Our Summer in a nutshell part I

Happy 4th of July

We celebrate the 4th of July with my family since we are on vacation and celebrate with Jacob's family on the 24th. We got together with my brother Tony's family who also live out here with us and Grandma Roothoff, Grandma and Grandpa Orton and Aunt Trisha joined us. We started out with the Grantsville parade which was larger and better than I expected. What makes it even better is that they still throw candy. Score!!!

Ryker sitting with Trisha waiting for the parade to come by and showing us his patriotism

All of us except me (because I'm taking the picture), Tony (who had to drop off Kayla) and Kayla (who was in the parade)

Angie, Jacob and Grandpa Orton are in the 2nd row of chairs, Grandma Roothoff is in the first and Lydia, Elyse, Grandma Orton, Trisha and Ryker are on the curb

The sirens were so loud we had to protect those little ears somehow


Kayla was on the Drama Club float (she's the one in the white top and brown skirt at the front of the trailer)

After the parade we walked through the carnival/car show before coming back to our house
for lunch and a quick nap

(Grandma Orton and Ryker)

(Grandpa Orton and Aunt Trisha)

We went back to the carnival to get snow cone things that Lydia was selling for her ballroom dance class to help raise money for her costumes and other expenses. We then ate dinner and sat in our backyard and watched two or three firework shows. What a great way to end the day

Thank you to all of you who serve our country and have made and still make this day possible for us to celebrate!!!

Orton Camping Trip

We went up to Current Creek for a few days and had a great time. We enjoyed playing games, going for rides on the 4wheelers, getting rained on and having a miracle take place. Besides having Andrew and Brandi with us, what more could we ask for.?!

You should know by now how good I am at taking the camera and leaving it in its case. I did get a few cute pictures of Adyson and Ryker on Adyson's 4wheeler. When Ryker spotted it he immediately climbed on and took it for a spin

It doesn't have enough power to go through grass or over rough terrain so Ryker crawled behind pushing it whenever Ady got stuck.

With both of them on it it really didn't go very far, but they had a great time

As for the miracle I mentioned, to make is short, but still sweet, my nephew Zane took Grandma's 4wheeler for a ride in an area about 100 yards away from camp where someone had made it into a race track. As he was going through it the 4wheeler flipped over and landed on top of him. Miraculously, it landed in a place where there were two small hills and a little gully in between. Zane landed in the gully which was just big enough to where the 4wheeler's weight was not on him. He was able to crawl out from underneath and walk away. We were afraid of unseen injuries, but after an amazing Priesthood blessing his only injuries were a big bruise on his thigh and some aches and pains. We all know how tragic this camping trip could have turned out to be, but instead it was a great testimony builder and lesson to us all.

The Tumbling Gym


Jacob and I have callings in the Young Men and Young Women programs in our ward. For a combined activity we went to a gym where another member of our ward teaches. All the kids had a great time and raved about it for days afterwards. Ryker wanted to climb on and be a part of everything.

We started out on a small trampoline, but he wanted to go on the big one. We didn't make it there because we ran out of time

He tried so hard to walk across the balance beams, but having just learned to walk and not having very good balance he needed a lot of help

He is such a big boy standing on the big block pad

I took him down the slide once and from then on he did it all by himself

He loved playing in the inflatable jump house. This one was definitely for smaller kids and I quickly discovered I'm not a smaller kid any more.