Steel Days

American Fork's summer carnival is called Steel Days. They have a regular carnival and then a kids carnival. The kids carnival is free. They have bouncy houses, cow train rides and small carnival games. Because it is free there are very long lines for everything. The kids still loved it. Kate wanted to go on everything but she is too small. She was able to ride the cow train and loved it.

Timp Hike

Russ and I hiked Timpanogos mountain today. We started at 5 am. It was still dark but there was enough light from the moon that we could start hiking. We made fast progress up the mountain until we got to Emerald Lake. From there we have to climb over rock fields and boulders and then go straight up hill to get to the saddle. Once we got to the saddle we could see a all of Utah county. We had to make it to the very top because we were so close although we were tired. We thought we were close but it was still another 1.5 miles over the ledge. At that point we were about 11000 feet so very 20 feet we were out of breath. We made it to the top though and there were people signaling other mountain tops with mirrors. We could see reflections from the mountain across from Utah lake. It was pretty cool. We hiked down pretty quickly but it really hurt my knees. It was so beautiful. My favorite part was at Emerald Lake. The wild flowers were in full bloom.

Wild flowers at Emerald Lake

Emerald Lake

boulder field

The rock ledge we had to climb to get to the top

Iphone florida

Here are some additional pictures from mine and Russ's I phones.

We went to an aquarium to get out of the rain. If you can tell Kate is wet! She loved the dolphins!

Beautiful beach before the storm

Bike ride in the pouring rain

 

Alyssa learning to boogie board

Florida

I spent almost 2 weeks in Florida. First I went to Tampa to visit one of my best friends. I stayed with her for 4 days. We went to the beach, aquarium, pool time in her pool and most important time to catch up. It was wonderful. She has 3 kids and Alyssa was in heaven playing all day long.  Then Russ flew in and we drove to Orlando. We went to Sea World's water park Aquatica. It had a few sections specifically for younger kids with small slides. That day it thunder stormed a lot but would pass by after 30 min or so and we could get in the water again. Then we drove to Panama City which is on the panhandle of Florida. It was a long drive (6hrs). We meet the rest of my family at the beach house. We spent the next week at the beach house. The beach was beautiful. Perfect soft white sand, green water, gentle waves. Alyssa learned how to boogie board. We played at the beach for 2 days. Then a huge storm came and it rained the rest of the trip. This rain was a flooding, pouring type of rain and it never let up. One ay we had a break in the storm for 2 hours and we ran to the beach even though it was windy we took advantage of it. Sadly I only brought my camera to the beach on the windy day so I don't have any good pictures of the beautiful sand and ocean. When the storm came it messed up the water and turned it brown and also created a brown dike coke looking foam. We played lots of games in the house. It was fun to hang out with my whole family!

board walk to the beach

Kate loved the beach

Whole family with Russ behind the camera

Noelle I had to post this because it is just to funny

In the sea foam

Kate loved the golf cart and beach chairs!

This doesn't do the sea foam justice. It really looked like someone shook up a bottle of diet coke and poured it the ocean