Visit with the Collingwood's

We had a fun time seeing Grandpa Collingwood, Grandma Jan, Aunt Christina, Uncle Eric and Aunt Becky, and our cousins. I took the girls to the DI one day, and we fun trying on lots of clothes - some crazy, and some really cute! Probably the funnest thing we did at grandma and grandpa's was helping to harvest the garden - it was huge! We got to bring home several boxes of carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and beets.

Eric literally had Sammy eating out of his hands!!! He was so nice to always share with her!
This is when we first started pulling out vegetables . . .

several wheel barrows later, this is what we ended up with!

and, of course, no visit with Grandpa Collingwood (here or there) would be complete without a project! This year, Jerry helped his dad build some columns in front of his garage. I forgot to take pictures of the actual project, but here is a picture of Claire helping with the cleanup.

Steve's Game Room

Christina has a friend named Steve, who restores jukeboxes and other cool things as a hobby. His game room was so cool, that I'm dedicating a whole post to it! I would LOVE to have a place like this one day!

Heritage Park

While we were in Salt Lake, we went to Heritage Park with my aunt Carol. The kids weren't as interested in learning about Pioneers as we were, but they loved the horse ride.

Salt Lake City

While we were in Utah, we really wanted to take the kids to see some of the church sites, since they had never been. We walked around Temple square, ate at the Lion House Pantry (one of my favorite restaurants in SLC,) and had a private tour of the Conference Center. As you can see, getting a group shot with everyone is kind of hard! I also got to see my best childhood friend, Kerstin! It had been several years since we had seen each other, but we picked up right where we left off. She was getting ready to move out of her apartment and get married, and I got to meet her fiance', who was really nice.

Biking and Camping at Caprock Canyon State Park

Our trip to Grandma's coincided with Jerry's high adventure camp out with the scouts. This year they went to Caprock Canyon State Park. It was full of abandoned railways that have been turned into bike riding trails. They had several practice bike rides. I cracked up when I saw Jerry in his "doo rag" after one such ride! Everyone had a great time.

Claire Can Ride a Bike!

Last summer, Grandpa and Grandma taught Darren how to ride a bike when he came to visit. This summer, they got a new, bigger bike for the grand kids, and it was Claire's turn to learn! Here are some cute pictures of Claire on the bike.

And, look at Grandpa running along beside her! He was proud that he could keep up with her!

Darren also loved "his" new bike, and had fun riding it around the block.

Claire rode the big wheel all the way around the block. I'll bet she's the only kid in the neigborhood to try that one. It took a long time.

and Miles had fun riding everything else, with no competition from Darren and Claire!

Visit to Grandma and Grandpa Atwood's House

We have established a few traditions for when we go to Grandma and Grandpa's house. One of them is that we always go to the "Rocket" park, the "Clown" park, and the library. (And my mom and I like to go to Macy's after the kids are in bed.) The rocket park has an awesome rocket tower with a slide that the kids can climb up in, and the clown park has this cool swing with a clown face in the middle and two swings on either side. It is fun because you can go really high.

Also, usually when we get together we are celebrating a birthday or holiday of some sort. This time it was Miles' birthday. He got to make his own cupcakes! We also celebrated my mom's birthday a few days later.


Sometimes on our way down, we like to drive by our old house in Waco and see how it is doing. I didn't want to seem like a stalker, so I stayed in the car.

It is always fun to go to Grandma and Grandpa's!!!

Scripture Reading

One night at Grandpa and Grandma's house for scriptures, Grandpa read 1 Nephi 3:7, which says"I will go and do as the Lord has commanded. For I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men save he shall prepare a way for them to accomplish it."

He asked Darren and Claire if they knew where the scripture was from, and Darren knew what chapter and verse. Everyone was really impressed.

They asked Darren if he knew what the scripture was talking about, and he said that it was from when Nephi, Laman and Samuel were supposed to go and get the brass plates. Before I had time to pat myself on the back for being such a good teacher, Darren went on to explain, "Yea, they had these black and white rocks in a bag. Whoever got the white rock had to go and get the plates from Laban. Then Laman said, "I'll go. You guys don't know how to handle a guy like Laban! I'm the only one who knows how to handle a guy like that!"

And we were all like, "What?! I don't remember that part!" Then we realized that he had seen the movie.