A Different Sort of Hike

Mike had been telling me about this place he'd heard about in the Unita's recently. A place where people have been building fairy houses in the woods for years. We wanted to go check it out. We finally carved out the time on Saturday (I insisted - overriding all objections - even if it was an hour's drive and it was already 3:30 PM). 

What a strange place it is. Just about a half mile walk from the turn-out on the Mirror Lake Highway you come into this place - maybe an acre or two of people's whimsical creations. Organic in a non-organic kind of way. Whatever people have thought up. Some of it is just super tacky, some of it clever, some magical. The kids LOVED exploring it! They want to make one. 

This goes down as one of my favorite pictures of ALL TIME.

Crossing the stream on the way in. Check out Tillman's awesome attitude spelled out in his expression. (It changed dramatically a few minutes later as he fell under the spell of the Fairy Forest.)

Definitely a colorful place

 In my opinion, there were too many brightly painted rocks. I picture a fairy forest as a more subtly magical place. But we did have a few favorite painted rocks. 

The Joseph Smith quote

For you, Casey and Helen

The happy rock

 Other stuff we liked...

Love this picture of the little boys. Sully standing there in  his "Chill I got this Bro" shirt and Abner running at him with a lance.  Ha ha ha. 

Mini Stonehenge

Cleverly painted Moose stick

Don't know what this is -- but somebody took a lot of time welding it together -- so there you go.

After our stroll through the Fairy Forest we headed to Bruges  for dinner, and then, because we were close, we stopped at the Millcreek Sullivan's for a visit. We interrupted bed time, but Casey and Helen were nice to let the kids come out to play for a while anyway.  

Noble and the other Noble (Noble Ezekiel Roanhorse) having a friendly futbol match in the back yard.

That was fun.

The Season of Birthdays and Projects

We celebrate 5 birthdays between the end of May and the end of July - a 2 month barrage of birthday excitement. 

Grace celebrated a big milestone this year. 12 big ones.

She scored a new bike. A Schwinn cruiser...just her style. She didn't mind riding the refurbished 1980's era dirt bikes handed down to us from Mike's parents for the last several years, but we thought it was time that she have her own ride.

On June 29, Sully turned 6. He had been anticipating the occasion for months, telling us again and again that he was going to be 6...and then 7...and then 8...and then almost 16!! I told him to take it easy and enjoy 6.

We invited family over to share his "Super S" cake (specifically requested by Sully).

IMG 0319 from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Abner's 3rd birthday

When Abner saw that Sully had breakfast  in bed the week before on his birthday he wanted in on that action. He was SO excited when his birthday morning rolled around 7 days later.  Happy birthday breakfast Abner! (Notice also the birthday shiner on his left eye. When Mike asked him what happened to his eye he answered: "My eye got on the garage stair." Translation: he tripped on the stairs and went down face first.)

I decided to make a dirt cake for the occasion of Abner's birthday. With all my kids growing up, there's limited opportunity for stuff like this anymore at our house. He loved it!

I love this picture! These guys are my favorite in the whole world! Plus, Abner's smile is priceless.

Noble is turning 14 later this month. He already received his birthday present, a semi-automatic Airsoft gun, so he could take it on the Scout High Adventure river trip that he and Mike left for today. They are headed for eastern Idaho and Jackson Hole until Thursday. Sounds like great times.

Mike also has a birthday this month. 39 this year. He says he wants a power saw. This is why...

 Mike has been working on more shelving in the garage. He and Noble have had several late nights of building after Mike gets home from work. Noble is awesome at helping with stuff like this. He can work hard and is naturally inclined toward all things engineering. At one point Mike gave himself a puncture wound with the drill, and Noble just went straight back to work while I was bandaging Mike up.

Last day of this phase of the garage shelving project, Noble's posse had come to help. Great kids. Here they are with the finished unit.

Land of the Free and Home of the Brave

We spent another memorable 4th. In the morning we went to the neighborhood 4th of July flag ceremony and breakfast at the church, worked on some things around the house for a few hours and then met up with the Sullivan clan at the homestead. 

This year was better than ever!

After a BBQ, slip-n-slide, chatting / laughing it up, and naps we all convened to the front curb for the fireworks show. This year we amped things up a bit. Earlier in the week Mike had received a group text (to all the men in the neighborhood) from one of our neighbors who "knew a guy" who could get them a great deal on fireworks. The next thing I knew Mike showed up at the house with an arsenal of aerial fireworks.

 All of them completely legal.... I feel like I should clarify.   :)

  I snapped this picture as Mom was giving a pre-fireworks Independence Day speech (it was a little like reading the story of the first Christmas before opening all the presents).

Aunt Kay holding the babies

Zeke  waiting for the main event.

The professional.
Sean was instructing the new recruits in the art of ignition. 

The girls.

Jess and snow-cone-faced Abner.

The clouds were SO pretty I couldn't resist taking a picture.

And check out the MOON!!! I was impressed with my zoom.

Now back to the show...

This year Noble and Jack were initiated into the elite ranks of family fireworks technicians. They did pretty well. No one was injured or burned. 

They started us out with a barrage of paratrooper rockets...the younger kids were LOVING this part!

Aerials. Lot's of fun. Best quote of the night came from Sean as the aerials exploded one after another and ash drifted down on the crowd, "It's raining freedom!!!"  ha ha ha ha ha....

Fire prevention squad on duty after the grand finale.

 To finish the night off right, we laid blankets out on the back yard lawn and projected the Lego Movie onto the back of the house. That was a big hit with everyone. Love that movie.

It was a magical 4th of July!

Drama Club

Recently Grace rounded up a mob from the neighborhood and produced a retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (I think they only had 5 dwarfs to begin with...and by then end of the show only 3....dwarfs have short attention spans).

They performed in our rock wall amphitheater, with parents perched on the rocks.

The cast (L to R): The Huntsman, Five Dwarfs, the Wicked Queen, and Snow White (Grace was Narrator)

The Wicked Queen looking into her mirror (her line: "Mirror, mirror on the table, who's the fairest in this fable?"  -I thought that was super clever of them.) and mixing potions.

Offering Snow White the enchanted apple (she was saying, "Eat it!! Your lips already touched it!" ha ha ha ha)

A very convincing death scene

What was left of the Dwarfs coming to investigate what happened to Snow White. After this they kind of glossed over the story's resolution since there was no Prince Charming in this play. I guess they couldn't convince any of the neighborhood boys to jump in on that.

High quality theater in our own backyard! With concessions on the front porch! Hit me up if you want tickets for the next great performance.

Camp

Seven months ago I was called as Camp Director for our ward. Although I love to camp and hike and be with the young women, this was a terrifying assignment for me. Anyone who's ever been knows that girls camp is more than camping. The year revolves around this experience for the girls, and people have expectations. Even though this year was a stake camp, I was pretty nervous about organizing our part and making it flow with what the stake had planned.  I was probably too close to events to judge, but I think everything came together and the girls had an great experience. We went down to the church's JR Property near Fairview, where I spent all my girls camps growing up. It was a great full-circle sort of experience for me. It was cool that Bishop Jarrett and Jody (who lived in my ward during my youth), and Becky Kemp (married to Kris Kemp also from my ward growing up) were there all week with me as well. Living in South Jordan I never am very far from my past.

Some of the girls waiting for the zip line. 

We had a rain storm on Thursday night just before the stake's elaborate faith walk / singing program for which they had prepared for 9 months. We wondered if they would cancel as the rain intensified, but since we hadn't heard about any change of plans we tried to water-proof the girls as best we could and hike them up to the main amphitheater at the appointed time. There was a fair amount of grumbling, even quietly among the leaders (including me - I was thinking about how freezing cold these girls were going to be if we got them soaked to the skin after dark, and how muddy those tents were going to get when we got them back into camp). Once at the amphitheater, we waited for direction from the stake. We waited half an hour in the rain, the YCL's got the girls singing in the rain for a while which helped, before the stake leaders appeared to get the show on the road, and amazingly, the rain stopped right on cue. The stake camp director, my next door neighbor, told me later that they had been praying for the rain to stop. Some wanted to scramble to make a plan B, but she told them to hold off until starting time because the Lord would intervene. Miracles are real.

It was a spiritual evening, but by the end the girls were pretty cold and wet. Thank goodness Bishop Jarrett returned to camp ahead of us to start a big fire, you should have seen the steam rising off those girls around the fire!  We got them into bed about 11:30 that night. I worried that they would be cold in the night - but every single one of them told me the next day that they were so worn out they slept better than the previous nights. 

Grace waiting in the rain. Her anxiety was at critical mass because of the rain.
She was so afraid that lightening might start striking.

Jess getting wet. For the record, before we left home I double checked with her about whether she had a rain poncho or shell. She told me, "Yeah, yeah. I packed one." Apparently not. :)

 The next morning several of the other leaders and I woke up the 3rd years at 5:15 for a sunrise hike. We decided to drive them to the meeting place since it was so early and muddy. It was a pleasant hike, and the view was beautiful.

Sunrise Friday morning.

After our sunrise hike. I made them hold their shoes for the ride back to camp. Sleepy and muddy.

My main girls - the YCL's. These guys were invaluable to me. LOVE THEM!

One of the cool experiences we had this year was having Sister Oscarson, the General Young Women President, come to speak to us on Friday night. Apparently someone on the stake committee is her niece, so they were able to work it out. Here's a picture of our ward with her (she's in the red in the center next to Grace). Sister Oscarson was awesome. She requested to greet every one of the 450 girls we had up there at camp (plus all the leaders). I was impressed with her. 

We had a wonderful devotional and testimony meeting Friday night - with the Stake President, and Stake Committee people from our ward joining with us. 

Saturday we broke camp in record time (thanks to the men who came to help us -- made my job easy) and caravanned home -- down that familiar highway that I used to travel as a young woman. It was awesome. 

Honestly, the best part was the girls. I cannot remember going on any girls camp where the girls were more helpful, willing, grateful, low-drama, hilarious and FULL of beautiful personality. I LOVE THEM!