Summer Summer Summer Time It's Summer Time

Wow. Where has the year gone? I can't believe it's already June. Time has just flown by...the last couple of months especially. It's crazy how hectic everything feels. I haven't been blogging regularly at all for the past couple of months and I've definitely not been keeping up on other people's blogs or activities.

Mostly I feel bad about slacking off on my writing goals. I did pretty well last year (2010). I actually did do some creative writing each week and really felt like I was on a role at times. Lately though I've just had a hard time getting into the swing of things. Work's been crazy and things are hectic all around so when I get home I just want to decompress with something mindless or relatively non-productive. I'm still not a huge TV person but I've gotten pretty proficient at the mindless games on my mobile phone. It's time for me to break away from the mindless drivel and actually do something engaging. Hopefully part of that will be more creative writing and blog posts.


To start with, since we're officially now halfway through the year, I figured I'd do a quick picture-rific re-cap of 2011 so far.


January is always a gauntlet run for us with birthday parties for the family...we probably have as many family birthdays in January as we do through the entire springtime. Offhand I can think of at least 12 birthday parties (mine, my oldest son's, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, my mom, my dad, my daughter, my sister, my other sister, another brother-in-law).



Amid all the birthday fun, our family participated in our Church Roadshow putting on a cheesy skit about a group of princesses on an errand for their father and the good and bad choices they made. It was cheesy, but fun.

Mid-spring, we made a road trip to Arizona for a friend's wedding. I actually documented that trip so I won't add extra photos here.






We had some fun family get together's for Easter and Mother's Day and visiting our new little nephew/cousin.  W also took a couple of fun random trips around town to chalk art festivals, new kids playplaces, parks and other fun.








We took a family trip to the Utah Renaissance Festival which was a ball. I actually won passes from the radio but had wanted to go anyway. It's an annual event but this is our first year going to this one (we went to one in Arizona a decade or more ago, but never hit the one close to home). Due to flooding this year, they had to move to a new location and we were told that the old spot was generally a little better.



We had a good time dressing up in costume and mingling with the crowds. They had a lot of fun entertainment ranging from a joust (which was sadly a bit of a disappointment...not only was the jousting long winded and disengaging enough that the kids were bored by the time it finally got going...but later when they went to get their picture with the "champion", they ended up slinking away sadly while he "ever so professionally" got into a cussing match with some lady talking to him about his credentials...piece of advice for you if you're in the entertainment industry - don't drop the F-bomb amid piles of other curse words at the same time you have a crowd of young kids coming up to get their picture and tell you they enjoyed your joust. All of the kids were very unimpressed).

They had some fun singers, dancers and a pretty cool Gypsy magic show. There were a couple of blacksmith shops with smithies working on some pieces.

Overall it was a pretty fun day.



The kids finished up school with bunches of fun little programs. Andrew had a Rocket Launch with Young Astronauts and Julia had her Ballet Recital.





And last, but not least, just a couple of weeks ago the boys and I went on our annual father and son's campout.



So now you're caught up and I'm caught up and hopefully I'll start blogging more frequently.

Hope you're enjoying your summer thus far.

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Today's Quote from Quoting Quotes:




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