24th of July - Bear Lake w/Friends

We went to Mel's Grandma's house in Bear Lake, Idaho and took 3 of our closest friends and their families. We played at Bear Lake the first day (forgot our camera at the house, so will have to post boating pics later). The second day we hiked to one of our favorite spots.


We went up Bloomington Canyon on a short hike.

We hiked up to this beautiful Lake at the top of the mountain called Bloomington Lake. There was still a bunch of snow, so the water was FREEZING!

There is a rope swing that we play on every year. Branden had to show Chaden how it's done!

Branden played a little too hard on the swing and has a nice sunburn to prove it. More Rope swing pics below.......

Chaden

Brian

Brian

Brian

Branden

Lauren and Branden (and Sandra and Rebekah in the background)

Tess

Lauren

Kabrynna

After we were done with the rope swing, we posed for a pic on our way back to the parking lot.

After playing in the sun all day, we made Dutch oven chicken and potatoes and then Branden made some Peach Cobbler and the Stephens made a Pinapple upside down cake.

Vegas (July 4th) and Boating (July 9th)

We went to Vegas over the July 4th weekend. We took my little brother with us and drove to our Grandparents' house in Vegas and hung out with family for the weekend.


We went to Fremont Street in Vegas with my dad and my little brother Braylee (both are in the pic above with Branden) where there is a huge screen that arches over the sidewalk for a while city block. There are all sorts of crazy people down there. There were a ton of people dressed up as famous people posing for pictures. (We're cheap, so we just took pictures of us :) )

After Fremont Street, we got in the car and it said that it was 112 degrees at 10:54 at night...and if you look at the windshield...it was even raining a little...HOT!

Braylee, Branden and my dad were trying to land on this floaty in the pool (yes, only one of them is a teenage boy, but all of them were acting 17). I caught Branden in this perfect superhero pose!

We had tons of fun in Vegas. I am a total water person. I could swim all day long. Was so good to see my family...Love 'em!

Then this weekend, Branden had the Father and Sons campout, so I hung out with some of my friends in the ward and we had a girl's night! Then Saturday morning Branden and I went to help with the adoption float in the American Fork Parade. After the parade, we went Boating with our friends.

We are so lucky to live in the greatest neighborhood/ward. Branden's calling as YM President has blessed our lives SO MUCH! When he chose Brian (left) and Doug (right) to be his counselors, he didn't know either of them very well (in fact Doug was new to the ward). Turns out that has been a HUGE blessing. Their families have become close friends of ours.

Not only are Branden, Brian and Doug friends, but Kim (Brian's wife) and Amanda (Doug's wife) have become my great friends. It has been a really rough month for Branden and I. Without these families support, we'd be much worse off! I drove to Amanda's house after work just to have a good cry many times! Thanks Brian and Kim for the boating day....1st time in a while that I didn't worry about a single thing for hours at a time ;)...CAN'T WAIT FOR BEAR LAKE WITH THESE FAMILIES OVER THE 24TH!!!

Youth Conference - AF Canyon

We had so much fun at Youth Conference this week! We went with our ward up AF Canyon. The camp theme was "For the Strength of You". Our T Shirts had the chinese symbol for Strength on them and they said "For the Strength of You".


There were presenters (adults in our ward who volunteered to come up and help) that presented on all of the topics in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet (FSOY) (yes, even sexual purity). We each had our own personalized journals that the youth made during an activity earlier in the month.

We each got a personalized cover page with our name on it so that we could make our own personalized FSOY journal.

The presenters talked about their assigned FSOY standard and then gave everyone papers that had stories, quotes, and scriptures that had to do with each standard. Then at the end of each packet there were questions about the standard and a place for the youth to write their testimonies.


(Branden is paying special attention during the repentance workshop :)

Each "family" had a color. Branden and I were the "Ma and Pa" of the green family. We got green shirts and bandanas and we made a Green Family flag. Our flag contents were in a box in the bushes about halfway through our hike. We had to use the contents to make a flag.

We decided to cut our hands out of fabric and decorate them and make a "Family Tree". We only glued the palms of our hands to the flag and let the fingers flap in the wind like leaves.

We had so much fun. We get so many blessings with Branden's calling! Our "family" was fantastic and we didn't want to come home.