Jones and Clairy

Can't Miss this one!

Ririe Lake/ Henry's Lake

This morning after teaching dance for 7 1/2 months of this pregnancy, loading and unloading camping gear and lifting kids for the past 2 1/2 weeks. I bent over ever so nicely to pick up a small piece of paper and my back went out. Awesome. So I am home from church at Mom and Dads and I so I will post some of the pictures from our fun outings over the last couple of weeks with a little summary.

1st off: Ririe Lake

Highlights of the Ririe include: Easily 30 hours of packing for the trip. The "gray Cho Cho" as Tate would call it (horse trailer), never really used to pack the horses but always used for packing our stuff around whether its going to a wedding or camping. It's a part of the family and needs to be where ever we are and it also needs to be packed to the very top, not just half way ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. "Go big or go home" has always been Dad's motto, (as seen by the tent picture) so we didn't leave one thing behind, not one thing... Except for all the stuff that Tanis, Tim and Redge picked up a couple hours later. We had all the camping gear we have accumulated over the past 25 years with of course a lot of new additions because most of the items were to far back in the storage unit right now to get to them so we bought new stuff. In other words we set up a small town at Lake Ririe and it was delightful. I could probably live there. The next item on Mom's never ending list was food lots of it, the people at Sams club knew us by name by the time this trip was over. We gathered sleeping bags, blankets, pillows for 20+ people (yes everyone had a pillow which was a small miracle), 2 pack and plays, stoves other miscellaneous items that were in the shop also made it on the trip like boxes of PVC pipe and other random things to fill up the Cho Cho. And enough activities to keep us occupied for weeks let alone 3 days. We left the boat home and then of course we woke up the next morning and decided to go get it. Because the water was beautiful and we needed one more thing.

Beautiful Ririe Lake/ Mom and Dads Ward Campout

The Tuttle's Camp Site

Back to the Highlights of Ririe:

• Claire's Justin Beiber dancing and singing. May the song that can not be named get out of our heads. Even little Millie knows it word for word.
• Porter and Hudson's first waterskiing runs.
• Swimming on the dock, Hudsons Cannon Balls and Belly Flop Dives
• Tate's vocabulary "me way cool", "just me size", "me Tate, I'm Hungry"
• Millie's Sugar Highs- love her sugar waves and energy. Never seen sugar work so good. And hearing her sing at the top of her lungs in the tent- Do a Deer.
• Lukers wandering into all the strangers tents. Giving that little smerk on his face. And eating everything except food he could get his hands on.
• Redge coming back to camp after wake boarding and not remembering what happened for the past 3 hours. That was fun. A huge concussion wiping out everything that happened before and after waking boarding. Let's never do that again. It's good to remember life in general. That was scary.
• Dutch oven cookin, us never winning any ward cooking contest ( nobody tried our chocolate cherry dessert, except for Tate who sat on the top of the table when dinner was all done and ate right out of the Dutch oven saying "umm so good, me like this" At least one person liked it.
• Tyler got scalped. From the sound of Ericas scream I thought someone had died. I didn't see the scalping in action but a little church B-ball with a slam dunk and a head dive into the court will get you a big chunk of hair missing on the back of your head.
• Taily pole Story and The Vindow Viper stories around the camp fire.
• Joni skied and Dad didn't even have to yell at her to get out there.

Henry's Lake

We then packed up camp and the boys went off for a "Mans Day" of shooting and other man things. One of them will have to report about this day. The girls went back to the apartment got the food ready for the cabin and it took the full day of course. A couple highlights from the cabin.

Grandpa Jack's Watchful Eye: Let the Fishing Gods Come Down. I am sure Grandpa Jack was up in heaven orchestrating all of this. Mom and Dad took most of the grandkids out on the boat late in the morning around 11am. The fishing hadn't been that good but they thought they would try. And little did we know but Grandpa Jack would make sure those kids caught fish. 8 big suckers in an hour and a half. Small miracle but a happy thank you to the fishing gods.

The Dock Dwellers

Precious Times

When you've lived as long as I have you begin and I mean you begin to understand and recognize significant moments as they happen. I have thoroughly enjoyed the last 10 days of events as we have been together as a family. I am going to take this blog and begin to make it a journal of sorts to record some of those significant moments. As everyone can tell, we have let this blog go to the back burner and sit. Well it's time to update and stay updated. Each of us has the time to once a quarter (3 months) sit down and write. It's not that big of a sacrifice and it will bare fruit. I appreciate your help with the ward camp out. It was fun to share you with the rest of our ward. It was just like old times feeding the masses. You all give us such joy and happiness as we watch you begin to build your families. (jones, lets get moving on this) I appreciate mom and all her planning and hard work. I don't know if I have ever had that much fun. Camping, it took most of the horse trailer to fit it all in and Boating, Fishing, Skiing, Paintball, I was disappointed that no BATTLEDOME commenced but other than that we pretty much covered all the bases. I was a little concerned that we had 2 concussions by the end of day 1. I didn't know we had inherited a pro wake boarder in Redge. It was fun to watch him until he got slapped to the water. The grankids have such distinct personalities not indifferent from all of you. It was fun to watch Porter and Hudson get up on water skis and watch the kids catch their fish. I know how tough it is to raise kids. Just look at the hair I don't have. I will say it is better as a grampa on the next go around. You kids really do have that to look forward to. It is a riot. The Lord was right (as usual) when He told Adam and Eve that their greatest joys would come from rejoicing in there posterity. I must say it helps immensely to have kids that want to do the Lord's will. The Lord knows best and He can do so much more with our lives than we can. You know......be teachable............and listen.

Yesterday was a RED LETTER DAY!!!! Rich graduated from BYUI and he finished in regular Richard Fashion. The Last 4 or 6? semesters were 4.0 Great job Rich. The last one 19 hrs of classes and working as Liquid Production Manager @ Pharmgrade. (He produced almost 300,000 gallon of product). Next year we'll be shooting for 1,000,000 gallon. All I can say is thanks everyone for all of your hard work. Every one of you have a university degree. WOW. That's a BIG deal.

It's been interesting living in this apartment for these years. We have been waiting first to sell the house and now to see if this real estate market is going to go up or down before we jump into another house. By the way it is getting real old. But it has been interesting, our wants and needs have changed. I've done the get married live in a rental thing, I've done the starter home with 5 kids in 2 bedrooms thing and I've done the big house on the hill thing. It was nice but now I'm thinking a cottage by the river thing. Mom says we have to have a big barn (lodge) with a big family room and a big loft to sleep in. I agree............... It's time to get to work on it. I guess the economy will do what it will do. The key is not to over extend yourself.

We love you all dearly. You make our lives full and full of joy. May the Lord Bless You. Grampa T.