Meibos Family Reunion

Monday through Thursday this past week we were down in Utah for the Meibos family reunion. Tyler and HyeWon were kind enough to let us stay with them.

On Monday we had tennis and playing at the park in the morning. We then had a kick-off lunch and various social activities (family member bingo, crafts, water balloon volleyball, and talking). We also fit in a trip to BYU during the afternoon. Then dinner and some races that evening. It was super hot that day!





















On Tuesday we were up in Salt Lake. It started off with visiting the cemetery where a lot of the church leaders are buried. It was neat to see the graves of some of the early prophets and apostles as well as some of the more recent ones. We even saw the spot where President Thomas S. Monson will be buried when he passes away.



We then went to the Church History Museum which was a lot of fun. There were some pretty neat exhibits about the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum and the initial translating of the Book of Mormon. After that we walked around temple square some. While walking around on temple square we tried to mimic some of the poses of the statues.

We also watched some of the Meet the Mormon videos in the Joseph Smith building, and explored around in the interactive family history center of that building.















We met up with everyone again for dinner at a park in Salt Lake. After dinner, Rebecca's grandparents told stories about growing up in that area. One of the stories that her grandpa told was when his brother and his friends found some bear cubs in a cave and brought them home. They lived in the home for a little while before they took them to the local zoo.





On Wednesday we were back in Provo. We spent most of the day at the Provo Rec Center. The children loved this. There are four huge water slides (two indoors and two outdoors), a rock climbing wall coming out of one of the pools, a high dive that looks like a cliff, a pirate ship indoors, a water play set outdoors, and a lazy river. We finished that night with dinner at a park again, more races, and family stories. A lot of the stories that were shared were very inspirational and it is neat to be part of this great family.









Thursday was an optional temple day. Rebecca and I went to the temple on Tuesday morning so we could watch Tyler and HyeWon's children on Thursday morning. But Tyler ended up having to work so we just spent the day hanging out at their house. We played in the pool, did some drawing, and so other around the house activities. That night we ate leftovers at Rebecca's Grandparent's house. Then we had our drive home. We planned it out for a late evening drive because our AC in our car is not working.

Visiting Nathanael and Mary-Anne

Right after we got back from the Father and Son campout last weekend we drove down to Utah for the Meibos family reunion. It didn't start until Monday, so we spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday with Nathanael and Mary-Anne.

On Saturday we went up to the Tibble Fork Reservoir. The children had a ton of fun there. They played in the water some, but it was super cold so they spent most of the time playing in the sand. They all did do a complete dunk under the water to earn a popsicle from Nathanael.





On the way home it was super smoky. When we got out of the park we saw that the mountain was on fire. It sounds like they have been having some pretty bad wild fires this year in Utah.



That night we had hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill. The next day we went to church, ate lunch, and played with legos. The children loved spending time with Jacob and Hannah and are excited to get to see them again at the end of July.

Father-Son Campout

Last Friday I was able to take Ethan, Christian, and Elliott to our ward's father and son campout. One of the families' in our ward owns some property just outside of Pocatello and we had it there. After setting up our tent and eating tin foil dinners the boys just ran around and played with each other and the other boys that were there. They played in the stream and lake, played with air soft guns, did a rope swing, and played various tag games. Then when it got dark we had some of our bishop's cobbler and then a fireside with testimonies. There were tons of stars out and we ended up sleeping with the top of our tent open. In the morning we just had pancakes and sausage, packed up, and went home. It was lots of fun and I am glad that we get to do this every year.






At home, Rebecca and Julia watched all of the Anne of Green Gables movies. Well, Julia mainly watched it while Rebecca packed for our trip. Julia read all of those books this past year, so that was kind of her reward.

Father's Day

I had a great Father's Day this year.

For the meals I picked chocolate monkey bread (like regular monkey bread except each small bread piece is wrapped around chocolate chips) for breakfast, BLTs for lunch, and ribs for dinner. Then we had apple fritters for dessert.







We actually did the breakfast on Saturday instead of Sunday. We had stake conference that day and I had a 7 am priesthood leadership meeting.


The children all made me great cards. Here they are:

Christian's








Ethan's:






Elliott's




Agnes':




Julia's:

Summer Activities

We have been having a great summer. It has been going by super fast though. Here are some of the activities that we have been doing this summer.

Christian worked on this one for a few days. It is one of those Star Wars tank things that walks around. He just tried to find all of the pieces from our huge bins, so a lot of it is mixed up colors. He also did a little improvising. He was pretty proud of it when he was done.





We have been using our new fire pit area some. We still need a few more big rocks/logs for sitting on.




We have also been fishing a lot. These pictures are from a time when we invited Ethan's and Christian's friends to come along. With our three boys and their two boys our limit was 10 fish. We caught that in about an hour and a half and all of them were pretty excited. I can't get an Idaho fishing license because I still have an Alaska Driver's license. This means I can't touch the pole. I do put the worms on for them and then take the fish off the hooks, but the boys have gotten really good and casting it out and reeling the fish in on their own.







We have also been reading a lot. Christian just started on the Harry Potter books, Ethan has been enjoying the Diary of a Wimpy Kid ones, and Julia reads whatever she can get her hands on. As a family we just finished Tuesdays at the Castle which they all loved.

Rebecca and I have been doing the library reading program. The challenge for adults is to read 2000 pages from June through August 11th. Rebecca reads enough to finish that easily, but for me, I was thinking that would be impossible. I did finish Fellowship of the Ring a week after the program started so I am going to count those 500 pages. Then Rebecca and I started The Two Towers. Rebecca suggested that I listen to audio books while I work on the yard and that was an awesome idea. I listened to The Hunchback of Notre Dame (940 pages) which I liked a lot. Then I listened to The Invisible Man (149 pages) which I didn't like at all. I wanted to listen to another classic, but the audio program that my library has doesn't have a lot of the ones I wanted to try (Don Quixote, Les Miserable, War and Peace).