Issue 214

S'more Deck Movies Please!

The vision of roasting s'mores and watching movies from our deck on the side of the house got us through the hours, and hours and hours of sanding and sanding and staining the deck. Now we are enjoying the fruits (or should I say treats?) of our labors. Saturday the kids invited around 20 friends over for popcorn and a "Doctor Who" marathon in the back yard. Delightful!

East Canyon

On Saturday, we wanted to get Ellie (who's prone to asthma) out of the 100 degree smoke filled valley from the Saratoga Springs fire and try our hand at cray-fishing again. We headed to our nearest reservoir at East Canyon. We didn't find any crayfish, but the cool water, fresh air and picnic were worth the drive.

When we got home, Janey and I got to see "The Sound of Music" play at Hale Center Theatre for our mommy daughter date. Fun!

Youth Conference by Steve L.

I had an opportunity to go to my stake's youth conference this weekend. The first day of workshops and presentations were truly inspirational. The following day was filled with service opportunities, and I grabbed a shovel and helped tidy up our city's memorial park. It was great fun with at least a hundred other youth all wearing the same yellow "Mormon helping hands" shirts working along side me, and by the time lunch rolled around, we had dug around and prettied up over fifty trees. After an afternoon of fun in the sun and the church buildings sprinkler systems, we had a nice dinner and a fireside to close the events. President Chapel's talk on building strong family relationships was eye opening to say the least. Can't wait till next year's conference!!

One Cool Cat

I remember dressing my cat Cliff up in baby clothes and taking him out in the baby buggy. My kids dress Cosmo up medieval style including homemade chain maille collar Whitney fashioned. Where do they come up with this stuff?

Issue 213

Ward Campout

Some beautiful Grebes we saw at Strawberry Reservoir. Steve and I took the girls to the ward camp out in Heber while the three oldest recovered from Simulations Week. Our neighbors showed us how to catch crayfish with chicken legs in the reservoir. We caught 50 between us and the girls loved it!

Simulations Week

These pictures are from the formal banquet, the final activity of our four day Simulations Week.


I (Noreen) am the president of a non-profit youth leadership organization. We sponsor Sim Week every year and it takes an entire year to plan and put together. This year was our best one yet, due to amazing mentors, volunteers and youth! I especially loved getting to work with my sister-in-law Rebecca who served as our event manager. We wanted the youth to learn about different government types and hopefully come to appreciate their own more. They were placed in either a Monarchy, Theocracy, Socialist, Totalitarian, or Tribal country for the week and given different objectives, problems, resources, and secrets to deal with. The youth were excited and engaged the whole time, learning the art of negotiation, lobbying, governing and diplomacy. Pending planet destruction, leader assassinations, and world war only added to the excitement!




Whitney says,"You know that moment where five different countries are coming together for the final peace talks and suddenly everything they were all agreeing on five minutes ago is out the window because of some payment squabbles? And then you realize that not only to you have to endure the unpredictability of your fellow politicians while masking the fact that you have secretly become the dictator of your country, but that you have suddenly have been appointed speaker of the house and have to single-handedly keep a week's worth of negotiations from going down the drain due to over-talkative delegates?
Me too.
Sim week was great, I had fun writing the back story and even more fun being from a socialist country."

Issue 212