Where Art Thou?

Oh where oh where could me little camera be??? THAT is the question. I have totally lost my camera. With absolutely NO recollection of where it could be I have admitted defeat. I know when I last used it...but from there, who knows what happened. So sadly, very sadly enough...all those pictures I promised, well, I now have NO pictures to show you! I am slowly collecting pictures from family and friends from our summer activities. But sadly there will be some pictures that I can't duplicate. Also my laptop is getting fixed, I don't know why it decided to go and catch a cold, but alas it's taking forever to fix. So until I get that back I can't upload any photos I've collected. So to suffice I'm going to attempt to tell you about my summer. This is more for my records than anything.


We spent many summer days swimming! Casey became more comfortable with the water. He learned how to swim with his face in the water, even though his cute bum sticks in the air when he does it. He learned how to canon ball and then swim to the edge. Brooke loved to swim by herself with the aide of a floaty. She would sun bathe in it and loved the water. She's a natural fish. Corey enjoyed sitting by the pool side splashing in puddles and taking naps. We went to my sister's pool in Bountiful a couple times, along with the Logan pool mulitple time, and Brigham pool once. At the Brigham pool Casey loved going down the slide all by himself without being caught at the bottom because it's so shallow. At the Logan pool our last time there Brooke was brave enough to go down by herself. I was so impressed and never even thought to ask her until my friend suggested it! She surprises me a lot lately with how brave she is and how old she acts.


We went camping lots, but stayed close by to "test" out our trailer. The first time camping was with my family before we got our trailer. We went up Logan Canyon and it was so much fun. It was the first camping with my brother since he got home off his mission. It was fun having him back. The first time we went with our trailer we went up Blacksmith Fork canyon. Some friends met us up there for smores and good laughs. Then we went up the SAME canyon again the next weekend. This time with a group of friends. We all brought 4-wheelers. Our destination was this cave up left hand fork. However it was starting to get dark so we made it as far as the waterfalls. It was a blast and the kids had fun switching who rode on what 4-wheeler with what parent/friend. We went up camping at Mantua also with some friends. We borrowed my parents 4-wheelers again and our friends broght theirs. We took our families up to Willard peak. On our way Life-Flight was circling. A guy had a heart attack on a hike. We were able to sit at the top of Willard peak and watch as life-flight landed. However they scared away the hundreds of goats we were going to go see. It was a beautiful sight up at the top, but a little scary! We went up to Manuta a second time camping with some other friends. We figured it is a fun, easy, and cheap way to build memories!


We spent the fourth of July with family and friends. It was fun watching the Logan fireworks with family and eating our traditional pizza and muddy-buddies (my all time favorite treat EVER). Then on the actual 4th all the neighbors got together for the annual lighting of fireworks at our neighbors house. We all put our fireworks into the stash and the men go on the road to light them off as the moms sit with kids and watch the show. This year was a lot of fun because of all the ariels. Also one of our neighbors brought a golf cart with a trailer to give rides around the block while we waited for it to get dark. Casey and his friends would race around the block with the golf-cart.

We also celebrated my Grandpa Bracken's 90th birthday this summer. We saw lots of family and cousins that we haven't seen in years! It was so good to catch up and see them all. We got family pictures taken and played lots of games and ate lots of good food! We love my grandparents! My grandpa loves get togethers like that so it was fun to watch him enjoy it all. There was TONZ of people. Family flew in from Rhode Island, Washington DC, Texas, Chicago. It was awesome.

We celebrated Casey's 6th birthday! He was SO excited for his birthday! We had a friend party with lots of cute little neighbor kids. His theme was Lighting McQueen. So we painted race cars and and races, we played bean bag toss into the car, pin the Hook on the Mater, and Stop and Go. They ate wheel cupcakes and I decorated a cake for casey that looked like a race flag around the sides and a car on a street in the middle. We had family over that night for dinner and dessert. We gave Casey a lighting McQueen suitcase. In it was a card that said "Pack your suitcase because you are flying on an airplane to Disneyland" He is so excited to go and has been wanted to go for a long time. This has been in the making since Jan/Feb of this year. So we thought we'd wait to tell him for his birthday since we are not going until October. We are taking Brooke with us but leaving Corey.

My mom, sister and I took the kids the Childrens Museum in Ogden. They had lots of fun playing. It is such a cute little place!

We sent Peter's parents off on their second mission to Denmark. It is fun to be able to skype them once in awhile. They had a really neat setting apart that we were able to go to.

We went boating and Casey and Brooke were able to ride on a tube. They loved it. Casey was smiling and laughing the whole time while Brooke rode with a straight face, even though she said she was having fun. Thanks Rigby's :)

I sent Casey off to kindergarten. He loves it so much! He loves the bus ride and I love the routine of it all. Although I dearly miss summer, I am slowly admitting that I'm ready for fall. I loved the late nights, the friends, the walks around the block (which don't have to stop, but now we can't stop and talk until late, we have to get home at a decent hour)...etc.

I chopped Brooke's hair. And when I say chop, I mean it! Last year at Casey's preschool there was this girl with blonde hair like Brooke and she had it cut in a cute little bob. I always thought she was so darling with her hair. If you know me, you know I've been debating about doing this for a long time because I love the hair-do but I love to do long hair. Well one day I decided to be "Brave" and I you-tubed how to cut a bob. I cut the first part off and I about cried! I was shaking and felt so sick about it! I totally regretted it but had to finish. To make it worse one side was shorter than the other so I had to go shorter! But in the end I will admit that it turned out very cute. It has just taken some time to get used to but I do love it. I bet I cut off about 4-5 inches. I should have saved it but I couldn't stand looking at all her hair on the ground that I chopped off so I threw it away as soon as I could.


Anyway that is my summer in a nut-shell. I may have missed stuff, but there it is. I hope one day in Heaven I can find out all the mysteries of earth, including where my camera went. Until then I shall move on and hope one day it shows up. Thanks to everyone in advance for sending me your pictures! Family and friends is what life is all about!

Well this is what Fall has in store for us. Casey going to Kindergarten everyday and loving it. Searching for the gingerbread man that ran away was a BIG deal in the kindergarten world. It took a week but the principal finally caught them. Phew. Brooke started preschool and LOVES it. She waved me goodbye the first day without a single bit of hesitation. She is so ready to go read, paint, play. I think she has been waiting for this day since Casey started going and she would send him off. Now it's her turn. She goes twice a week. Also she will start speech soon which will probably be twice a week. We will know more about that in a week. She started Dance on Mondays and loves it. Since starting dance she now likes to dress up. Before dance it was a chore to get her to dress up for even Halloween. Now she does it on her own. Love it. Casey started fall soccer again. He had practice yesterday and has his first game tomorrow. He's really excited about it and says he can run faster now because he is 6.

Peter is staying busy with a couple homes and helping teach at BATC for the EMT classes. He will also start teaching the CPR classes beginning in October. At the end of October he is excited about his chance to do a ride along with Air-Med. It is the weekend before Halloween so it should be interesting! I have to admit I'm a little nervous about the whole idea.

Corey is 10 months old now and loves to clap and click his tongue. He thinks it's hilarious. He's a cuddler and likes to lay his head on you. His new favorite thing is to sleep on his stomach. He is my blanket baby and always finds the corners of the blankets to suck on to go to sleep. Still no teeth yet but he is healthy! I've moved him to an upright car sear, because lets face it, I can't carry that baby car seat around anymore! He has curly hair just like Casey did. This sides that are coming in are all curls. When he get out of the bath his top is curly.

Well sorry this is so long but I just felt like I needed to get my summer 'recorded' in case pictures never show up. So let the collecting begin and in a few (days or weeks) I'll get some pictures up here I hope! So if you see any good deals on cameras, keep me in mind ;)