Doug's 69th Birthday - (Las Vegas) July 23rd, 2022

 We have had Gwyneth and Andrea visiting for a few days. It was Doug's birthday on Saturday, so we took them to Las Vegas for the weekend. The first day they rode the Roller Coaster outside the New York, New York. Then we went to the Conservatory at the Bellagio. It was a jungle theme this time. Even though we tried to stay inside out of the horrible heat, we still did a lot of walking. That night we went to the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur. They like Merlin, horses, knights, jousting, etc. so they had a good time at the show. We were in the Dragon section which was cheering for the evil Mordred, so we always booing the other knights. It was fun eating the dinner with our fingers.

Lilly's Flower Boxes - July 21st, 2022

Lilly loves flowers. I helped her plant flowers in the spring, but in this heat they died, so Justin made her these shade canopies to cover her boxes. They are so cute. Her flowers are doing so  much better now. 

Hummingbirds - July 16th, 2022

Doug found that we have a Hummingbird nest under our patio. They made the nest on top of my wind chime. They are so tiny. There are 2 of them.  If we go look at them, they turn their heads and try to be still and not move, but when we are away they move their heads around. The mother comes around and buzzes us. She doesn't like us near them at all. They grew fast. The first one took off after a few days, and today the other one is gone. 

Mandi is 17! July 9th, 2022

 Mandi turned 17 today. We took her shopping for a couple of hours but she didn't find any clothes she liked. We went to dinner at Sakura with her family and her friends Kallie and Nick (boyfiend??) Then we went to Jessica's and had cake and presents. She is growing up too fast.

4th of July weekend - July 1-4th, 2022

On Friday we picked up Lilly (Sam was at youth conference) and drove to Duck Creek. There was construction up Cedar Canyon, so we were delayed for over an hour. It was almost 50 degrees cooler there than in St. George. We took Lilly to the Village and ate at Hot Mama's Pizza. She ordered Mac and Cheese and said it was the best she had ever eaten. We taught her to play Phase 10. 

It was hard getting to sleep because we had noisy people in the camps around us....

On Saturday we tried to fish at Duck Creek, but it was so crowded. It was fun watching an Osprey swoop down and catch fish. Lilly was very patient but got bored after a couple hours so we left and went back to camp and played games and ate lunch. 

When Sam got home from Youth Conference, Justin brought him and came up for the night. We all went into town and watched the parade. All the 4 wheelers, etc. get decorated up and throw out candy to all the people. It was fun to watch. Then we went back to camp and had dinner and made S'mores. We played games and then Justin slept in the tent and the kids in the trailer. 

The next day we all  hiked in to Aspen Mirror Lake. We fished for 4 hours and only caught 16 fish. It was very, very windy. We went back to camp and Justin and Sam tried to put up a zipline, but we needed a taller ladder, so it didn't work out. We played games and then Justin  took Lilly on a hike to find her name on her tree. (He found one that had Lilly carved in it, but it was not the one we carved for her) A family in another camp made Cotton Candy and came around and gave some to all the kids in the campground! We had hot dogs for dinner, and then they packed up and left to go home. Doug and I played Scrabble and cleaned up and put everything away so we could go home in the morning.

Doug and I ate breakfast and we loaded up trailer and headed home. It was the 4th of July so we wanted to get home to have a bar b q or something, but on the way home we broke down. We were almost home. We were on the freeway and all of a sudden we lost power and the truck started smoking. Doug tried to steer it off to the shoulder. He got over as far as he could. I jumped out to get the fire extinguisher from the trailer, but we didn't end up needing it. The engine had locked up and we couldn't move it. ( I guess we had a slow coolant leak coming down the mountain, and we didn't know, and all the coolant leaked out...) We called AAA and they sent someone to tow the truck to the shop. We called our neighbor Devere, and he was kind enough to put his 5th wheel hitch in his truck, and come and tow our trailer home and even put it in our backyard for us. We are thankful it happened after our camping trip, and that we were almost home. It could have been a lot worse!!! That is the last time we drove the truck. We have had our truck for 16 years. Doug has ordered an engine for it, but we are going to sell it and get something different. He has been saving up for a new truck for a few years, so I guess the time has come!