Boating at East Canyon

I know it is already the middle of July, but we just barely got the boat de-winterized a couple weeks ago and this is our first trip to the lake. This was also the first trip that we were able to have with two happy kids. They are finally old enough to enjoy the boat and not freak out about the life jackets.
We were going to go to Jordanelle, but we did not have the insurance info on the boat, so they turned us away, but only after they collected their entrance fee into the park. Anyway we took another hour in the car to drive to East Canyon, both kids got their naps in during the drive. It was amazing. The water was great temperature and the water was at max capacity. I have not seen the water level this high in years.

We had an amazing tube ready for this trip. It was the size of our car and had to be tied down on the boat because a huge air compressor took 2 hours to blow the thing up. Unfortunately the key word is HAD. We filled the tube entirely up at home the night before, not thinking about how as air temp rises it expands. Right as we got to the boat dock we the whole thing ripped apart, we filled it up a little too high for this trip. The water was choppy so it would have been a great time tubing. I have high hopes that we can fix it and go tubing next time.

We decided to knee board and wake board instead. We even got Trent to try, unfortunately I did not get my camera out in time to catch this extraordinary event. Thad went knee boarding for the first time and of course had to show off to the rest of us who could barely get up.

Annie and I both got up on wake boarding, even though I only lasted a few wonderful moments. I am determined to be great before the end of the season. We had a great day at the lake. Thanks Trent and Annie for coming with us!

Happy Birthday America!

We had an amazing Fourth of July Weekend, good food, good friend and family and a good time! To explain why we celebrate the fourth, we told the kids that is was America's birthday. Taylor spent the whole weekend singing "Happy Birthday" to America.

Friday evening, we had a pre-party where we put everyone to work helping clean up the yard, making the cake and decorations, and just enjoying spending time with each other. The kids loved it too. Nana brought over a purple porcupine sprinkler and a blow-up plastic pool. Add a little slide to the pool and we've got trouble.

Annie and I decided to make a two-tier stripped cake covered in red, white and blue fondant. In order to make the cake it took four days and countless hours, but it was worth it. We made our own marshmallow fondant, dyed the cake and decorated it ourselves. Plus the cake was delicious as well as beautiful.I can't wait until the next party to see what we can up with. I think Aiden has already asked for a Spiderman cake for his 5th birthday party, even though he has vowed never to have another birthday again. This is entirely another story, but somehow he is picked up that getting older is not all that it is cracked up to be.

For the last few years, I have banned having the 4th at my house due to the firework display that takes place. We have a tradition on making "box of fires" or "box of doom". depending on who you talk to, which includes dismantling the fireworks to create one large firework. The is great until a mortar shell or other large exploding firework, that is meant to shoot up in the air, ends up blowing up on the ground right next to the kids and hitting my neighbors cars or houses. However, this year turned out really tame. We had only one box of fire, and it was really nice, no large explosions. I have not looked out front yet, so who nows what kind a mess we have.

Thanks everyone for your help putting on this amazing party!