St George

Finally found our way to St George after cutting the first two days of the trip for Camden's football practices and first scrimmage.  His scrimmage ended abruptly after the first quarter due to a large laceration below Cam's elbow.  See pictures:













But we hit the pool by about 6:30 pm Saturday night and enjoyed our time immensely.  The boys and I saw the third Batman installment on Monday night.  We found church meetings that started at 1:00 pm on Sunday afternoon because that is when we were finally ready.  Incidentally, it is at the ward house just west of the movie theater, up the block from the Condo.  We enjoyed the pool again for a good part of the day on Monday:

Here is Brayden and Madilyn doing tandem dives.  We left at about 11:50 am on Tuesday and made it back of Cam's football practice and Brook's activity days activity.  Fun time - only our second time down at the condo as a family but well worth it.  Thanks Mom and Dad!!

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Last day of class

The last official day of class for the summer semester.  It has been a hectic summer and I am glad to be nearly done.  Finals are tomorrow and Friday, two each day.

After that - full time work and a three week break from classes.  I haven't had more than a two or three day break from between semesters since January.  I am hoping to have a mental break too and escape with the family down to St. George for a long weekend.  The busy nature of the schedules of teenage children are already popping up to try to derail my St. George break.

I will be taking my LPN state boards within the next month or so.  I will need to study for those sometime this month.

I missed a youth fishing trip with Cam last week (although Cam can't abide fishing - too slow) and I am missing a youth fishing trip with Brayden this week (Lake Powell)  I wish that my finals were earlier in the week so that I could go catch some fish with Brayden - my fishing buddy!  We went through his gear last night.  I supplemented his tackle and bait with some from my own tackle box.  I hope that he does well.  He caught 4 last weekend up at Payson lakes, 3 rainbow and a beautiful brook trout.  It was part of a 3 day Hollist family gathering.  He and Joe ate the trout for breakfast on Saturday morning.  I was at a hospital clinical.

My garden is in mid-summer status.  My zucchini plants are inundating me with produce.  My yellow squash plants were planted about 45 days late and are struggling to decide if they want to grow.  Five plants at about three inches in height each.  Each with a different excuse to why they are not growing more quickly.  I don't want to hear it.  My blueberry bushes are still doing well, new branches with new leaves, good general growth. I am so excited.  I sit by them every few days, examining their growth and discuss with them their plans for the future.  I will have to eventually replant them.  The five plants are each in a black, one foot high, plastic potting container.  I have not yet acidified their soil but they still seem to be troopers for me.

My blackberries are changing daily.  More and more of the fruit are turning black.  It is beautiful to see the new growth for next year as well, three large new branches, a gorgeous plant!  My cucumber plants are out of control, creeping throughout my beans and carrots.  If the yellow blossoms are any indication, I should be swimming in cucumbers in the next few weeks.

I will attempt to build my strawberry tower during my August break from school. The neighbor down the street will be pulling out her strawberries this fall and I will be the recipient of some of the plants.  I need a place to put them and I am nearly out of room.  I found a picture of a strawberry tower on the internet and I think that I will do something similar.

I will put it in the front corner of the garden area opposite the house.  I will build another lattice fence next to it that runs from the neighbor's fence to my arbor.  It will match the lattice fence on the opposite side of the arbor currently covered by green grapes.  This new one will soon be covered by purple concord grapes if plans hold true.  This may be a spring project though.

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