We have been having a great summer so far and I am WAY behind on my blogging. I was feeling ambitious today and I made 22 collages in Picasa. So, without further ado here is our month of July!!
We went to Utah at the end of June and we had a lovely picnic up Big Cottonwood Canyon. It brought back lots of memories from childhood of having picnics with my family in the canyon. It was such a beautiful night and so fun to be with my parents and my brother's family.
Dan, my Dad and Jordan (my nephew) were having a great time skipping rocks in the river.
My Grandma was celebrating her 94th birthday, so while we went with my parents, Aunt Margaret and Grandma to the recently dedicated Draper Temple. It is a beautiful temple and it was really fun to go with family. It was EXTREMELY windy when we were taking the pictures. Everyone had to stand around me to keep it from blowing up around my head!
We decided to be tourists in our home town and went to temple square. We have been waiting to eat at The Garden at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We love their rolls and raspberry lemonade, not to mention the great view! It was really hot that day, but we had to get some pictures at the temple and we went inside the newly built Church History Library.
Theses pictures are inside or taken from inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We had our wedding reception in the Empire Room (see directly below) so whenever we go to the JSMB we have to peek at "our room"!
We had our traditional Ross Family Camp this year. Every year, since I have been around, we get together with my mom's side of the family for a few days. We used to stay at a YMCA camp in Southern Idaho, but the camp became run down and we got too big for it. So, now we have a reunion every other year in Paradise, Utah. I was dreading the "camping" part, but it wasn't too bad and we had a great time. At our old camp we had a pretty wild river that we would tube down. Now we have a small creek that we float down and it was a lot of fun. Nice and relaxing. We even got my mom to go down!
Another tradition at family camp is candy jars. You bring a jar full of candy and then we all guess and whoever is closest wins! I LOVE this tradition. We usually decorate the jars and try to make it tricky by hiding a giant jaw breaker in the middle or a bunch of small candies. We made a University of Utah themed jar this year and Jenna, my niece won it! She was so happy and we were glad she won our jar.
We also play a lot of board/card games at Family Camp. Most night people are up until 2 or 3 AM playing games. I hate to say it, but I am getting kind of old and I usually went to bed around 1 AM, but I remember my teenage years and we would stay up ALL night and play and laugh. This year we played Dominion. We got our whole family addicted and have since purchased Dominion and Intrigue.
On our last night we had a campfire planned with s'mores. Unfortunately, it started to rain so we had to improvise and have indoor s'mores. They didn't have that great campfire taste, but they were still messy and delicious.
We always have a water balloon launch, treasure hunt, night games, songs and lots of food and snacks! I love Family Camp and I have so many great memories from the past 27 years!
We celebrated the 4th of July in Sandy at the Granite Parade and Carnival. The kids decorate their bikes and ride in the parade and throw candy at people!
It was so fun to have all the nieces and nephew together. They got along so well and it is crazy to see them all getting so big.
We had dinner and fireworks at my brother's house. We bought $100 pack from Costco and they were really fun. Nothing too big because we decided to be law abiding citizens. As we started to clean up our fireworks the people down the street put on a big show for the whole neighborhood. They had obviously made a trip to Wyoming! All of these huge fireworks went off and it was a great finale!
We celebrated our five year anniversary on July 7th. We went to dinner and then walked around the city and took some pictures. It was a beautiful evening in Portland and I can't believe I was wearing long sleeves and jeans in July!!
One of the reasons we can never leave Portland is the berries! I LOVE raspberries. We grew raspberries in my backyard growing up and there is just something so wonderful about fresh picked berries. I picked 20 pounds of raspberries and made about 9 quarts of raspberry jam! That should last us until next year!
My friend Nicole is an amazing makeup artist. She is booked year round for weddings and other events. She did my makeup for Dan's pinning ceremony so here are the before and afters. We tried a couple different lip colors and I ended up going with the last one. You can check out Nicole's work
here. She is amazing!
Dan is finally seeing real patients at school!! YAY! That means we are almost done with school FOREVER!!! When you enter the Outpatient Clinic they have a pinning ceremony with some speeches and then each intern receives their special little pin. I decided to go all our and buy a new dress and get my makeup done. I surprised Dan with my little makeover and then we went to Papa Haydn's for dessert. I am SO proud of Dan for all of his hard work. He is going to be a great Chiropractor and his perseverance and dedication amaze me! Only 8 more months!
We went to the coast last weekend. The funny thing about going to the Oregon Coast is that we always check the weather forecast and they say it is going to be nice, but every time we go it is cold and cloudy. So, now we just go with our jackets and we are prepared to be cold. It is beautiful and the kids play in the water even though it is FREEZING!
My sister got her kite our ready to have a great time and then realized she didn't have any string! When we got to Hug Point, the beach we were at, the tide was coming in and pushing us back onto the rocks. Dan, Dan, Jenna and Kelsey tried to dig a moat to stop the water. It worked for a little bit, but eventually we had to abandon Hug Point because the water was getting way too close for comfort.
We ate at Mo's and then played on the beach for a bit.
We buried Jenna in the sand and then proceeded to turn her into a bikin sand person and a sand turtle.
We had a great day at the coast and I love living in Portland where you can go to the beach, mountains, farmland, city or river in a matter of a couple hours.
So, if you made it through this entire post CONGRATULATIONS!!! I hope you are all having a great summer!
