Wend-O-ver

Mike had his summer drill this past couple weeks and like always they went to Wendover(blah). Why can't they go to Hawaii like other guard units so we can visit him there. Anyway, it is nice because it's not to long of a drive for us to go out and spend a night with him. We haven't gone in a couple years but this(hopefully being his last) year we decided it would be fun for the kids to see all the big trucks and toys daddy plays with when he goes away. Camera phones are the best, we would get a couple pictures a day from him and the kids loved to see him.

Wendover isn't the most family friendly town. Actually it's not really fun to take kids there at all. It's worse then Vegas, in that it has really nothing for kids. Besides the one park that you can go to if it's not scorching hot outside. But we did some research and found this really cool lake about 15 miles south of Wendover that's a natural hot springs. It's stays warm year round so they do alot of scuba diving there. The drive was fun, we got to use the 4 wheel drive feature on the car and off road it a bit. Blue Lake itself was really awesome. Not really big but there was birds of all kinds and a TON of dragon flys. All different colors of dragon flys. We went out and sat on this not so sturdy dock, at one point Mike tried to rock us all in the water. And we just talked. Christian sat for the longest I've ever seen him sit without something to keep him busy. There were no cars, no hustle and bustle sounds. It was so quit. The kids loved it. Every time Mike would introduce them to someone in his unit Lorin would tell them all about the lake and the dock and the ducks. After dinner and some arcades we were all ready to call it a night.

The next day Mike had to get up to go to their site and pack all the trucks up and get everything ready for the convoy home. And then for lunch they were having a big end of drill BBQ and his commander told Mike we should go. So how obligated are you to go when the commander's inviting you? So the kids and I killed time in the morning by going to that one park in the middle of the city. Thank goodness it wasn't a hot day and we went to the Wendover museum.

FYI- Wendover was the home to Enola Gay. The huge plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. So they have a museum and markers of all the old buildings that were used when Wendover was a much more occupied city. The movie Con Air with Nicholas Cage was also filmed there and they have the old airplane still there for you to go inside. Some of ID4 was filmed there and they have some of the towers from that.

Of course I forgot our camera at home, and Mike left his camera at the hotel while we were out and about. So we had to make do with our phone cameras. Mike took us for a tour of their site and the huge trucks that were packed up and in line ready to go home. He put the kids up in the truck that he got to drive home. And it was huge. They're actually taller than commercial trucks so the seat was higher then my head. Of course the kids loved it. Christian had to play with all the old style buttons and Lorin had to press on the air brakes so that they kept making a honking sound.

This is the 5 ton truck Mike gets to drive.

And these are only 2 1/2 tons. But supposedly much worse to drive. No air conditioning, no power steering, it's not automatic and you even have to manually swipe the windshield wipers to get the rain off the window.

See how close the steering wheel is to the seat. The seat, nor the wheel move. so imagine a grown man having to sit there and drive. SUCKER

On the way home I got the kid's snacks and Lorin got gummy bears. When Kaki saw them she started saying mine mine. Lorin tried to hand her one but she wanted the whole bag. So Lorin gave her the whole bag and when Lorin asked for the bag back a little latter they were all gone. When Lorin asked where all the gummy bears went Kaki opened her mouth and pointed inside and said AH, AH. She is so funny!

XXVIIII

Life for us has been really busy the past couple weeks. Actually it's been Mike's schedule that's been out of this world but somehow it seems when his schedule's full my schedule's full. It should start slowing down a little now that the Temple Celebration is over, school is over, and his application process is pretty much done. Military should even been winding down now too.

Last week Mike found some time to plan a little night out for my birthday. He left it a surprise, I knew we were going out but that was it. Mike came home from work with some beautiful flowers and had arranged for a sitter to come watch the kids and we went out.

We started on a drive heading east then got off the freeway and kept going east. Up into Milcreek Canyon. We passed runners then bikers, then hikers, then picnickers, then campers and we kept going. I was getting a littler nervous, as we had passed all civilization in sight and we were dressed in sunday best. What in the world were we going to do at the top of a mountain in a dress and tie.
To my surprise we pulled into this little parking lot in front of the most beautiful log cabin. And it was seriously in the middle of nowhere. On one side of the road was this gorgeous water fall cascading down the side of the mountain turning into a rushing stream that we had followed up the canyon. And next to water fall was a picturesque little house with a glass lake and a little duck family. What is this log cabin you ask, it's called Log Haven.

It's a, rather big, log cabin that was built back in the 20's as a summer vacation home and has been renovated into a fine dining restaurant up in the mountains. The food was so delicious. The chef was so great about my diet he was able to create a special personalized chocolate birthday dessert just for me. During dinner Mike gave me the best present, a gift certificate to be pampered at The Spa Club for a day. And then after dinner we took a walk on the grounds and then crossed the street to take a closer look at the water fall and lake.

It was a great night but that wasn't the end, the next day was my actual birthday and I have to say it was one of the best birthday's ever. We went in the morning to a baptism. One of our friends daugter got baptized so we got to go as a family. Lorin's 2 years away from turning 8 and she's starting to get a better understanding of what it means to be baptized, so I think it's so great for her to be able to see the ordinance and talk to her about it. It was a beautiful baptism and confirmation and then after they had a birthday BBQ for the their daugter. So we went and spent time with some friends and Lorin and Christian and Kaki each had a turn whacking at the pinata.

Then that night was the Temple Celebration. The youth have been working on this for months. Practices 2x's a week can get daunting. But I think the youth that participated got a lot out of it. I took Lorin and some of our friends kids that are a little older then Lorin so they could see it.
There was 7500 youth that participated and the conference center holds 22000. So more then a quarter of the conference center was full of the youth and when the prophet walked in everyone stood and a group of the youth started singing "We Thank Thee, O God, For A Prophet" acapella. Then the whole congregation was singing. It was awesome the testimony you could feel these youth have, and the love they have for the prophet. Their performances were great, you could tell a lot of hard work went into this one night. At the end when the Prophet was leaving he went on the stage to shake hands with some of the youth that did the closing song and he turned to all the youth and pointed at them and then pointed up at this almost life size poster of the Oquirrh Temple. Telling them to go to the temple.

Afterwards Mike took the Young Men, and the Young Women's pres took the young women to Wendy's to celebrate their job done well. So now that the Temple Celebration is over, no more twice-a-week practices. The last night of school for Mike was Wednesday night (YEAHHHHH) So no more school. He graduates Aug 14 yipee. It's funny, he was telling his dad about his graduation the other day and his dad challenged him to get his PHD. You can imagine what Mike said, after 6 years strait of school. That would be a NO. Mike has his two week drill for military coming up soon and then they get a couple months off.

So we've decided to do a lot of family time this summer. We already had our first camping trip over Memorial weekend. We took our ATV's and went camping with some good friends and had a blast.

So we're planning a couple more of those this summer. And a trip to Cali is in the works, with a little stop over in Hawaii to celebrate a decade of marriage. We'll end the summer with a BIG graduation shindig for Mike. After all, he really deserves it. Then who knows what's in store for us next year.