Family Times

We just went to a family reunion for my Dad's side of the fam - the Packer reunion. It was a short one, only a couple days. I wish it was longer because by the time we all got reaquinted it was time to go home. It was up at the Snowbird resort. They have awesome summer activities up there: the Alpine slide, Zip line, bungee trampoline, tram ride, to name a few.We all got day passes so that we could go on anything and everything as many times as we wanted. The boys really had a lot of fun because they have never done anything like that before. When we went up the mountain to the top of the peak, we all got out and took pictures. It was very beautiful and the pictures don't do it justice. John got a second wind and wanted to run down the mountain on the trails. We watched him on our way down and could see him running along the edge of the peaks. It looked like he was in a movie, it was so pretty. We went swimming and hung out in the condos we stayed in as well. It was all a lot of fun. We took a family picture the last day we were there. It is a rare occasion when all my Mom and Dad's kids are together. We also had a birthday party for my 80 year old grandma, Lola. She is the cutest little lady and so genuinely charitable. We also played games: Dudo (dice game on Pirates of the Carribean) and Scum (a card game). What a fun time! I love Summers because of family reunions. Now in a week or so we are going to a reunion on John's side of the family. We are looking forward to more fun times!

Remembering Michael Jackson

I grew up listening to Michael Jackson. In fact, I was so in love with him when I was eight that I consider him to be my first boyfriend. After all, sometimes kissing the tv or a poster isn't too far off from the real thing. Even now I am a devoted fan and made a promise to my siblings that if he ever came to the USA in concert we would pay big bucks to go see him. He is the King of Pop and by far the greatest entertainer of all time. Sure, he does look like a freak. If he wouldn't have changed his skin color he would still look okay. But being the boy who never had a childhood he thought he had to look like Peter Pan, the boy who never grows old. Instead, he turned out looking like a freak. There was no way he could have looked in the mirror every day and thought he looked okay. What a sad life in the end. But despite all the sadness he was still one of my favorite artists. Therefore, it was a very sad day when we found out that Michael Jackson died. I told Isaac (my 8 year old) and he hung his head down and started crying! That is how much we love MJ in our family. So the boys have been watching MJ's music videos, all of which are brilliant I might add. Enoch has been begging me to buy him a glove. So I looked online and almost every store online that carried the MJ costume glove was sold out! I finally found one for $7 on ebay and that includes free shipping! So today the glove came in the mail and immediately Enoch put it on..... only to find out it was too big. (I tried to tell him that a million times before we bought it but he still insisted on getting it). So I told him I would try to fix it with my sewing machine. When all was said and done and after three attempts of turning the glove inside out and losing sequins while doing so, the glove finally fit! Although in these pictures you aren't seeing that there are sequins inside the glove that are jabbing at Enochs skin. Oh well, let the King of Pop be reborn. His music will never die and he will always be alive in our house! We love you Michael!

Happy 4th!

It is a tradition that we head on down to Provo every fourth of July to spend the day with Liz and David. We started off the day with the hot air balloon launch while John ran the freedom run 10k. Then, we went over to the Thompson's for a breakfast. Becky and Wes and their kids were there as well as Sam. The rest of the day we kind of relaxed at home and then went back that night for a bbq and to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks. They live very close to the stadium and have a beautiful back deck with a great view for the show. The kids had fun lighting sparklers and playing with glow sticks. The adults sat around and played games. Jay and Emily Forscutt were there as well (David's sister) and some other friends. We ate a ton of food and had a great time laughing and joking around. The fireworks were a little different this year. They went on for about five or ten minutes and then stopped completely. Then like ten minutes later they started up again. We found out later that they were retiring an old flag in the stadium so it was a moment of silence. Before the fireworks start we always like to wait for the jets to come over the stadium. They are loud and fast and the kids just love watching them. This year all the kids wanted to follow what the Dads did last year and get up on the roof to wait for the jets. Pretty soon after one kid got up there everyone else had to follow. We also thought it would be fun to get some pictures of all the girls together so Sam was the photographer and got some glamour shots of all of us! It was all fun and good times. That is why we keep it a tradition every year.... thanks Liz and David!