July in the Mountains

This is several weeks late, but I thought I would take a minute this morning and post another great memory. In my younger days, our family would spend the July 4th holiday in our beautiful mountains. As I look back, there were many different places we camped during that time. I remember being in the pretty meadows jut before Grassy Lake. We were there with the Lukes, Rasmussens, Olsens, Huntingtons, and Peacocks, as well as others, I believe. There was a big group. Maybe it was a ward outing. I remember the adults playing softball together and the kids just playing around. I remember Dad taking some in the yellow truck to go get snow in the higher elevation, then they would return and we made homemade ice-cream.
I also remember being at Blue Lake with many of the same people, including the Curtises. We would walk down to the lake to go fishing, or just watch others as they fished. I remember the spring that bubbled up near our campsites. We had a big pot-luck dinner one night.
Most of us remember the times at Indian Creek with Olsens, Peacocks, Wares, Huntingtons, Curtises. I am sure there were others depending on the year. We would celebrate with our own parade around the loop. We decorated up bikes with weeds and wildflowers. This went on for many years. Happy memories.

Backgrounds

I'm done trying to find a cute border for this blog. The past few times I have been back here I keep getting messages that the border I have chosen will no longer be available. The new choices here on blogger make my life too frustrate. As my kids know, I hate to make decisions about little, insignificant things. Or even big things for that matter. If I have too many choices I can't choose. Especially if it doesn't make a difference on which you choose. Who cares if the background is blue or red! As long as it is green that is all that matters :) But what shade of green? What color should the words be? I can't decide what I like best! I just can't make those decisions. So, for today, this is what I choose. If I have more time another day, I might choose something else. Now I have to choose to get up and do some badly needed cleaning!

A Good Month

We are coming to the end of a very good month as far as our time with our grandchildren. Barrett, Chantel, and their kids have been here in Utah during July. We were able to have the kids here for a weekend a few weeks ago. We had a great time playing in the pool and fishing together. Morgan and Max seemed to enjoy their time with us, especially the fishing. It was great to have some time with them. When Sunday came we took them up to Salt Lake where we met up with Barrett, Chantel, Nicky, Nancy, Dallas, Tyler, and Tammy's kids for a picnic at Murray City park. Grandpa and I went to the playground with the kids while the adults stayed and visited. I am sure we had the most fun.

This past weekend was Orangeville's 24th of July celebration. We had the Gale children here until Tammy was able to leave from work and come on Friday night. She wanted to run in the 5K so she was here for that. Nicky came on Friday during the day. The Browns came on Friday and spent the weekend camping and fishing. Nicky and I took the kids to the pool on Friday and they had a great time. We all went to the park Friday evening for the lamb fry and got our years supply of lamb. It was great fun and good food. We went to the Wilson's in the late evening to visit and roast marshmallows and enjoyed our time with them.

On Saturday we enjoyed the city parade and races, then we headed to the mountain for more fishing. We got 10 very large fish in 2 hours and had a great time. We were at the camp with the Browns for a few more marshmallows and tin-foil dinners. We all slept really well that night.

Sunday morning the Gales left early, and Nicky followed. We decided to go up and bring the trailer home before church, since church is so late in the day. That way we could enjoy going to church and having the afternoon without worrying about getting the trailer back home later. It worked out really well. The Browns got off and we got ready for church. In all, it was a nice weekend.

We did miss having Barrett and his family around more, but we understand that he was working and she was spending time with her family in northern Utah. It is very difficult to be spread out across the state, and the circumstances were just the way they were, so we totally understand.

I am afraid I might have offended some of my children by making some suggestions to them. I wish I had the "right" as a parent to suggest some things to my kids without them taking offense, but I guess it isn't possible. I realize adult children have the right to make their own decisions, and I'm not against that at all. But the job of parenting never stops so when parents make suggestions they should be taken as a gift, say thank-you and decided what you want to do with it, but don't hold it against your parent for the suggestion. I didn't ask for a "follow-up" on the suggestion, didn't ask "Did you do it or not". So, please don't be upset and think "You apparently didn't ask her/him to do that for us/me because they didn't, so why should I/me do it for her/him?" Just as we told our kids when they were young, (and like I hear my grown children tell their own children)be nice anyway. Just because your sister or brother hits you first, you shouldn't hit them back. Yes, we understand you might feel that way, but it is still wrong. Be nice anyway. Don't hit any way. Share. Try to be nice. Don't speak mean words. Be forgiving. Do your part. How did you feel when it happened to you? Be the better person. Be the one to stop first.

It doesn't change with age. As parents, we still have the responsibility to be parents. Children still have the responsibility to listen. But they also have the right to make their own decisions. Hopefully, that will include forgiving parents for their errors in parenting adults. Please forgive me if you think I was wrong in any request. And, yes, I did ask the others for the same thing as we asked you. It was their choice if they wanted to do as we requested. Don't blame me if others choices were to not follow our request or suggestion.

If the above paragraphs are confusing t you, you most likely don't fit in the situation. If you understand, you have probably walked in our shoes for a while. Hopefully, we can all practice understanding and forgiveness. I know I am still learning, and I hope to become better.

Missing background

Apparently the background I had chosen for my blog is no longer available. I just did a hurry-up new one. I don't like it yet, but I don't have time to work on it. Just leave it for another day.

Where is Summer Going?

I can't believe that summer is flying by so quickly. I haven't been able to accomplish half of what I wanted to, but I don't know what I have been doing instead. This week I had three days of Core Academy workshops at the high school. They are always informative and a great way to get 3 days of professional development, but did I learn anything new? I don't think so. It was just reviews and different ways to introduce the same things. I've always been open to new ideas and ways to teach, but this year was really just more of the same. I hope they start getting something new....but when I am teaching the same thing for 25 years, unless there is a big change in the core I don't know what else could be new. But I am always open to new ideas. I don't want to do the same thing the same way every year. Each year I am challenged to meet the needs of the individual students, but the curriculum is basically the same.
On Monday we had a day to work on teacher websites. I helped the teachers learn more about the district websites and how to set theirs up. I don't know if they will be using them, but it is something I like to have up and going for each year. Now I am looking at a day for third-grade teachers, then testing my students for the new year, setting up my room and before you know it, school will be starting.

I am showing this picture because it is the only one I can find that shows the park with the old grandstand. It wasn't really so "grand", really quite rickety. But in my younger years I spend so many hours walking back and forth, up the back, playing on these seats. We would play like we were in beauty pageants and practice our pageant waves while we walked across the top seat, stepped down to the next seat and back across, all the way down to the bottom, then hurried around behind and climbed back up to the top again. In the back you had to climb up the slanted boards and pull yourself up to get back to the top, then climb over the top board and start all over again. I don't know why we thought that was so fun, but we spent many hours on hot summer days there at the park playing. At first the "ballfield" you see in this picture was a rodeo ground with the chutes and pens on the other end. We would climb through those spaces, up the logs, and all around as well. We were really quite active kids back in those days. You don't see kids out climbing around today. This space is now being changed again. Orangeville is getting a skate park for all those kids who like to ride their skateboards. It will be nice for them and they will now have a space where they can create memories of their childhoods.

I realize I need to post pictures of our trip to Missouri and our time with our grandchildren. But for now, I need to get busy so I can get something done before we are off again.