Havasu

Back to how we spent our summer vacation…

Lest you think we all had fun while Jeff slaved away to make the money, we did let him out of the office for one of our summer adventures.  In July, we joined Geo and Nanc along with the other Jeff, Denice and the nephews for a week at Lake Havasu.  Now, if you’ve never been to Lake Havasu in late July, you are missing out.  There is just nothing like those 120 degree temperatures to clear out the sweat glands.  Course, Tyler’s football schedule dictated the date, so I shouldn’t complain.  On a positive note, the lake water was warm enough for even ME!  

So here’s our sweet ride:

We used it to do a lot of this:

You can see, Tyler likes tubing alot…

It’s important to use hand signals to communicate to the driver.  Here Daniel is demonstrating the universal signal for “Wedgie”, or in other words, “Slow down a little, I need to pull out my wedgie.”

Jeff and I are going REALLY fast (just the way I like it!)

Bryce, Grandpa & Aunt Denice at perfect cruising speed.

Daniel seems a little bored…Justin was obviously holding him back.

Tyler and Justin doing water ballet.

Wipeout!

We (and when I say “we”, I mean the royal “we” because I didn’t really do any of this) also did some cliff jumping:

 

    Hmmm… I think I can go higher…but, maybe I’ll just think about it…

  

There he goes…more thinking…

 

We kicked back:

 

 

Of course, there was a fair amount of posing (what vacation is complete without it?)

But, wait until you see this.  They say that people who spend a lot of time together start to take on each other’s mannerisms, finish each other’s sentences, and even dress alike…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who knew there were TWO of these outfits in the world?  AND, they were purchased and packed independently!!  Anyone else might purchase orange and white flowered shorts and think, “hmmm, now what shirt will I wear with these?” and then conclude that white would be the natural choice.  It’s readily available and would make the ensemble, um, shall we say, a little more subdued.  No boring white shirt for these guys.  They obviously concluded that nothing else would do but a perfectly hued orange.  It is true that great minds think alike!  They did balk at wearing them on the same day, however. (shwooh!)

We enjoyed the local cuisine…

And had an all around great time!

      

Thanks for the memories Grandma and Grandpa!

Busting My Buttons

It seems I have an unfortunate disconnect with reality.  You see, many jeans these days have these really cute flap pockets secured with raised metal buttons, like these.  I, myself, have 5 such pairs including shorts, capris, and pants.  On four out of five pairs of these jeans, the left button has been broken off. I have concluded that the cause of this problem is that when I swing my bum into the driver’s seat of the car, I misjudge the space needed to safely make the entrance, thus catching my booty on the doorframe and break off the button.  *sigh*

Justin's BYU adventures Part 4: Wait I have to do school work in Collge?

So over the past week I have come to realize that people can't hang out at night anymore during the week. They have to do something called homework? It's this new thing where you have to do work on your own outside of class. Weird right? So I decided I would get in on this new fad since all my friends were doing it. So 200 pgs. of Guns, Germs and Steel, a 3 page paper, 2 quizzes, another essay, a few more chapters of American Heritage and an outline of a section of Preach My Gospel later I finally got to have some fun. We had a couple games of intramurals this week, which we lost both of. And we got to participate in the True Blue annual Blue Foam party on Helaman Fields. It was awesome, just imagine playing around in endless amounts of Blue Bubbles haha. We also went to the BYU-Colorado State game, which we won! And after the game we enjoyed a delicious dinner courtesy of Steve Spiker (Thanks again Spiker family for inviting us). And we even had time to play some Hide and Seek on Campus at night. So anyways I have to get back to....homework...I think thats what it's called. This has been JP keepin' you up to date with the BYU experience. Peace Out Bloggers...P.S. check the photos.

Blue Foam

Alllright!!

Complete Chaos!

Flag Football

Team Huddle

Late Night Fun

After an intense game of Hide and Go Seek

Friends

We are so cool

Are you fan enough???

What Kind of Mother…?

Allows, even drives their child to, pays for AND sits and watches while they get this kind of abuse?

Yes, folks, it’s football season again.  I’m taking a break from the summer recap to jump into the season.  It’s been 5 years since we’ve had a kid in his first year of football and I have to say, I’d forgotten about the bruising they take.  It occurred to me that I haven’t seen this on Justin or Tyler for a few years, although I do remember some doozies.  I asked them why they thought that was and interestingly, they had the same response:

“Mom, now we GIVE the bruises!”

(insert implied “DUH!” here)

Bryce has actually been quite pleased with his bruises and wears sleeveless shirts at every opportunity.  I thought the orthodontist might report me to Child Protective Services after a recent visit, but no call yet.  Oh wait, is that the doorbell?

Summer Roughing It - Big Boy Style

In July, Justin and Tyler made it out to Big Bear for some young men bonding. It was the last hurrah for all of the seniors soon to be leaving for college.

This year I noticed they stopped calling it “Camp” and started calling it a “Retreat” since they stay in lakeside cabins with beds, bathrooms, kitchens, and boats at their disposal. Many years they’ve been known to go out to eat and see a movie at least once. Not really “roughing it” in my world (she mocks with disdain and more than a little envy), but hey, they get great attendance!

I love that they even thought to take these pictures. Note that in the first picture Tyler appears (maybe close to being true?) taller than Justin, but then Justin had to rearrange to make sure the correct hierarchy was observed.

All the activities at the "retreat" are a little “extreme”… --Rappelling --Hiking --Mountain Biking --Cliff Jumping --Being dragged around the lake and dumped at regular intervals --Stitches, staples and concussions!

Notice in each of these pictures that it's the Peacock boy coming out better in the upcoming dunk... And of course, there’s always a fair amount of macho posing!

Mostly by Justin...

He caught a little disco fever for this one:

Pretty impressive group! We're grateful to the men who give freely of their time, talent and other resources to provide memories for our boys.