Mount Timpanogos Hike

Derek has been hiking fairly regularly in the mornings this summer for exercise, and I have always wanted to hike Mt. Timpanogos.  It seemed like this was the year.  We had the kids sleep at Aunt Steph's house so we could start at 4 am.  Then, she dropped them off at our place and Megan watched them until Steve and Diane showed up around 2.  Dave and Kristine Kuhni decided to hike with us and they were definitely good company.  We started hiking up in pitch dark which looking back I think was good because we couldn't see just how far we had to go.  The only hiccup was that was we took a wrong turn right at the start as then had to turn around when we came to a road and stop sign after hiking about 20 mins.  The views from the top were beautiful. 
I didn't mind the hike up too much, but the hike down did bother my still healing toe injury from my birthday hike.  My only complaint was that it really did drag on and on and on and seem to take sooooo long to get down.   We did make it all the way to the peak and took the necessary photos in front of this wood structure.


Derek fell asleep on the hard rock at the top and said he had never felt so comfortable sleeping on hard rock in his life. 

We amazingly ran into Dave Morley right when the Timpanooke (trail that we took) and Aspen Grove (trail Dave took) met.  He hiked the rest of the way to the top with us. Over all, I'm glad I did it.  I sort of want to do it from the Aspen Grove side again, but I don't think I'd feel the need to go all the way to the tippy top.  I think I would feel fine to stop at the saddle and call it good.
 It's nice to look out our back window at the top of the tallest peak around and think to myself that I have conquered that.

Summer time pictures of the kids

A cute moment I captured with all three of them cuddled in my bed watching the Ipad. 

The kids have started to play games, and they love it:  Candyland, Sequence junior, bingo

 

A new favorite activity is stripping to their underwear and wrapping up in blankets and then trying to convince me that they are not naked.

 

Liv insisted on bringing all her princess books on this run.  At first I tried to tell her no, because I didn't need any additional weight to push.  These 3 are about 100 pounds dead weight already, but it ended up being good that I relented because her brothers were thoroughly entertained the entire run by her narrating each book to them.

 

Bridal veil falls one evening with Lily and her family.  It was a little hectic with my 3 billy goats (and dog) who climbed half way up the waterfall rocks.  But they loved it. 

We put in a new vinyl fence along the back wall of our yard and a picket fence around the garden.  It looks so lovely now, but we were without a fence for two weeks and that was hard.  This was our nice neighbor Dave who finally came over late one night with his 4 wheeler after Derek had spent hours of manual labor to pull a tree stump out of the ground along the fence line.  Then he was so kind to give the boys a ride.  Now Camden wants us to buy a 4 wheeler.

Carter loves building tall block towers.

Until they fall.

I love the twin thing.  Sometimes they are so cute like when I looked over my shoulder in the car and caught them holding hands.

Or when I heard Carter giggling down the hallway to discover Camden blowing zurberts on his belly.

Here they are both dressing up like daddy's (as they termed it).

And working together to feed London.

Both fell asleep like this watching a movie on the couch.  Almost didn't want to move them to their bed, but I did (after snapping a picture).

 

A basketball totally works as a T-ball

 

Carter shocked me the other day and put all the silverware away in the drawer in the correct spots.  Now that I know he can do that, I have plans.

Pictured (mostly per Olivia's request) is her "Ana Spot" as she has termed the little blond stream in the back of her head she's had since she was a baby.

 

Liv honking the horn at a truck show we took the kids too.  I thought the boys would want to do it too, but the loudness of it was actually a little frightening to them.

Liv has now started preschool again and is playing soccer for the first time.  She can be quite aggressive on the field when she wants to be.

Food and Garden Post

The garden is thriving, and I've been inspired to cook some interesting things with all the fresh produce around.

Currently going nuts we have:
Lemon cucumbers
Corn
Carrots- orange and rainbow

Raspberries

Tomatoes, peppers, onions

Green beans


Inspired dishes:
Greek salad almost all from the garden:

 I was just doing my job taking care of this poor kid in our ward with a ruptured appendix, but his family as a thank you to me brought me some kneaders cinnamon swirl bread and some cinnamon syrup.  It was just calling for me to make it into baked french toast.

 Abundance of tomatoes meant that I made some pizza sauce and homemade pizza (everyone in the family's favorite is pineapple and ham--everyone except me but I tolerate it).

 Stuffed tomatoes with goat cheese-- I forgot to take a picture after they came out of the oven :(

 Grilled pork chops with green beans from the garden and a sauteed corn and leek side dish.

 Oat muffins- one of my favorite.  Made them for a bunch of my lady friends that were over one morning
 
Liv and I made raspberry jam one day during the boys' nap.  She was quite the helper.

 All the tomatoes, peppers and onions of course meant a salsa canning day.  I've done 17 pints so far, and I'm hoping to do a few more before the season is over.

 I've started saving all the strained tomato juice from salsa and then making it into chili or tomato soup.  So, the day after salsa canning we had Lily and her family over for chili and corn bread made with corn from the garden.  No pictures of food only the kids:

 A neighbor brought me a bunch of beets.  I made a few beet salads and zucchini soup with zucchini from another neighbor on then night pictured. 

Then, I just got a whole bunch more huge beets, so I tried my hand at pickling them.  Diane came over to help me.  Derek doesn't like beets, Liv won't try them, but the little boys and I love them.

Cookies- only banana, oats, almond butter, dark chocolate chips and they are good!

Nicoise Salad- Lily made this for us the other night, and I've been craving it ever since.  We have most of the stuff in our garden so it was a perfect easy meal for us.

Coconut shrimp

Farm Country

One Saturday when Derek was busy I took the kids to Farm Country.  It happened to be a special day when they were focused on pigs.  The kids painted these cute little piggie noses.  The boys insisted on painting theirs all by themselves and I was surprised by how well they actually did.

 Then, they had this area where you could build a house out of popsicle sticks and soda straws and rocks and toilet paper rolls and such and then they turned on the huffing, puffing fan to see if it would blow down


And of course the very favorite pony rides.