Nauvoo - Fears Reunion

A few weeks ago we flew out to St. Louis and drove to Nauvoo, Illinois for a Fears family reunion...SO fun! So, some of my pictures are totally out of order, but I'm too lazy to fix them.

Here is a shot of Gary's siblings (2 are missing) and parents. Cute family huh? I love them!

Lucky for us, we went to Nauvoo during the Pageant time. We went early to get seats together and while we waited, we played a bunch of pioneer games...

Susan and I doing a little 'stick pull' - It was SO hot and humid, I think that's probably why Susan won. :)

Green team against whowever wanted to take them on...
Don't you dare go visit Nauvoo any other time of year. This is a total must see!! The pageant was AMAZING, my absolute favorite one I've seen...to be completely honest, I've only seen three total pageants, but still! It was good!

Carthage Jail

Sam and his cousin, Owen

The first day in Nauvoo, we participated in a one mile wagon trail. It was totally muddy, filled with hills, and so much fun!! Another thing you MUST do when you go!

Team Jacob!

This was about half way, you should have seen how mudy everyone was. I don't have pictures, just video and I really don't know how to get that on here. We rested here and everyone cleaned themselves off before continuing on.

Fears Family 5K run...a tradition that was sort of bombed this year. Five of us ran it, it was a nice run...pretty.

How would you love to have THIS view out your front door? This is the view right outside Sarah Granger Kimball's front door. She was one of the reason's we have the Relief Society today. I'm sure she LOVED watching that Temple being built. Talent Show!!!

Downward Facing Dog

So, I'm thinking that the Yoga I did (three times) while I was prego was passed on. I so love this child!

Camping Anyone?

A few weeks ago we went camping with a few familes in our ward. It was so much fun. I seriously love camping! Luckily this time, there was no rain! Just a fox that came a few feet from Gary, but he was sleeping in a chair so he totally missed it.

The kids played in this river the next morning, it was flowing quite fast due to a large amount of rain we recently got. It looked fun but it was SO cold...so I just watched from the shore.

Oooh Lala

Yeah, I've had quite the crazy summer! It's nice to be home for good. I've got a lot of swimming to do in the next few remaining weeks of hot-ness. Speaking of hot-ness...look at this hot couple who got married in a H-O-T place! Arizona in AUGUST?!? Meet Jordan, brother #5 who was married earlier this month to Annie - who we all love!

All my cute brothers and hot hubby in one shot.

Sam was a trooper. Super happy even though he was probably DYING of heat.

Congrats Jordan and Annie! We love you! Come visit us someday ok?

Happy Birthday Grandma!!

July 4th {long} weekend

We had quite the eventful July 4th weekend. We decided to go camping Friday night...well, the forecast called for rain and in fact, as we were driving up there we drove through rain. But I was holding out. Luckily, I had picked a few campgrounds to go to because I was sure we wouldn't be the only ones out camping. But our second campground was a good one. Good thing too because we had a late start and got to the campground at ten thirty that night. It was very obvious that we had missed a HUGE rainstorm. But lucky for us (or so we thought) the rain had come and gone (or so we thought). So, we hopped out, built a fire to cook our dinner and started setting up our tent, just in time for the rain to pay us another visit. We tried to hurry as fast as we could, but still had TONS of water in our tent. As soon as the tent was all set up, we went and sat in the car until the rain stopped...

FINALLY, it stopped. We were starving and couldn't wait to eat our dinner...until we opened them and they were BURNED. Saddest moment ever!

So, we picked at our dinner and then started setting up the sleeping bags and stuff in the tent just in time for another rain dumping to begin. So, I hopped in the tent with Sam who had decided to wake up and Gary just decided to get in the truck. And we stayed that way until 2:00am...fun eh? I still had fun. I love camping.

A few memories of July 4th,It was last year on July 3rd that we told our families that we were having this cute boy! It was a fun memory to remember this weekend. It was also sad because EVERY year since Gary and I have known each other (and me for many years prior to that) we've ran the Freedom Run in Provo. This year it didn't work out for us because it was on Monday and we would have had to drive home that day. So, we didn't run it. Sad day for me. But, it was nice to have 20 extra hours of fun since we were not driving to or from Utah.

Sunday (July 4th) night we had dinner and watched fireworks with a few families from our ward.

Then, we went home and put Sam to bed and got up on our roof and watched all the illegal fireworks. People, I know you see lots in Utah, but you ain't seen ANYTHING until you see them here in Albuquerque. I'm not talking about comparing Stadium of Fire. I'm talking home, personal fireworks...it WAS the Stadium of Fire! It was CRAZY! And they were all around us. The next morning we picked up tons of firework remains in our own backyard! Totally worth it for the show though!

Then Monday we went to this State Park Nature Reserve place and walked around and then finished the day up with a nice swim with some friends. It was a fabulous July 4th weekend!