July, 2022, Lehi, UT

We got home from our vacation and jumped right back into life here in Utah.  My neighborhood bookclub met the same day that we got back (literally, since we got back at 2 am!). I was in charge of the discussion and had chosen "Where the Crawdads Sing" as our book.  I did some research online and found a true southern recipe for Blackberry Cobbler which was mentioned twice in the book, so I made it and served it with vanilla ice cream.  It was amazing!  All the ladies came and we had a great discussion.  It just so happens and purely by coincidence on the timing, but the movie version came out in July, so we set a date to all go see the movie together for our July's meeting!  So fun when things work out that way!

 A few months ago, I saw an advertisement for Stadium of Fire at BYU and this year they were featuring Tim McGraw! (He played it a few years ago and Eric and I went). I hopped online the day they went on sale and got tickets for Mike and I.  Tim never disappoints!  His show was so good.  The only downside was that because they had so many other things going on in the overall show, his time on stage was relatively short compared to some of his other concerts I've been to.  I loved it though and the fireworks were incredible.  We were sitting kind of close to where they were shooting them off and could feel the heat from a lot of them!  It actually got a little scary!  Marie Osmond was featured and sang a couple of songs.  They also featured some veterans, had a flyover, parachuters, dancers, and much more!  It was quite the evening of entertainment!  It took us nearly 2 hours to get home.  There were something like 55,000 people there!

Stadium of Fire was on Saturday, July 2.  Monday, was July 4th. All of our family were busy doing things with other people so we were alone.  I decided that I would never let that happen again.  Somehow, we will find a party to crash if we find ourselves alone on a major holiday again!  Our neighborhood had lots of fireworks going off all around us.  We set up our chairs in the driveway and enjoyed the show!

This doesn't even begin to show what our street and the streets around us were like!  It literally felt like a war zone.  It's kind of crazy how into fireworks people are around here.  It's fun as long as no one gets hurt and there aren't any fires.  It's fun to live where people are passionate about the holidays!

Melecia, Rhett, and Cecily were visiting from London and we got to have them with us for a few days.  They came over to spend time with Madison who had a brand new baby girl, Leala (or Lala) in June in Irvine, California.  They also had a family reunion on Rhett's side for his mom's 80th birthday and they had another family reunion for Melecia's side in Utah for her mom's 80th birthday.  It was a very busy trip for them.

Cecily attended a sports camp at BYU all week so we didn't get to see much of her, but we did have Becca stay with us for a few days.  She and Rhett searched and found a car for her.  

One day, we went up one of the canyons in Pleasant Grove to see one of the world's largest American flags!  It is set up to honor veterans and it was especially meaningful to Rhett who served in the air force for 20 years!

We continued onto Provo Canyon and stopped at Bridal Veil Falls and then headed on to Sundance.  It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time.  We had lunch at Taco Amigo and had their famous strawberry shakes as well as some Mexican food--weird combo, but it worked!

Another day, we got to attend the Mt. Timpanogos Temple with Becca when she received her own endowment.  It was so special and she was well prepared and so happy to be able to go.

At the end of the week, we picked up Cecily from BYU, (she had a great time), and came home and had a cookout with Hannah's family, Rhett and Melecia's local family, and Meg and Taylor (our basement girls). We love having family and friends visit us.  We have a big house and lots of room for guests.  We hope that we can go to London next year in May!  That's our goal.

I had another special treat that week.  Jaimee contacted me and said she and the kids would be here for a few hours on Thursday and would I like to have the kids for a bit.  Of course, I was thrilled.  I met her and the kids and I went to Hannah's pool and swam with Violet and then got ice cream at Handel's.  I brought them back to our house and Jaimee joined us for dinner before they headed onto St. George.

I am still working as a realtor and we had a fun agent tour of homes in Alpine one day.  I love my co-workers and it was a good tour of some beautiful homes in the 2-3 million dollar range!  I won a Swig gift card so that was cool.

I had a special outing with Violet one hot summer day in July.  We went to a splash pad in Sandy and had lots of fun.  She loved it and would have stayed all day!  I needed to get back so that I could go swim with my friend, Cheryl, at her home in Lehi.  Such a fun day in the sun!

She's a very adventurous and brave girl! We had another outing one day where we got ice cream at McDonald's.  She's silly!

I hadn't seen Eric and Ben for a while, so we met up one day after Eric finished work, grab a Swig and had a visit in the gardens behind the Butterfly Biosphere.  Thanksgiving Point has so many lovely spots to see and wander around.

We have a lot of birthdays in July and we were able to take Reese out for breakfast for her birthday and I took Joni to lunch for hers.  We are blessed to have them closeby.  Reese had a fun birthday party at their house too!