "God Bless the USA" music, the kids slowly dropped off to sleep one by one.  Back and the cabin we had some exhausted kids to put in bed.  

What a great Independence Day!

At the cabin

It's not quite right calling it a reunion, but in many ways it is.  It is the chance we get to have once a year to have all of the Johnson clan together.  This year we kept our trip local and went up to the cabin.  We didn't have a lot of activities planned, but that gave the kids the chance to play in the dirt.  The girls went to work pretty quickly making a special place just for them.  They built a lean-to, hauled up logs for their chairs, cleared a central area, and made a bunch of yarn crafts to hang in the trees.  The Grove was their favorite place by far, and they spent a lot of time up there.  

The boys...honestly I don't know what they boys did every day out on the property.  I know they ran around barefoot.  I know they showed up for meals.  I know they were filthy.   And I know they were really happy.

I think their second favorite place were their individual tents. Not all of us could sleep in the cabin, so we pitched some tents.  The Thurstons had their tent.  The Johnsons had their tents, and then the girls had their own; McKenzie and Faye, then Cambrie was up in the woods all by herself.  She couldn't have been happier.  The boys were all in the bunkbeds next to Jeremy and I.  We only had one crashing casualty.  Sam fell off the first night and bit his lip pretty hard.  The poor kid had a swollen lip the rest of the trip, but at least no one else fell out of that top bunk!  (We'll forget the part where Daxton tried to do a flip out of the bed and totally landed on his head.  Poor kid felt rather lousy the rest of the evening.)

Sometimes we'd gather everyone together and makes some crafts, play some games, horseshoes, badmitten, Oregon Trail, and the adults played a couple rounds of Sentinels of the Multiverse.  

We brought up some fireworks to light on the 4th.  Since we couldn't light flying fire projectiles at the cabin, we lit a couple packages of snakes and the kids thought the ash from those was super cool.  They coated their hands in the black ash and had to go rinse off down in the stream.

We went on a couple of exploring expeditions, one of them was to Northfork trail and waterfall.  It wasn't a long hike, only about .5 miles from the parking lot to the waterfall, but it was perfect for the kids.  There were steep challenging climbs, lots of foliage, and just the right amount of shade to keep us cool.  We had only been at the waterfall for moments before my girls started clambering up the waterfall on the side. 

Well, it started a chain reaction and before we knew it, almost every grandkid scrambled up the falls.  It wasn't easy and required some help from the adults but thankfully every kid made it up and down without injury.  Can you count the stinging nettle that Sam and Kelton found?  

We had some soggy feet back at the cars, but we also had some kids with fewer wiggles than when we started, so I'll take that!  

Grandma Stratford came up and spent one day with us.  She was with us when we were crafting.  

She was with us when we lit the fire and roasted s'mores.  I'm grateful that she has such a wonderful place with so many memories where we can hang out together as a family.  

My little fireside buddy.

My mom with some of the grandkids.

On our final day as we were leaving the valley, Jeremy and my mom decided that we should take the scenic route to Logan.  We drove up and over the pass through Avon.  Jeremy's taken the road once when we was still a bachelor, but it was our first time.  It was a rutted dirt road, but it provided some spectacular views of the valley.  At the summit we hopped out and climbed around on the rocks.  It didn't take any longer than I-15, but it was a lot prettier!

June biking challenge

Dan gave me the challenge to bike at least 40 hours and roughly 800-900 miles in the month of June.  When he first mentioned it back in May I didn't know what to think.  That was a lot of bike riding!  However, I didn't realize what a blessing it would be.  This gave me a goal and a focus for my training, since so many races have been cancelled (like New Zealand 70.3 worlds).  Not only did I have some amazing legs by the end of the month, but the opportunities to get outside on these wide open country roads was sorely needed.  The world is completely chaotic right now, but out here it is silent and I can just enjoy God's beautiful world.  

For the record, I ended up biking 48 hours, and made it 852 miles.  Yes, I'm pretty pumped about that!