Girls Camp, Utah Trip, and a bit of Geneology

Wow what a summer we've had! And it has been quite a while since I have done a proper post. Our summer has been so great...

In June I went to Girls Camp! It was so fun and so different than the Girls Camp I remembered in Utah where we slept in a sleeping bag in a tent and went to the bathroom in an outhouse that didn't flush and we didn't take showers and ate what we cooked over the fire. At Camp Ta-Ku-La we slept in cabins with air conditioning and ate cafeteria food together in a mess hall. There was no grueling hike, no snipe hunting, but a swimming pool and a water slide and warm showers. It still felt like girls camp though, despite all the differences. I learned a whole bunch of new camp songs, and taught the girls the songs I remember singing as a YW going to camp in Utah. Camp was five days instead of three or four and on the last night of camp there was no "lights out". I wouldn't have cared so much about the stake tradition of not going to bed the last night, except that the next morning as soon as I got home from camp, I would be driving 8 hours to Oklahoma City.

So on to that part of our trip. I was so excited to see my boys when I got home! I had missed them so. I took a shower, and we hit the road for our month long trip to Utah. We hit up Brian's family in OK City and Fort Collins, Colorado. We started our Utah trip with a Cook Family Reunion in Northern Utah. Part of the reunion was a surprise birthday party for my father-in-law. He turned 70! I bet most people my age don't have a 70 year-old father in law!

After the reunion we moved on down to PG and had a great 4th Utah style. I'm telling you, nothing beats Utah's Independence Day celebrations.

We spent a week in Rexburg with our wannabe grandparents and my awesome brother Tyrel and his wife and kids. Julia and David are two peas in a pod. I'll put pics up later and a more detailed post of our time with them. Also while we were in the Burg I got to meet up with Alea! It was so fun to catch up. Alea moved to Idaho when we were in High School and I had only been able to keep touch with her on blogger and facebook. It had been a long while since I had seen her and it was so nice to see her again.

I got to catch up with my other really good friends too and that is always so great. They are one big part of why I miss my Utah!

Nathan turned 1 on July 11th! Just this week he has started walking all around the house.

Brian turned 27 on the 18th...the same day my sister turned 17. They had an awesome birthday. Brian and I took the kids swimming, Rachel got to (finally) meet Jef Holm and tour his business in PG and get free stuff. I think she was on cloud 9. Later that night we celebrated by going to Los Hermanos and having cake and ice cream and games (which included Mexican Race Horses...my fave).

The Grand Finale to our trip was heading down to Fishlake, UT...which is one of the best places on earth...you just don't know it yet because you've never been there. We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary :). I'm going to blog more about that trip too.

Right before we left, we celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday. A few years ago I recorded my grandparent's life history. That propelled me on to bigger and better family history projects. After two years, I finished compiling and transcribing as much ancestry on the Salisbury family as I could find and put together a book for my grandma's birthday. The book included bios and pictures of our ancestors. I loved doing the project, and made me realize that bit by bit family history can get done and it does matter! I thought I would never get the project done, but one day it just came together. Every little bit counts! So the only pictures on the post will be a few of my favorites from my project that I already have saved on my computer.

My beautiful young grandmother, Belva Joan Salisbury.

My grandpa in the Korean War. His story amazed me. Nathan Douglas is named after him.

My Great-Grandpa Salisbury playing the mandolin.

My Great-Grandmother Coral Erickson Salisbury. Isn't Coral a beautiful name?

The best part of the whole trip for me was just being with my family. I love being around my parents and siblings so much. We have a great time together and laugh a lot. We can get pretty silly. In fact, I laugh to myself sometimes that most people don't know how weird I really am. Being around my family is so good...they force the seriousness right outta me which needs to happen from time to time.

So that, in a nutshell, is what we've been doing lately. Ciao.