Lightning Storm

 The sunset was amazing.  I loved watching as the pink in the sky grew! A storm was coming so I stayed outside and watched. The lightning storm was awesome.  I finally figured out my camera enough that I could get some pictures anyway.  Beautiful!!

More Beginnings

First week of school. The boys made the bus for the first day of school on Tuesday.  They seemed pretty excited to go.

Isaac is starting 7th grade for the first time in public school and Jacob is an old timer and starting 9th grade.  both are going to Payson Jr. High School this year. First time on the bus.

Purple Rolls

It's county fair season and Afton was able to enter some rolls on Monday. Our neighbor Sister Rundell agreed to help teach her. She found out on Wednesday that they were awarded a purple ribbon! (That's higher than a blue). Her 4H group had 16 entries and were awarded 9 purple, 5 blue, 1 red and 1 white. Their group project was also awarded a purple ribbon.  It's been a lot of fun for her and she was pretty excited about it.

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Afton received her cash prize $3 for her purple award.

2014_Summer School

I finally finished my first semester at school.  Both of my classes concluded this week. I turned in my final project for my photography class. It's a PDF file of my portfolio that was created in Lightroom using pictures from my class. It just highlights the different aspects we learned about. I don't think it's necessarily representative of me, but more of just my work this summer. It was a good class though.  She just has to grade my final project, but without it I'm getting 96.8% in that class.

It was also my last week in Humanities.  Monday we met for a field trip in downtown Provo to go over the architecture section.  It was really nice meeting some of the other students in the class for the first time.  I met an adorable girl from Chile.  She's studying to teach English and minoring in Humanities.  She's been a member of the church her whole life and loves living in Utah with her husband who is also from Chile. Her parents especially love to visit since there is so much LDS culture to visit here.  Wednesday was our in class final. Team Jeopordy.  I made up all of Team Santaquin. It started out terribly, I didn't do well under so much pressure and missed some pretty easy questions, without the benefit of group input. It got better as it went on though and I didn't do too terrible in the end. After taking the online final on Thursday and turning in a couple papers I was able to finish up that class as well.  I got 97.9%. The professor even asked if he could use a couple of the papers that I wrote as examples. (Dennis is a great writing tutor.) I included a word file in Dropbox of the poem that I wrote for my creative project for the class.

Grades are in.  I have a 4.0 at the end of my first semester!  Yeah!!!

Endings and Beginnings

Thursday was BYU Commencement. Here is a link to the article about it in the Church News. Elder Nelson was the keynote speaker. Dennis and I met Joy Marker at the Marrior Center. We let the kids off the hook for this part of it because it was so long. This year 2,194 students graduated.  It was a neat experience to see them all walk in.  On Friday, our whole family went to a catered reception for the executive MPA graduates and their families in the Tanner building on the BYU campus. Afterwards we walked over to the Marriot Center and Dennis was officially presented his diploma with just the other Management graduates who were receiving  Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate degrees. It was a long afternoon but it was so great to be able to see Dennis participate in these ceremonies. It's a big deal and it should be!!  So happy with all that Dennis as been able to accomplish. He is pretty great!

I titled this email Endings and Beginnings.  They said at his graduation that the ceremony is called a commencement not a finale. It marks the end of one thing and the beginning of something new. We've been able to experience a little of that newness already with Dennis' new position at work, who knows what else is out there though.  I thought it was interesting that the theme of going from doing something to becoming something was mentioned several times.  Maybe that's just the message I needed to hear though. 

On the Pond

The boys both had a scout camp at Burraston Ponds so we met them Saturday morning and spent the afternoon there as a family.  It was a lot of fun getting out in the canoe for the first time this summer. It was pretty busy there but still nice.  The girls had fun swimming around, paddling the canoe and playing on the swing. 

Isaac liked going out and doing a little fishing.  He found a spot under some trees that he was catching these tiny little bluegill with every cast. In fact both girls got a little too excited and flipped the fish into the tree they jerked so hard. (They were very little fish.) 

At one point Bonnie was just out floating with her life jacket next to the canoe.  She did great and wasn't scared at all, except  when Jacob pulled her into the water when she wouldn't let go of the swing. She wasn't happy about that at all.  

Khora and Afton wanted to paddle me around with them, so we loaded up and went all around the pond. They did a pretty good paddling all by themselves. 

I played around a little bit with this one.  It took a little effort to talk himself into finally jumping but he did it.  In fact his friend in front of him asked Jacob if he wanted to go first.  

The kids wanted to see Buddy swim so we put him in the water a couple times and he swam to us.  He never did get in voluntarily though.  Not sure what's up with that. He loved it there though, he liked getting in the canoe and going around the pond.  Lots of people and some other dogs.  He had a good time.

We left when it started to rain.

Rainy Season

Orchard Days

This week was our city Orchard Days. 

Monday - Afton started her next summer session with Rococo Performing Arts. They are getting ready for the parade on Saturday as well as a performance at the park Saturday afternoon.  Afton has a solo in the park performance that she is excited about.  It was also family night at the park.  Afton's 4H group had a petting zoo set up as a fund raiser that night and she was able to help a little bit with that.  The boys jumped off a high dive into a big air mattress and the little girls spent some time on the bounce house thingys.  There was a Natural Wonders presentation that brought with them a few wild animals for everyone to see and even pet.  A giant bunny, a toroise, boa, skunk and a couple really cute albino dwarf hedge hog babies.  Dennis entered  the chalk art contest and managed to wear a nice blood blister into his finger from all the shading he did on it.  It was all worth it though because he won first place in the adult section and earned a couple tickets to the movie theatre.  

Tuesday - Khora had her  last tumbling class this season.  She wants to do it again though. The home run derby was scheduled for Tuesday but we had so much rain they had to postpone it until Wednesday.

Wednesday. Afton's horse class and the home run derby. Isaac was fun to watch.  Isaac actually had the longest hit, over the fence and well into the other field!  He got 2nd place overall in his age group.

Thursday -  The Summiteer bike race day.  Dennis had the boys up working to mark and clear trails on Wednesday and then they finished up on race day.  We didn't have anyone in our family ride in it this year - bike issues.  The boys and a few of their friends did help out though.  The girls also spent some time there, whether just playing or helping I can only guess.  It rained a bit but nothing more than just to cool things off.  It was beautiful.  Dennis has turned it over to another man in his department, since Dennis is now basically in charge of overseeing all of Orchard days.  Such is the life of the Assistant City Manager.

Friday - The Sorensen family reunion was nice.  It was good to get together and visit with everyone.  The kids enjoy playing with their 2nd cousins since they knew them a little.  Afton fixed a cookie salad to bring and it was yummy! She likes to cook.  Buddy had a really fun time playing with Ryun's puppy.  They wore each other out!  Murray's weren't there at all, but lots from the other families.  I didn't really get too many pictures though because I was visiting!! The kids really liked the snow cones.  I think Isaac said he had 6 of them!  Ammon and Marhonri were both their with their families.  Jared and Tamara didn't make it because they weren't back from their trip.  Omner had a wedding.

Saturday - Parade and park day!  Khora was in the parade with the tumbling group.  They had a trailer there so the kids could do some tricks on the pads as they were going.  We didn't get to see Khora do anything, just missed it.  Afton was also in it with the Rococo group.  She carried the banner, I think because she was late getting there.  We had issues finding the group.  Ammon and Jamie brought their kids and watched it with us.  After the parade we spent just a little while at the park to watch Afton's group sing.  I recorded it, but you can't see much because the background is so bright.  I'll try to get it put in dropbox anyway.  Afton's 4H group was also at the park and Afton was able to help with the pony rides.  She led a horse around all afternoon.  That night we went to the Rodeo.  Dennis had a relaps and was sick again, so I just went with the kids.  It was a bit long and they were done by the time it was over, but we enjoyed it!  We watched fireworks and made it home!!

Rococo, "They're coming!",  Waving, Waiting for Candy, Khora's Tumbling Class, Kaysen & Bonnie

Check Mate, Horse Rides, Funnel Cake, Afton waiting, and Jeremy Evans,  

At the Rodeo

Kaholowo and the Greys

Our family did a little split time camping this week.  I was able to go to girls camp for a couple days at Kaholowo our Stake retreat up Santaquin Canyon.  The theme this year was "Creating your own Happily Ever After".  Our ward's theme was based on Aesop's fable of "the Wind and the Sun."

Because the two camps overlapped somewhat and Bonnie was also sick, Dennis took the 4 older children and went camping with the Markers to their favorite family spot in the Grey's river valley in Wyoming.  They all had a really good time.