July

We kicked off July with a celebration for my beautiful mother-in-law's birthday.

We met at Organ Stop Pizza to party.

 A Cousin dance train...why not?

Don't you love when a high school graduate doesn't think he's too cool to dance.

To celebrate the 4th, we headed up to the cabin 

and got to hang out with our fun 

nephew Adam Ashby and his beautiful wife Vianca and baby Charly.

Ike brought up his friend Alex who fit right in- card trash talking and all.

Trying out our marshmallow shooters



As fun as marshmallows are,  BB guns and targets are more their speed.

I love that lizards and horny toads can still fascinate 

Tom brought up part of his arsenal of fireworks.

Glad we had an audience to enjoy the show.

The girls and I took another trip to the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City.

If you love Shakespeare, theater or musicals this is the place for you.  

My girls were in heaven and I am learning to love what they love.

I signed us up for a behind the scenes tour of the shows.

We got to see how much work and coordination goes into running a show.

The highlight for the month was celebrating this kid turning 12.  

The first thing he opened was a package from Brazil filled with
some apparel and a portuguese Book of Mormon.

Cole also made a little video for him-

His favorite Brazilian family singing happy birthday to him...sideways.

Isaac was ordained a deacon.  This was a long awaited day.

We decided to celebrate at Top Golf since golf is hovering at the top of his list right now.

You can always count on monsoons and great lightning shows around his birthday.
He loves to hear the story about the night he
was born and the big storm we had to drive through to reach the hospital.

This was my attempt to get a group photo with a new app I have on my phone-

The idea is that I can remotely access my DSLR camera from my phone. 

The group was tiring of my attempts.

Isaac's first time in the temple

We had a great cousin group join in.  

This was also a chance to go with Luke (top right) before he left on his mission.

Celebrating with a Jamba afterward- Cheers!

Isaac also went up to BYU volleyball camp with these Farnsworth cousins.  

This was the night before check-in at cousin Mike's place.

I am sure they got plenty of sleep with this arrangement.

After vball, the Oklands picked him up for a weekend stay in Park City.

Not too shabby of a week for Ike.

While Ike was in Utah, Meggie was enjoying adventure in the great outdoors.

She attended AFY (Adventure for Youths)  in Idaho this year. 

Hiking, river rafting, ropes course, and a lot of team building excercises 

combined with gospel centered lessons.   

I had to steal some photos off the group's Facebook page.  

Meg went on this little adventure with her best friend Victoria.

She was gone for 10 days and I sure missed her but was so glad she didn't get homesick.

Meg has always battled a little bit of homesickness and she was a champ this time.

We love when the littles come over for a swim

June

The first of June we headed to the Normandy Coast on the last leg of our trip.

We took a bit of a roundabout to see Mont St. Michel but so worth the extra drive.

The  road leading up to the monastery is only accessible during low tide. 

 When the tide rolls in at night, there is a 50 foot difference.
Seriously how mysterious is this.

There is a village of shops, restaurants and little hotels

 as you wind your way up the path leading to the monastery.  

View from one of the turrets

(I had to borrow this pic from the web 

so you can appreciate how it sits upon the coast)

Now let's talk French food.
It was nice to be among fellow foodies.

One of the best things that I had was a buckwheat crepe with salmon and caviar. 

I wouldn't normally order caviar but the server suggested it and I am glad he did.

délicieux! 

Another recommendation from a server were the Normandy mussels.
This region is known for them so I had try them.
They looked like they were going to start moving and clicking open and shut on me but
I stared them down and nothing moved so I proceeded.

Being a rookie to mussels, the server had to show me the correct way to eat them.
One uses the mussel shells as tweezers to pull out the meat.  Brilliant and much easier.
The slight grimace on my face went away after I tasted them.
They were very good.

We loved the French hot chocolate.  It is a 

dark chocolate and they always provided an extra cube of sugar if you wanted it a little sweeter.

Here are some of our favorites.

 We ordered a few

  Croque Monsieurs

(grilled cheese with cheese in the middle and outside the sandwich)

and

Croque Madames

(added fried egg on top)
These are offered on almost every cafe menu.

I can never turn down a dish that boasts their famous homemade pesto sauce.

It was a good thing that we did a lot of walking 

The D-Day Museum was a very sobering visit

These are the brothers that were the inspiration for the movie

Saving Private Ryan.

 This is at the American gardens located in the back of the museum.

 Our next stop was June beach and I loved seeing some of the locals
that dress up as American soldiers as a way to honor their memory.

Visiting the D-Day museum helped prepare us for our visit to Omaha Beach

and the American cemetery.  

Looking down on Omaha Beach

Pathway leading to beach landing

Now that I have a son that is the age of many of these young soldiers, I have such a
deep respect for the sacrifice made.  My mother heart was so full as I walked past cross after cross.

It made me feel peace to know that they are honored and buried in such a beautiful place.

I also appreciated how many of the Normandy homes post the American and British flags.

The next day we made a few stops as we traveled back to Paris.

Our first stop was Honfluer, a beautiful little fishing village.

Our last stop was Rouen.

The cathedral was magnificent.  

Rouen is the place where Joan of Arc was martyred - burned at the stake.

This is where it took place in the town square

We then climbed aboard our bus and headed back to Paris where we had dinner in the city and then flew home the next morning.  

It was a busy 10 days but so much fun traveling and spending time with my girls.

About a week after I got home,  I got a call that my nephew Luke was in a car accident

and had a serious head injury and fractures.  I flew up to Boise.

Prayers were answered and nothing short of a miracle occurred for the Sampson family.

The doctor had told Nate and Aryn that Luke would have some degree of brain damage,

they just couldn't tell how severe it would be.  

Luke had surgery to repair his fracture but he recovered fully.
Here he is hugging his Nana.

We sure love our sweet Luke.


 Meg got her drivers permit and the first thing I did was sign her up with driving lessons.
I learned the hard way with Summer that I am not a great or patient instructor.
I just wanted to give her a positive kick start.

I love my weekly outings with Grandpa Bunker. 

 He is so much fun and very pleasant

to be around.  I hope I grow up to be just like him.

Ike did a 3 day lego building camp with Walker and Griff 

My niece Annie Ashby was called to serve a mission in Paraguay and

we held our traditional missionary family farewell for her.

John Arnett sang
The Work-The Hardest Thing I've Ever Loved to do

At the end of June my girls performed in Big Fish musical at

Actor's Youth Theater