Summer fun

So we have proven that we are very bad at keeping up with this whole blog thing, but I really want to do better. So here's a little summer photo recap. Highlights include, but are not limited to: Oregon trip, gardening, girls camp, and fishing. We had a great summer, but are really looking forward to the cooler winter.


Spencer is the greatest uncle in the world. He loves to play with the kids! Here he is playing with 3 of my sister's adorable kids. As you can see they are having a ball!! They live in Michigan now and we don't get to see them very often. Maybe someday we will live closer...


Of course my fun every summer is my flowers. They didn't do so well this summer, but here is one of my sun flowers. Anyone can call themselves a
gardener in Oregon. But the desert will show who the real gardeners are.


It wouldn't be a trip to OR without some fishing. Houston was up at 3 am ready to leave! Didn't catch anything, but the boys had a great time.


Spencer had never been to Crater Lake. So we took an afternoon by ourselves and visited. It really is a spectacular site. There is a picture of my sisters and I sitting on this same bench more then 10 yrs ago! So I thought it would be nice to get another picture on the same bench. (Also, taking pictures standing in the shade of the visitors center with the bright lake behind you is a little difficult. )

It really was a great summer. I think for me it was nice because it was the first summer I didn't have classes. We loved spending time with family, taking trips up the mountain, girls camp, and always new projects. Time goes quickly, and we are approaching fall now. (thank goodness!!) We have many more things to do. Always a good time!!

Pizza anyone?

So, Lindsey has an incredible talent at making pizza. She worked for Papa Murphy's on and off for 5 years and got to be very good at it. She has shown off her pizza skillz here at our home on numerous occasions, except not really yet for any visitors, except for John and Bre when they were living with us last summer and who gave us a better dough recipe.

To give you an idea of how good she is, she can braid the crust to look like something out of a gourmet magazine. Here is the latest creation from this evening's meal (before viewing, please sit back from your computer a safe distance so as to not drool on your keyboard or monitor ;) ) :

Needless to say, I have always been impressed by her pizza-making ability. She can also make Mexican pizza and chicken parmesan pizza.

Gingerbread Houses

Our annual gingerbread house party was a hit once again! This year we had a "Cooper Street" party. (our street) Recently, some members of the ward bought a house down the street, and another neighbor was baptized last month. These new friends/neighbors and ourselves pulled our creative hats out of the closet and dusted them off to make lovely gingerbread houses. No, they are not made with real gingerbread, that is a LOT of work. They all turned out beautifully! Thanks Jessie, Annjanette and Brent!

Spencer's Hogan/Wigwam

Lindsey's House

Annjanette and Brent's Houses

Jessie's House

Adventures in the wash

Tucson is surrounded by a very unique and wonderful national park called Saguaro National Park, which is full of tall saguaro cactus, dense enough to look like a cactus army marching along the landscape of the southern arizona desert. We really like to get out to the trails to explore and be out amongst the cactus and the desert wildflowers.

Yesterday we did a hike down to Tanque Verde wash, northeast of Tucson. For those of you who aren't familiar with southern Arizona or with washes, they are basically a desert term for a every-once-and-a-while flowing river bed. Everything around here is pretty much called a wash, because they only flow when rain falls, either in the Tucson valley or in the mountains around. Otherwise, there is no such thing as a river around here in Tucson.

On our hike, Lindsey took a lot of great pictures of the plant life and views of the Tanque Verde Wash area. I've included some of the best she took here. There was a little bit of water down in the wash from rain in the valley and snow in the mountains the weekend before. It provided an opportunity to try to get Sadie to 'explore' in the pools a little bit.