Alan's parents decided they wanted to take their granddaughters on a week long vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia. So, Tess and Madeleine spent a week with their cousin Kaitlin and their grandparents seeing all the sights, playing games and eating good food. The heat and humidity did a number on their hair, but other than that, they had a great time. It was fun for them to be able to get to know their cousin better, as she lives in Dallas and they don't get to see her very often. I'm sure their grandparents were glad to bring them home -- they probably had forgotten what it is like to have three teenagers around the clock for a week!
So, I guess June is about the girls.... They were home for a week from Williamsburg and then off again to our ward youth conference down at Snow College. This year they got to stay in some really nice apartments that someone in our ward owns instead of the dorms -- apparently, a great step up! They had tons of fun (according to Madeleine, they were the best 2½ days of her life so far) doing a ropes course, having a dance and attending the Manti Pageant. If you think I take a lot of pictures, the leader in charge of the conference took 1225 pictures, and put them on a DVD for each of the kids. Outrageous! Tess told him that he was worse than her mom and grandpa put together...ouch.
This year our family vacation was a trip up to the coast of Oregon to Cannon Beach -- home of the famous Haystack Rock, one of the largest monoliths in the United States at 230 feet high. Alan and I went there last August for our anniversary and loved it so much that we decided to take the kids back there this summer.
We did the whole drive in one day (wow, it is so much easier with older kids!) and then spent the week in a great house right on the beach. The weather was a bit rainy the first day, so we drove down to Tillamook and took a tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory -- yum, free samples. The rest of the trip we had great weather -- sunshine and everything!
So, we did all our favorite things: fly kites, build sand castles, go for walks, do jigsaw puzzles, stay up late, sleep in, play cards, eat a lot and shop a little. It was a great trip. It was different this year because Phillip is in school at BYU and Loren is working, so they couldn't come with us. We still managed to have some fun, however, and have decided as a family that beach vacations are our all time favorite way to spend time together.
Our Yard
Pretty much the rest of the month, when we weren't getting someone packed for some trip somewhere, we were working in the yard. For some reason everything in our yard decided to grow double this spring and all we seem to do is pull weeds and cut things back. It does look pretty, though.