Barbecuing

For Father's Day, I got Mike a book on grilling because he had mentioned before that he wanted to learn to grill more and better. Well, he has taken the challenge to heart. He has decided to barbecue every other Sunday and it has been DELICIOUS! A couple weeks ago he made pork tenderloin with this amazing garlic, cilantro, lime juice, and other stuff sauce and marinade and topped it with grilled onions. SO GOOD! I wasn't sure he'd be able to keep up with this deliciousness, but then today... HOLY COW! He SMOKED pork spareribs with a homemade rub and a homemade bbq sauce. It was so good that we ate WAY too much, but it was hard to walk away from. So, if you're dying for some good barbecue, try to invite yourself over 2 Sundays from now for some mm, mm, good cooking. Thanks Mike!

August Birthdays

Since half of my family has a birthday in the month of August, I decided to lump them all into one post and send out a shout-out to all the August birthdays.

Summer

This is my sister Summer. She turned 18 on the 6th! She's officially an adult. She graduated from high school this year and will be heading up to BYU-Idaho in a couple weeks. We are so excited for her and have been trying to help her out and get her ready. She's a fun-loving girl and we are going to miss her when she's gone this fall.

Lisa

Lisa turned 23 on the 19th. She is the sister just younger than me, which means when she gets older I get even older. Yuck. Lisa is a new 2nd grade teacher at Fulton Elementary School in Chandler. We are so proud of everything she's done this year - graduating, getting a job, etc. Love you sister!

Mom

My mom turned 44 (wink, wink) on the 20th. I got to meet up with her the day after her birthday and take her out to lunch to Red Robin. I love my mom SO much. She is truly one of my best friends and I know that I can always turn to her whenever I have a problem or have exciting news or just need a friend. Thanks mom, and happy birthday!

Jessica

This is the baby, Jessica. Okay, so not so much a baby anymore, since she will turn 15 on the 27th. Hard to believe she's so old. Jessica is a lot of fun and Amy loves her probably more than any of her other aunts. She's always such a good babysitter for Amy. She is also a swimmer and swims on the Gilbert High Swim Team. Good luck this year Jess! Love ya!

Such a Big Girl!

Amy is getting to be such a big girl! She will be 1-3/4 tomorrow! Anyway, her hair is finally long enough to do more than pigtails to it, so here's the day she let me braid her hair. Unfortunately, it only looks like this for about 5 minutes before she starts rolling around on the floor and messes it up, so for those of you who see her at church, just look at this picture and imagine this is what she looked like on the way to church before she messed it up.


Also, we are starting the adventure of potty training! Yikes! Yesterday was day 1, and it went pretty well. The score was 2 points to the potty, 1/2 point to the carpet, and 1/2 point to the bathtub. I thought that was pretty good for the first day. Today, the carpet is 1-0 on the potty, but after a day and a half of not pooping (she's been holding it in), she decided she finally needed to go and she sat on her potty all by herself and went! Hooray! She was promptly rewarded with a sucker. Here's hoping today continues to be good!

Family Fun

This has been a fun week for us. On Monday, for FHE, we decided to take Amy over to the splashpad at the Goodyear Park. She likes to put her hands in, but hasn't been willing to run through the water yet. That's why we bring her dad! Mike took her hand and ran with her through the water. She was soaked, but was cracking up and did it a couple more times. Afterwards, we went out for an ice cream cone - Amy's first! She LOVED it! We pulled the whole top part off into a cup because it was dripping like crazy, but she didn't care. Her new thing is "hold it," meaning she wants to hold it. That made the ice cream cone perfect. She looks so big!
Later in the week, Amy was wandering the house. She likes to climb up on our bed and jump around, and she found a bowl of popcorn on the bedside table. This is how I found her - feet on the wall and the bowl of popcorn in hand.
My sister Calli and her two kids, Taylor and Keaton, were in town this week too, so we decided to have a girls day/night. Amy and I went over in the morning and went swimming at my moms. In the afternoon my mom and I made t-shirt dressed for Taylor and Amy! It was so fun and easy, and I want to make another one so I can practice and get better, so if anyone wants to get together and make some, let me know! They're so 80's, so we had to put the fat headbands and Amy's hair is in a side ponytail. What cute girls! Taylor really likes when she and Amy match, so this was fun for them.
That night we went to dinner (yum, yum... Gecko Grill). Then we went to the movies... Mamma Mia! We had seen the play, so we were excited to see the movie. While we thought Meryl Streep was too old to play that role, the music is so fun that we had a blast. Too much, in fact, because the ladies behind us kept ssshing us. Oh well. If they were having fun, they wouldn't mind. Thanks mom and sisters for a fun night! We don't get to have these very often because Calli lives in Missouri and Summer is going to college in the fall!

Stake Campout

Last weekend, our stake did the pioneer trek. While we, unfortunately, didn't get to participate in the actual trek, Mike was asked to come up on Thursday night and play his violin for the fireside (by the way, one of the kids shared in their testimony that it was their FAVORITE part of the trek). He had fun dressing up all pioneer-y. They were up in Heber, which is near Linden, which is where my grandparents live during the summer, so we decided we'd all go up and camp Thursday and Friday night so we could go visit my grandparents. The stake invited anyone who wanted to come cheer on the youth as they entered the valley to come up too.
Amy LOVES camping. She likes to be able to just wander around and not be told "no." She also likes that the forest is full of rocks - her favorite things in the whole world. We had a lot of fun, hanging out with friends from the ward and cooking by the fire. Everything always tastes better when you're camping. We always take our hammock to lounge in, and this time, since Mike had his violin with him, we spent one night by the campfire while Mike played hymns. It was really peaceful.
We were threatened with rain the whole time we were there, but the only time we saw it was when we were visiting my grandparents down the road. Mike almost had a heart attack because it started POURING and he remembered he had left his violin case outside of the tent. Thanks Julie for moving our stuff inside! Luckily, it only spit a little bit there, so everything was just fine. Now I'm dying to go camping again - anyone up for it?

I emailed some of my friends in the ward to see if anyone was going, and Julie, the primary president, quickly responded to recruit me to help with the pioneer games for the primary kids on Saturday. The funny thing was, later that day I got a call from the bishopric to see if they could come see me - new calling. I immediately think, "I'm never volunteering to help Julie ever again!" But it wasn't Julie. I'm the new secretary in the Relief Society (scary! I don't like talking to adults! Give me the kids anyday!). On a side note, Mike also got a new calling. He is the 1st counselor in the Elder's Quorum.
Mom and Amy doing the stick pull. She would grab on and just throw her body backwards.
Amy LOVES watermelon. When she won't eat anything else, there's always room for watermelon.
This is actually a clean face for her this weekend. As soon as I'd clean it, she'd lick a rock or find fruit snacks or just roll around in the dirt. I think she liked being dirty.



Amy is such a good sleeper! We would lay her in the tent, zip it up, and she would be absolutely silent! That made the camping experience really nice!

Reading - the great camping pasttime.

Saints and Pioneers

So this is my (Mike's) favorite Pioneer Day album. It's by Rob Gardner, a composer out of Mesa. We got to go watch this fireside/presentation a year ago at Gammage, and the spirit was phenomenal! This is the story of the pioneers in words and music and I hope you get a chance to hear it. I took the tracks and put them into one long "video" clip. It's pretty long, but well worth it, so if you're like my wife, you can turn it on and go "blog stalking" for the next hour. You'll have to turn off the music player at the bottom of the blog. My favorite tracks are #6 (We Must Sing) and #17 (Come Ye Disconsolate). Enjoy!

(At the expense of sounding like a commercial, you can find Rob's other albums, including a similar one on Joseph Smith at www.spiremusic.org)

A Tribute to the Pioneers

Lindsey does such an incredible job with our blog, making our lives seem so exciting, and making me look so good. But with the spirit of our rich pioneer legacy that I’ve felt the last few days, I just had to share my personal tribute to those faithful saints.

A few weeks ago, we had the incredible opportunity to visit many church history sites, including Nauvoo and Carthage. As I walked where the Prophet Joseph walked, I couldn’t help but envy those who had the privilege to sit at his feet and hear the tidings of angelic visions, pure doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and personal, direct revelation concerning the building up of the Kingdom of God on Earth. The miracles, the brotherhood of the Saints, the selfless service, Zion in the making… How I wish I could have witnessed or been a part of that glorious cause in that day!

We had the opportunity to walk along Parley Street, heading toward the Mississippi along the same route where the pioneers lined up their wagons to wait their turn to cross the river by ferry and leave forever their beautiful home. We read thoughts and memoirs of many of the pioneers along the way, and I couldn’t help but look behind us at the beautiful temple, envisioning those who had spent countless hours and days in building that house of God and now had to leave it behind. For those of you who know Brian Regan or have ever watched ants at work at an anthill that’s just been knocked down, I can’t help but wonder if I’d be the ant to set down my load, shake my fist in the air, and think “Aw man!... I ain’t doing that again! He’s standing right over there and is just gonna knock it down again!” The Saints of God, more full of the light of Christ than ordinary ants, picked themselves up every time their anthill got knocked down, and they went back to work, building the seemingly impossible kingdom of God. How great it would have been to be among them and to see such faith! I wish I had such faith!

So I take off my hat to those faithful brothers and sisters. They were strong; they were inventive and innovative; they were courageous; they were charitable and full of service. And then I realize there’s no reason I can’t emulate those same qualities and lay for my posterity the same legacy of devotion to our Savior. I hope the journals and histories make me seem half as good a man as Lindsey describes me in this blog. But history books aside, what matters most is how I live my life now, how I choose to show my commitment to my Heavenly Father and His children, how I show my gratitude to my elder brother. So find me a straw hat, round me up some oxen. I’m on my way to Zion… Happy Pioneer Day!