Xactware at Thanksgiving Point

Our family (minus Gavin who is at Jamboree) were able to spend a fun-filled day at Thanksgiving Point for Greg's summer work party.  We had tickets to all the venues at Thanksgiving Point, movie passes and dinner at the Gardens (reserved all for Xactware).  It was such a fun day.
We started the day by taking in a movie, Monsters University.  It was fun to see all the people at the movie theater in their green Xactware t-shirts.  There were about 1700 people who attended the party, so quite a few people we saw that day had on the same t-shirts we did.
The movie was good.  Guard and I spend half the movie out walking the halls.  He ran into the boy's bathroom once (luckily he didn't get too far in because I had to go in after him).  And he reached over and stole popcorn from three people walking past us.  Luckily again, they were all very understanding and just laughed.
After the movie, we went to the dinosaur museum.  Since we have a pass to Thanksgiving Point, we didn't feel the need to rush to every venue and see everything.  We just took it easy.  Enoch had seen the Tinkering exhibit as part of one of his camps at Thanksgiving Point and he wanted to show the family.  It was really fun with a lot of hands on experiments.

 

 







After the Tinkering exhibit we went through the Dinosaur Museum.  Kate's favorite part is always going through the stars.  We did that about five times.  Again, we saw a lot of green shirts.  It's about darn near impossible to get track of Enoch in that place, but when 3/4 of the kids are wearing green shirts, I finally gave up.  Luckily, we all got out of the museum together even though Enoch was missing from our family for a good part of it.

 Since it was so crowded, we spent most of our time upstairs putting together the dinosaur fossil puzzle.  Guard loved getting the bones from the dirt and then putting them on the magnet wall.  Greg and the kids put the pieces together after Guard delivered them.

After the museum, we drove to the Gardens for dinner.  We spread our blanket by the Waterfall Amphitheater and stood in line for dinner.  Actually Greg, Enoch and Kate stood in line and I sat with Guard.  It took quite a while to get through the line because, again 1700 people are all trying to eat.  We had a yummy dinner of hamburgers and all the sides.  We went through a lot of lemonade and tried to stay cool in the 100 degree sun.  After dinner, we were entertained by comedian, Brian Hamilton.  Apparently he is famous, but since Greg and I don't keep up with that sort of thing, we hadn't heard of him.  He was very funny and family appropriate.  Greg and I laughed and the kids played in the background on the hill with friends they had made.  Guard had a great time playing with his cousin, Quincy, and his wife, Emily.  Quincy also works at Xactware.
It was a fun day to spend with our family.  We miss Greg's old company, Northwest Research, but we are so thankful that he works for such a great company now.

Pack Meeting Waterslides

Again, for another year, we were able to visit Classic Water slides in Sandy for our July Pack Meeting.  The families look forward to this all year and it is so much fun for the kids.
Enoch and Kate got a bit braver this year and went down the big slides.  Kate went a few times and then spend most of her time in the kiddie pool, but Enoch spent most of his time going down the big slides.

Enoch just coming out of the slide.

Kate and Taylor were inseparable, as usual.

Greg took Guard down the water slides a few times and he cried both times.  Maybe in a few years he will like them.  He loved the kiddie pool!  He had so much fun and no fear!  It makes me quite nervous to take him to Lake Powell in a few weeks.

All my kids get so cold in the water and Guard is no exception.  The only good thing about the blazing hot sun was the kids lasted a bit longer before their lips turned blue.
In addition to the water slides, the kids loved the bubble bouncy house.  Enoch looks forward to that every year.  Kate doesn't love it as much because she gets bubbles in her eyes.

Our great Cubmaster, Brother Morrison, hosing bubbles off the participants.

We finished off the night with cliff jumping.
It was a great Pack Meeting!  And so much fun to spend time with our families.

Enoch's Lego Camp

Enoch has been looking forward to this camp since February. 
He was so excited!
Lego Mindstorm Programming Camp at Thanksgiving Camp!  Yippee!
Enoch went everyday for five days 9am-3pm.  He didn't once complain it was too long.  He had such an awesome time.  He was by far the youngest camper, but he held his own against the older kids.
They were divided into teams of two.  Enoch and his teammate, Jonathan, decided on a robot design, what they wanted their robot to do, programmed it and then tested it.  It was pretty involved.
They robot, Curiosity, was designed for speed.

His job was to speed up and then slow down as it went around the track.  We were able to see Curiosity in action on family day.

Enoch and Jonathan did a great job with their robot. 
Gavin did a great job helping out at the camp.  Gavin has been a Growing Leader at Thanksgiving Point this summer, volunteering at kids camps.  He has really enjoyed it.

Great job, boys!

Biker Chick

Kate has not shown much interest in her bike until this year.  She has been content with her wiggle car and scooter.  But, this year she wanted to learn how to ride a bike.
When her parents bought her a bike last year, they overestimated her growth and bought it way too big.  Since Kate has barely grown at all, her bike was just too tall for her.  We knew she couldn't learn very well on something that she couldn't control.
Greg found a clunky bike in Lehi on KSL for $10 and we thought that was worth it for Kate to learn.
He brought it home, took off the pedals and just let Kate push it around and learn to balance.  After a week of balancing, Greg put the pedals back on and Kate was off.
It really only took her about three tries before she could ride, turn, stop, go fast, do anything she wanted to do.
Now, we can't hardly keep her off of it!  And she has had only one crash that required band-aids!

She loves riding her bike!  Kate is always asking to go on bike rides with the family.  If I can't find her I know she is out in the cul-de-sac riding her bike!
What a cutie!

Jordan Family Reunion

Family reunions are so much fun!  We were able to visit with the Jordan family and also celebrate Grandma's and Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary.
We kept it simple with lunch and games and also a slide show of the family.  Lunch was yummy, but the kids really enjoyed the games and the park.
The pinata:

After going through all the great grand kids, youngest to oldest, Gavin finally broke it open.
We also played some fun minute to win it games.  Gavin was quite good at them.

Guard didn't get into the games too much, but rather wanted to play at the park.

It was a great afternoon with a great family!

Independence Day

Our Fourth of July was very low-key this year.  We spent the day together as a family and had fun being together.  We took the motor home over to Thanksgiving Point about 4pm to get ready for the fireworks.  We met the family, ate dinner, did sparklers and had a great time!

We saved the balloons for the 6th.  Unfortunately, they didn't launch because of unfavorable weather conditions.  We've missed seeing the balloons the last few years.  We're hoping next year will be great.

Happy Birthday, USA!