On Saturday afternoon Doug's Dad Douglas Cannon passed from this life. He had a cardiac arrest and even though he has had some health problems it was still quite sudden. Rainee and Doug traveled to Moab to be with his family, our hearts and prayers go out to his family and to his sweet mom, Joan. 
Doug and his Dad have been very close and it will be hard for him to have him gone.
Our love goes out to all of them at this difficult time.
We had a little grand camp with them on Friday night, Rainee wanted them to experience a grand camp because she had such fun memories of when she was young and going to Grandma and Grandpa's grand camp. We will have to have one next year when more of the grand kids can come. I remember that in order to attend the only criteria was that you were potty trained. Well Bryce didn't quite fit that criteria so Rainee came up and got him before we went to bed. It was a good thing too because he had a blow out before she came up and we had no diapers so he just ran around the rest of the night bare bummed. We went up the canyon and took the trailer and had hot dogs and marsh mallows and built a fire and played bears and Indians. When it got dark Ryan told them some stories and then we went to sleep in the trailer, I am glad that we had the trailer instead of a tent because it stormed most of the night and we would have been quite wet. The night was quite uneventful except that Evan fell out of the bed a couple of times and was rolling around on the floor trying to figure out where he was.
It really must be a boy thing because I can't remember being excited about catching grasshoppers but when the Cannon boys came earlier in the summer that was one thing that they wanted to do, catch grasshoppers and feed them to the chickens and watch them gobble them up. When they were here before the grasshoppers were not out yet but they are here now and it didn't take them long to fill up a quart jar. They love to catch them but I THINK they like watching the feast more.
We also went to the County Fair and Carson told me it was the first time he had been to one. He said, "he had only seen it on TV and knew that there were pies and cakes". Yes, there were pies and cakes but there were also animals and tractors!
Everyone was up on Saturday and we had to get a group shot because we don't get together very often, we were just missing the Bassetts :( Doug flew in on Friday night and we spent the day visiting, shooting, (well the boys spent the day shooting) and then we went and had a volley ball tournament. We can get quite competitive.
On Monday we went down to Grandma and Grandpa Shaws and spent the day at Pine view.
Evan loved the water and the sand.
Thanks Doug and Rainee it was a fun day!
Here we all are at the end of our fun day!This last week we celebrated Nate's birthday. We won't say how old he is because it makes me feel verrrrrry OLD! He was born in 1976 so you can figure it out. Nate doesn't like people to make a big deal over him and especially his birthday, ( I think he takes after his Dad) but I feel I need to tell you a little about him. He is my oldest child and was the Guinea pig for all of our experiments as new parents. Of course you know that your first born always has a special spot in your heart and I know Dad and I love him for putting up with trying to figure out how to be a parent. Because he is the oldest he is the example for those to follow and he has been a great example to the rest of the bunch. He is a great Dad to Kace and Tydon and he has become one of Dad's good friends. We love you Nate and wish you a very Happy Birthday.
We had a little celebration for him and this video is some of what we did. Mostly we sat around and had Kace and Tydon entertain us, but we probably had some of the best entertainment of the afternoon from Mac. As Jessica put it," I think he just got rid of any manhood that he had." The water show turned into a water fight and then Kace didn't know when to quit so it turned into a crying fest. I think Kace learned not to start a water fight with Mac because when he says it's done he means it. Sorry Kace you are the guinea pig in your family too. So watch the video, it's kind of long and Yes, Mac is still manly.
Rachel tried to get the same picture from Nate when they were on their trip to Oregon and Nate said, " I'm not falling for that one again."
This is a picture of the old sheep corral that Jim found, there is a story about when Enos, my great grandfather, was young and he and his Dad Moroni brought the sheep up to Monte. They built this fence to hold the sheep in so that Enos could watch them. His Dad then left for several days to get supplies and left Enos alone with the sheep. He was quite young, I think they said that he was only 10 years old and he stayed all by himself until his Dad came back. You can follow the fence line around in a big circle and can see the old corral still on the ground. Enos was born on October 18, 1883 so that fence was made in 1893 and you can still see the old rails lying there. That was pretty impressive and made some of the stories we hear come to life when you actually get to visit the place where it happened.
Smile Lincoln and Caitlin!
These first 2 pictures are the before and after. In order to get where our destination was (Union Falls) we had to ford 3 rivers in order to get there. This was a new experience in which I had to bring an extra pair of shoes to wade the river and then dry off my feet and put back on my hiking shoes to travel to the next river. The rivers were a little deep in spots and most of the hike I had wet pants and then mixed with the dust I guess they were mud pants. It actually was quite refreshing though to wade through the ice cold river, (when I say ice I mean your feet and legs were numb by the time you got to the other side. You then felt the tingle pain of them coming back to life while trying to put back on your shoes.)
You can tell this is on the way out by looking at my hair because we went swimming in warm river and then I went to bed with my hair wet. I guess when you go back packing you have to expect some loss of luxuries ( such as a blow dryer, refrigerator, toilets, to just name a few.)
Here is our ritual of changing our shoes.
I will be forever grateful though to Ryan for packing a nice mattress, a warm sleeping bag and all of the things we needed for the trip. I just carried my clothes and towel and it still felt pretty heavy after 10 miles. Oh did I tell you how long this hike was? Well, the hike in was 9 miles
The sacrifice of hiking though was definitely worth the destination, I have never seen a more beautiful, perfectly symmetrical body of water in my life. We stayed here for awhile admiring the grandeur of this beautiful world and then went on to our next destination.
Our next destination was where I could have stayed forever. The river was warm and there was this most beautiful falls coming over the rocks. It felt wonderful and was natures best Jacuzzi ever. It was quite deep in the middle and the boys had a great time jumping off of the rocks into the warm river. I was sad to make the 4 mile hike back to camp because I wanted to wake up in the morning and spend more time in this river. (I really didn't feel like making the 8 mile round trip the next morning though.)
We had a great trip. It was an experience that I will remember for a long time. My feet though are feeling like I may have over done the hiking this week.
Making it up on the bumpy road from Mantua was quite the trip but once we arrived in Willard basin it was worth all of the bumps.
It was a pleasant day, (not too hot) and the flowers and the views were spectacular!
When we got to the top we had to sign our name in the book and we decided that Lincoln was probably one of the youngest hikers to make it to the top. He is just 6 months and his Uncle Mac being the great man that he is packed him up to the top.
I didn't want to go down because it was so beautiful.
We met Isaac and Ryan coming around the corner on our way back, they didn't find the rocks they were looking for but Mary was very glad to have Isaac back. I think Mac was also glad to hand over Lincoln to Isaac, ( Lincoln is getting to be quite the load.)
I couldn't resist taking a picture of Lincoln in the flowers, it was a great day and the next hike I took this week made this one look like a piece of cake. 
Layne was here just recently and it was fun to have him and his brothers here to play with their cousins. Kace and Layne love the water and while they were here they spent a lot of time, IN THE WATER! Kace loves it when they come to visit.
Layne is such a fun loving kid and he just enjoys life to the fullest.
Layne loves to bounce on the tramp and especially when the little guys are not on so he can go HIGH.
Happy Birthday Layne, hope you have a great birthday!!
Yep, he is king of the water slide.
He has been so excited to celebrate his birthday and he couldn't wait to go to bed last night so he could get up to celebrate this big day.
We went to the Sugar Shack to find some treats and their were so many we had a hard time deciding what to choose. This was a very fun store and of course all that was sold in this place was you guessed it SUGAR! You should have smelled it, you gained weight just taking a whiff.
After we made our choices we were off to the toy store, that even had harder choices to make.
It was a great store in Hummelstown with every kind of toy and even toys you couldn't imagine. He made his choices we went home and wrapped them up and now he can't wait to open them.
She was really quite good for most of these photo's which is amazing for a newborn.
" Peace out"
Another cute pale pink.
Okay, so I saved the best for last, isn't this just the cutest little face, I am sure she is thinking, "Okay, Grandma that is enough!"
