Cub Scout Day Camp

As one of our den's Wolf leaders,  I got to go Day Camp this year.  Daniel was there, too because the Wolves and Bears go together.  We did lots of fun activities, including:

Archery.  I'm not bad at archery myself, but I had trouble helping Daniel because he is left-handed.  Thankfully, the Boy Scouts there showed him how to do it.

We went rafting, and we got soaked.  And when I say "we," I mean me and the boys in the pack.  None of the other leaders were brave enough to join us in the water.

Daniel liked making the raingutter regatta boats.

The boys also shot BB guns, made foam swords, learned about compasses, practiced knots, played several games, and had lunch.  Everyone had a great time, though we were pretty tired when we went home.

Party for the USA!

Oh, the fabulous fourth of July!  We went to Stadium of Fire this year.  I had never actually been to it before.  When I was a BYU student, I watched the fireworks from campus once or twice.  And we took Daniel to see the fireworks from near the BYU library when he was 1 1/2.  But that's all.  I'm not a fan of big crowds, especially when packing kids along, so we are usually content with a family or neighborhood party for the 4th.  But we decided to go anyway this year, partly because we are all David Archuleta fans, and he was performing.  Brad Paisley also performed, but we're not really huge country music fans.  David Archuleta sang 5 songs, including "The Star Spangled Banner."  Apparently, he performed it for the Stadium of Fire back when he was about 12 years old, and so they started off the song with the clip of him singing way back then.

David Archuleta!

Daniel and Benjamin started to get tired while waiting for the concert to end and the fireworks to begin.

Since the Stadium of Fire was on Saturday, that was only the beginning of our party weekend.  On Sunday, we had a family dinner with my parents.

The cousins put on a patriotic parade in the basement, complete with floats that they made from toys.

Benjamin found my dad's old army jacket and thought it would be perfect for his patriotic costume.  It was nice for him to acknowledge the men and women who serve (or have served) our country in the military.

On the actual 4th of July, Wayne volunteered at the Freedom Festival Parade.  We met up with him afterward to go out for pizza and bowling.  Because what's more American than pizza and bowling?  Actually, the kids were just thrilled to have Dad around for a long weekend, and that's what sounded fun to them.

Posting again

I have been a total blogging slacker!  I've been experiencing technical difficulties.  First, I was having issues with my new camera, trying to figure out how to use it, and being disappointed with the resulting pictures.  I haven't completely gotten the hang of it yet--as you will see from my less-than-pristine pictures.  But, I'm getting better.  Next, the innards of my computer pretty literally exploded during one of the summer power outages we had a few weeks ago.  I've been without a computer of my own, and I don't love sitting down in the basement office to blog when it's beautiful and sunny outside and I have cute little boys who want me to play with them.  So, there are all of my excuses.  And now I'm going to try to hit at least a couple of highlights of our summer so far.

Back in June, Wayne had a conference in Las Vegas.  My mom was very sweet to watch my kids, and I met up with Wayne for the last two days of his trip.  We stayed at the Venetian, which is a very nice hotel.  I enjoyed relaxing poolside, reading a book, while Wayne worked during the day.  We also spent some time with my brother and his wife (who live in Las Vegas).  We all went to the Paul McCartney concert, which was amazing.  I don't regularly listen to Beatles cds or anything, but my dad used to play cassettes of their music for us all the time when I was growing up.  Some of the songs Paul McCartney played at the concert were classic Beatles, and some were newer.  I can't explain just how cool it was to see and hear a legend, an iconic figure, performing his music.  And we were on the second seated row because Wayne has connections.  Loved it.  

Here are some pics from the trip.

The Venetian's hotel rooms are fancy.  I'm glad we weren't paying for it!

Oddly enough, there weren't actual lights (only lamps) in the sunken living room that was part of our hotel room, so I had trouble getting a decent picture of it.

It was impossible to take a picture of the bathroom area without me being in the picture because every wall was mirrored.  And yes, that is a tv in the corner.  Just in case a tv in the bedroom and one in the living room are not be enough.

This is the mall that's part of the Venetian hotel.  Of course, keeping with the hotel theme, there are gondolas and a river.  I didn't get to ride the gondolas, but this is what we brought home for Benjamin:

He sings and rows.  I had a video, but blogger won't let me post it for some reason.

The mall was made to look like you are outdoors in Venice.  The sky changes colors all day to mimic sunrise, midday, sunset, and evening.  And there is gelato.  Lots and lots of flavors of gelato.  I think Wayne had some for breakfast one day.

One of several swimming pools in the hotel.  I had to show it to Wayne one evening after he finished with work because it probably had the most elaborate decor of any pool I've ever been to.  There is one main pool, and there are several hot tubs tucked between the columns and trees.