August 2009

August Roundup:

I actually managed a couple august posts about the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Dedication and having my sister in town. Here is what else was going on:

Tyse had a huge month! He lost a tooth on monday and started school on Tuesday! He loves school and really excels in his class. He can't wait to get on to first grade!

We were also able to spend quite a bit of time just hanging with friends with me not feeling quite so great. We were lucky enough to see the Johnsons when they came to visit from Virginia and get together on Katie's birthday for a fun evening!

Here's the adults:

And here are the kids:seriously, what did we do?

In august, Kent spent most of the month in CO dealing with issues on his building there, so we don't have a ton more to share. Pretty much every day we did this:

July 2009

July in a nutshell...






We got to go with our friends, the Chambers, to their cabin in Idaho for a few days and had a great time in Yellowstone and playing on their lake.


We went to the cowpolk festival at thanksgiving point. They boys had a great time practicing their sharp shooting, taking care of the animals, branding themselves, making kercheifs, and of course, being thrown in jail!

Tyse started baseball. He thinks coach pitch is pretty boring, but you can't do anything else for a 5 year old, or a 6 year old either. He will have to endure it another year. He does now cheer for the Phillies. I am not sure if he thinks because that's the team he was on it will be a predictor of future ambition or if he is just a bandwagon jumper.

And of course, we celebrated the 4th of july, my favorite holiday. We went to the provo parade and spent the day with my mom and brother's family. We ended the night with fireworks at pleasant grove- they put on quite the show!

Lastly, we finally found out why I had been feeling so lousy for the previous couple months. I have Ulcerative colitis and it continues to cause us grief, but we will get it figured out... eventually!

June 2009

Here's the June highlight reel...

WE did celebrate fathers day to the best dad around. He got a fire pit for the still unfinished backyard, but we were able to have some fun smores roasting events and other fires through the summer!

We spent quite a bit of time at the Lake Park at our neighborhood lake this summer. The boys loved the sand and water- and the spidermonkey park that is there as well!

If you look at the pic larger, you can see the wheat they picked to chew on- like a "real" cowboy!

My good friend has a brother that has horses. He happened to have 3 colts born about the same time so she took us over to see the horses. I couldn't pick just one pic of this outing!

The strikers had their last game. NOt to worry, soccer started again in August, but Tyse was so excited to get his first sports medal!

The neighborhood held the annual ladybug release party at our community gardens. This pic was especially hard for me to pick because we have so many great ones with boys covered in ladybugs and playing with dad!

We went to the Chalk Art Festival at the gateway with the other Madsen's and the Valentines. The chalk was AMAZING, but the boys and cousins LOVED playing in the fountains at the end!

Our friends are part of the England family and they work for the family trucking business. So one day Dad England brought home a rig to let the neighborhood boys crawl all over! The boys were in HEAVEN!

We attended the Air show at Hill Air Force Base. The boys (including kent again) LOVED it and had the best time crawling under and around and through a ton of different planes. Even Ollie LOVED watching the demonstrations.

June was fabulous... now on to july!

Calling for Addresses

Dear anyone who actually still reads about us,
In my organizational overhaul of our house, I have apparently lost our address book! I would love to have you send yours to me so that I can send out christmas cards! The sooner the better... I know you are all dying to know what we have been up to this year, especially since I am completely blog deficient! HEE HEE!
thanks,
Beka

Last friday we were lucky enough to get to go to the first session of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Dedication. It was such a neat finish to the whole temple process we have been to. I almost felt like I was sending my kid to college or something...we spent so much time there I can't believe it is actually up and running! During the session President Monson mentioned to the church's project manager that he had worked tirelessly on this building for a couple years and today they are taking it away from him for good and giving it to the Lord. That is almost exactly how we felt- it was very strange to think we couldn't just head on over with the boys any time we pleased! I guess if you have to give it to someone...

We got to sit in the largest sealing room on the 4th floor- Kent's second favorite room in the building, so that was really special for us and we were accompanied by Kents brother and his wife. It also happened to be President Monson's birthday- he is 82. So I am going to say we spent his birthday with him!?!

What a blessing we have to be so close to so many temples. Within an hour we can get to 8 temples. We happen to live in the only city in the world where there are 2 temples. What an amazing opportunity for us to serve and strengthen. I can't wait to get back to work!

Cascade Springs

A while back my sis was in town with her family. After they hiked Timp, we convinced them to head out to one of my favorite places in the Provo Canyon area- Cascade Springs. Here are a couple different pics from that place. Emitt, Jenna, and Laurene by the falls

Laurene picking out the fish in the pools

Tyse climbing the trees by the boardwalk,

And my favorite spot in the area- the old bridge that spans the spring flow. I haven't been up here since the fires that burned the whole area. I though that the bridge would definitely have burned, but it is the same old one...

What a beautiful place!

Tyse's Big Week!

Tyse had a HUGE week last week! He has been waiting forever for 2 big events and they happened within 2 days of eachother!

As you can (kinda) see in the picture, he lost his first tooth! A week prior he bit into a corndog a little too enthusiastically and loosened it quite a bit. He played with it for an entire week, and then he decided he'd had enough, so he just pulled it out by himself. Good thing too- neither Kent nor I are squeamish about many things, but apparently loose teeth creep us both out! The tooth fairy made his debut to a raving review.

His second big event was that he started KINDERGARTEN! YAHOO for all. He has been waiting not so patiently for over a year now, so he is finally able to get going. He is exactly a week into it and still loves it. I am learning more about 5 year old boys. Apparently they can absolutely love something and not remember a thing about it. Every day I ask him how school was and what he did. The answer is always the same... "Great! I don't remember." Now how can a child that can remember even the tiniest detail about something I make a mistake about not remember what he has done for the preceeding 3 hours of which he has apparently loved? I felt better when the neighbor boy came over and told me the EXACT word for word answer. Now if he could just get a cell phone and a diet coke with his happy meal the world may become just.