Summer is here !

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalms 46:10.  When did it become so difficult to Be Still?  I have been thinking on this the past few days.  I guess after 8 children, it has become second nature to be constantly on the go.  Even when I'm sitting still, my hands are moving.  Don't tell Roy, but I think my phone makes it worse.  It's a blessing and a curse to have the internet constantly at your fingertips.
I did have an opportunity to truly relax this weekend.  We did another overnighter to Flaming Gorge.  We arrived on Friday at about 1:00.  It was a little windy, so we decided to wait until Saturday to take the boat out.  Without the hurry to get on the lake, we had a nice, relaxing afternoon.  We went on a walk and visited and enjoyed the weather.  Saturday was heaven.  There was hardly anyone on the lake, and the weather was perfect--sunny--no wind.  We would have loved to have all our family with us, but it was kind of nice to just focus on one family for a change.  Nick couldn't make it because Sara has been really sick with a sinus infection, and Crista and Adrienne were busy with other things.  We missed you all, but had a really great time anyway.  We're looking forward to having Elise and Dan and their families in Lake Powell with us.  I have lots of pictures, courtesy of Jieun.

We showed the girls the cool dead tree we discovered on our last visit.

Yuna lost driving privileges very quickly.  

The water was COLD!  but it didn't stop hardly anyone from taking
a dip.

This short trip was a great test for our boat.  We did find a little problem that we wouldn't have wanted to encounter at Lake Powell, so now we can get it fixed and get everything ready for our trip there.
Backing up a few days, our Memorial Day this year was also very relaxing as well as fun.  Roy and Caitlyn and I stopped by the Bountiful Cemetery and decorated Thomas' grave.  Then we went down to Provo to see Grandpa and Grandma Rasband.  We also paid a visit to Grandpa and Grandma Cook's grave and left some flowers there.  Visiting the graves each year was so important to my mother.  She always decorated her parents and her grandparent's graves, and Gene Bird's grave as well.  He was her first husband.  My mom didn't talk about Gene very much out of respect and love for my dad.  However, after my mom died, my dad decorated Gene's grave himself, out of respect and love for my mother.  He even asked David to make sure that Gene is still remembered each year.  We left a rose on his grave as well.

All of the family that lives in Davis County made their own visits
to Thomas' grave this year.  Thomas is still in our hearts and provokes very tender feelings.
Interestingly, the pink flowers were left by Elaine McKay Berry.  She and Reed and Aunt Marion
were visiting Bill Berry's grave and had stopped by to decorate Tom's first.

Another highlight of Memorial Day:  We had all of my siblings (except Glenn who was not conveniently in Utah) over to our home for dinner.  It was wonderful to see everyone and visit and reconnect.  I am so blessed to have the relationship that I have with all of my family members. Back: Roy, Dave, Bruce O. Phil, Steve, Christine, Bruce C. Front: Catharine, Becky, Nana, Charlotte, Barbara

Speaking of blessings, I was reading the Ensign this weekend and was reminded of all the blessings we have through our membership in the church.  I think we take it for granted, and I know we don't realize all that the Lord truly does for us.  I have been trying to be consistent with studying my scriptures, but sometimes it's really just reading, and sometimes I'm distracted while I do that.  One thought that was in the Ensign was that Satan doesn't care which tactic he uses--either keep the people from having the word of God, as he did in the dark ages, or keep them from reading and knowing the word of God. Let's not let him be successful with that second tactic.

I was also was able to attend Hyeji's Kindergarten graduation.  I still think it's ridiculous to put graduation caps on kindergarteners and pre-schoolers, but she looked pretty cute anyway, and knew all the songs.

Roy attended the T-ball games that Gunnar and Ollie participated in.  According to Roy, this is definitely more their cup of tea than soccer.

Gunnar

Gunnar

Ollie

Some other news of the week: Elise and Andy went to Andy's brother's wedding (Ben) in Midland Texas.  On the same day, Crista and Matt went to Spencer Vance's wedding (Matt's brother) in Spanish Fork, Utah. (I'm not sure which Temple they were married in.  

Mav

Elise, Mav, Max and Andy

Andy and Max

Max was able to spend time with cousins and grandparents
while they were in Midland (they were there
for two weeks).

Max

Ruby

Crista, Matt and Ruby at the Vance's wedding

Ori, getting excited for Grandpa to get chickens

Yuna must be preparing for the Lake Powell trip or something here.  ???

  

Ori is enjoying the proceeds from Sara's hard work on her garden.  I'm jealous, I never think to plant peas--March comes along too fast, and I'm not thinking about gardens yet.

Picture by Caitlyn: Grandma and Yuna

Dan

Yuna

Yuna

Family is the Best!!!

We had a couple of nice surprises this week.  # 1, Adrienne invited us up to watch her boys play their last soccer games of the season, and have DINNER, and #2, Jieun and Dan had us over to DINNER, the following night.  Two nights of not having to prepare dinner--now those are nice surprises!  We also had the privilege of listening to Caitlyn's Orchestra Concert at BHS.  Her orchestra sounded very good.  You could tell there is a lot of talent in Bountiful, UT.

I'm not sure if you can tell just how "into" the game these two boys are :)

Caitlyn even had a short solo!

Jennie, ready to cut my hair

Yuna

The day that Jieun invited us to dinner, Jennie gave me a haircut--on her day off!  She was tending Yuna while Jieun took the girls to a playdate.  

We had our family night this week with the Young Single Adults.  In theory, Caitlyn would go with us and it would be our actual family night, but she had too much homework this week.  We watched, "The Ultimate Gift" and ate popcorn.  

Obviously, things have settled down as far as cleaning, packing and organizing go.  We had only one person go through our house this week.  Hopefully, when school gets out that will pick up.  

Roy made this cool bench to make our mud room look more like a mud room.  The bottom piece was on clearance at RC Willey, it had been part of an entertainment center or something.  I have a couple of turquoise pillows to put on it, as well.

My kids don't realize how lucky they are (or maybe they do), to have a dad who is always thinking of fun things to do.  For the Memorial Day weekend (Saturday) we met at the park to shoot off rockets.  Everyone who lives in Utah was able to come.  Dan's family rocket worked fabulously.  We shot it off 3 times.  The third time it came down in a tree and Dan and Caitlyn worked hard to get it out.  They had to cut off the parachute, so we didn't shoot that rocket again.  Adrienne's family rocket whooshed up two feet, then back down and started on fire.  We were all seated pretty closely to the rocket launch, so AJ acted quickly and squashed that rocket with his foot.  That ended that rocket! Matt and Crista's rocket was pretty cool.  It was small, and had an airplane that attached.  The airplane was supposed to separate from the rocket and fly down, while the parachute came out on the rocket part and bring it safely to earth--that's not what happened.  It went up--really, really high, but no parachute came out and it didn't separate.  There was a soccer game going on in the field below us--which is where the rocket came down.  There were several delighted children who were watching soccer, but one mother wasn't too happy.  She said, "You need to be careful, it almost hit us."  We shot off Matt's rocket one more time--after the soccer game was over.  Matt had tried to tweak it, but the same thing happened.  I would say though, that even with the mishaps, it was a successful activity.  The kids had a great time and the day was beautiful, sunny, and not very hot.  Gunnar and Ollie went home with another rocket kit that Roy had on hand, and Matt went home with some ideas of how to fix his rocket.  We asked Elise if they had got their rocket made yet.  They said they never got it--lo and behold--it was still at our house!

Adrienne, Ori and Matt

Ori

Yuna

Roy and Nick

Yuna, Hyeji, Dan

Catharine and Jieun

Yuna, Hyeji, Doyeon, Dan

Cait and Crista

Ruby with Grandpa

Finn with grandpa

Matt

Gunnar, Doyeon, Yuna

After the rocket launch, we had a barbeque at our house.  When everyone brings something it makes it so easy and fun.  Roy made the burgers and hotdogs, Crista brought a watermelon, Jieun made a Jicama, mango Salad (my recipe that I picked up at Sizzler), and Nick brought salsa, guacamole and chips (We missed Sara as she was in Arizona with her sister at a friend's wedding).  Adrienne made a delicious lemonade cake.  

Ollie got stung by a bee-we think--but later there was
no sign of a sting on his foot so we're a little stumped.  It all worked
out as he got to watch grandmas lap top--without Gunnar
dictating what he could watch.

After everyone else left, Ori had a minute to the laptop all by herself--a
good thing as she'd been bitten earlier by Yuna who didn't want to share.

Roy was sure lucky, he got snuggles from Ruby who
isn't very generous with her snuggling.

Matt and Ruby

We had everyone over Saturday, because Sundays are more hectic now with Roy's new calling--Plus he's supposed to go to Ward Prayer with his ward.  This, I think, will be a good experience for our family.  Jennie's gone with us once, and we'd like that to continue because it's a nice bonding time for the four of us.  Plus, she doesn't really enjoy going to her own ward prayer.  

We miss our Texas family.  They are in Midland this week enjoying the Jackson family.  We're excited that she'll be here in two weeks!

It looks like Max and Mav will be great friends:

Adrienne and AJ took their family to visit Thomas' grave for memorial day.  Roy and I will do it tomorrow.  We're also planning on driving to Springville to decorate grandpa and grandma's grave.  

Have a good week!