Our 4th son left on his mission for the LDS church today.  He got called to the Canada Edmonton mission, speaking Mandarin Chinese.  He will spend 9 weeks at a training center for missionaries, learning Chinese, and then he will go up to Edmonton to receive his assigned area. This preparation was a little different than for my older sons.  Lincoln is just recently 18, just graduated from high school, and had less than two months to get ready.  My older boys were a little older when they left--closer to 19--and had at least a year of college and living away from home behind them.  So I think it might have been a little harder for Lincoln to say goodbye to his friends and family.  I definitely think he's ready though.  I'm sure he'll do a great job.  We'll miss him a lot but I absolutely know he's doing the right thing, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with other people. There were lots of goodbyes.  I forgot to get a picture ...

It has been such a busy summer.  I had this illusion before summer started that I might have some free time for projects but I feel like I'm just barely keeping up with everything that needs to get done, let alone tackle anything extra. One big reason for this is all the special events.  Starting the last week of May, we celebrated a special event for about 5 weeks straight:  mostly birthdays but also Father's Day.  We have 4 birthdays within about 6 weeks, including my daughter-in-law who was here for her birthday.  Talmage and Lincoln were ordained to deacon and elder  Scott got a very fancy balloon hat from his son who now has a job making balloon creations  I love this picture of these two despite the rabbit ears  We took Lincoln to the Jordan River Temple  Everett was ordained to be a priest after turning 16  Someone was really excited to get his driver's license     

When our older boys were in our high school marching band, they would march in the big 4th of July parade.  We would feel obligated to go even though finding a good place to watch the parade is a major hassle.  The crowds are just way too big.  But now we don't have anyone in marching band so we have a little more flexibility in our activities. Our whole group, except for me This year we did a hike to Stewart Falls which is a trailhead on the Alpine Loop between the American Fork and Provo Canyons.  It's a great destination hike with just the right amount of challenge for our family.  It's about 2 miles one way.  Our youngest needed to be carried a lot but otherwise we had no difficulty.  The main problem with the hike is that it is a little too popular, especially in the summer.  We started on the trail about 8:30am and saw very few people on the way in.  However, on the way back it was much more crowded. This is my brot...

My 16-year-old pondering the mysteries of the raspberry After many years of trying to grow raspberries, this year we hit the jackpot.  We're getting tons of raspberries and we might even be getting sick of them--especially picking them!  We have a couple of different varieties and the most prolific produces fairly small berries so it can take a while to pick them. Today's harvest--we have to pick almost every day to stay on top of it.  To freeze them, I spread them on a cookie sheet on wax paper and stick them in the freezer for a few days. Then I put them in a Ziploc bag and put them back in. We eat some of them but mostly I freeze them and make jam.  Raspberry trifle is an especially delicious dessert and I might try homemade raspberry ice cream sometime soon.  I don't remember having them when I was growing up so I don't love the fresh raspberry taste as much as some people do.  Lots of sugar helps.  We also do smoothies. ...