Monday, July 25, 2011

Draper Days!!!


Draper days was last Saturday, the 16th of July. For those of you who don't know what Draper Days is, I say, what you live under a rock? It's only the biggest event to hit Draper every year. We used to go every year and watch the parade but a few years ago they changed the parade route from 13th east to fort street so we quit going. This
year Ginger actually enjoyed it. Last year we put her on a pony ride and she got scared and wanted to get down. But this year she really liked it. while there we watched the miniature horse show where the horses play soccer and sit on furniture, so as you can imagine it was hilarious. Afterwards they let the kids get pictures with the horses. They said Ginger could sit on that guy in the picture above, but I was worried he might fold in half. That's Miss Rodeo Draper in the picture as if you didn't already know. There was a lot of royalty at Draper Days this year. Miss Teen Draper and her attendants were handing out information about their cause, Tourette Syndrome, and encouraging people to visit a website.
But Draper Days wasn't the same ol' stuff this year. There was a new attraction. This:


I've always wanted to walk around in a giant hamster ball, so I thought this looked pretty fun and so did Ginger. She insisted that she wanted to do it. I was certain that she would wimp out, but when her turn came, she climbed right in:



So she just floated around in it. She didn't try to walk or do anything, but she enjoyed it so it was good she did it.
After all that fun we watched fireworks at Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Erin and I went biking and Erin was convinced I was trying to kill her, so we all had a good laugh about that.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Loa



For my parents 40th anniversary, they wanted to do something really special with all their kids. My dad used to regal all the kids with tales of his summers spent as a director of a summer camp: rafting, camping, canoeing, fishing, playing battleship with radios... Sadly, once he came out west his outdoor gear was exchanged for a suit to practice law in and he rarely got to the great outdoors that made up so much of his earlier years. So, for years he has promised us a fishing trip. And this year he delivered...at least the best you can deliver when 9 of the 22 family members are little kids.

Loa is in the middle of Utah, near Capitol Reef, past Gunnison (if you have any idea where Gunnison is). So, "what does one do in Loa?" you may be asking yourself? You go fishing, you go paddle boating, you eat good food, you sleep in a big barn, you play with little cousins/nieces/nephews you haven't seen for a long time, you go hiking, you feed baby cows, you learn the difference between dairy cows and cows raised for meat, and you may go horseback riding (only if the rancher who is taking care of you doesn't have to go up the mountain to save a bunch of cows who strayed into a place with no water).

This little lake was down the road from the barn we were staying in. We spent a morning fishing there and an afternoon doing paddle boats. Charlotte caught a fish within the first 10 minutes. Then Connor caught a second fish much later.






Cows, cows, cows. We got to give milk to the baby cows one morning. The kids all loved seeing the cows gulp down the bottles.



Tractor ride. This pic is of Ginger, Macey, and the rancher. Blake seemed to be in heaven riding on the tractor--this was part of his birthday celebration.


Fun inside the barn