July Odds and Ends

We went down to Park City for a few days at the beginning of July for the first time in a year and a half.

Matt enjoyed driving the side-by-side around the block...

The kids did some interesting things in the waterfall...

Grandma had the kids paint some rocks to put in her garden...this was one of Abby's contributions...

And some breakfast shenanigans...

I wish I would have gotten some pictures of us actually doing them but a friend and I experimented with some girl baptism cookies.  Her daughter is getting baptized in September and she wants me to do some cookies for their guests.  She brought her oldest daughter over and we played with stenciling, watercolors and florals.

At the same time I had just finished up my first ever paid order.

My cute neighbor asked me to do baptism cookies for her son.

They were pretty fun!

I was mostly happy with how they turned out but need to work on my temples.

In other news...Josh got a job at Macey's!

He had gone in to interview for a cashier position but they asked him if he would be willing to work in the meat department.  He's such a good sport so he agreed to it.

Both pictures are from his first day.

My mom sent me the one on the left when she went shopping.

And then I had to make an emergency trip that evening...I peeked in the meat department as I passed it but didn't see him so I went about my business.  Lo and behold, I saw him in another part of the store coming back from a break :)

Isn't he cute :)!

After a few weeks there he admits it's definitely not the most glamorous job in the world but he enjoys the group of people with which he works...so that's fun.

We have been trying a new med for Ben the last couple of months.

It is called Epidiolex and is the first FDA approved CBD epilepsy drug if I am correct.

Still not sure if it is helping him yet but I thought this was funny...

We have to get it through a special pharmacy across the country so it arrived at our doorstep like this...

If we were to have obeyed the instructions for only the addressee to open it, we would still be waiting :)

And lastly, I wish I had more pictures of this night...

My brother, Jo's, in-laws were in town along with my sister, Angie, and other brother, James, so we all gathered with my parents and another one of Jo and T's friends in our backyard one night and had some pizza.  We broke out Kube and enjoyed a really pleasant evening together until the mosquitos came out.

Ben had a seizure right before this picture and Andy had to be gone to meetings most of the night but we enjoyed each other's company.

Kidd Family Camp and Josh's Ordination

Our family wasn't able to spend a whole lot of time at the family camp this year.

The day we went up, our matriarch, Grandma Kidd fell at the nursing home and Mom was involved taking care of her and so we missed seeing her there.

Ben had lots of buddies willing to play ball with him :)

Josh and Matt both helped out with skits...

The second night, Abby took Matt up (Josh was working, Andy had meetings and I was not up to chasing Ben around again).

Mom took a couple of shots of them participating in the classic Minute to Win it game of the Oreo on the face...

It's always good to see everyone...wish we could have spent more time there.

Josh received the Melchizedek priesthood and was ordained an Elder.

Both sets of grandparents and Jo and T were able to join us.

It was a pretty neat experience.

We were so grateful for so much support...from both sides of the veil.

Family Pictures!

For one of Andy's gifts THIS year (haha :) I gave him the gift of family pictures.

He has been saying for a long time that he wanted us to get some new ones...especially before Josh heads off on his mission.  Through the years we've had some family members take some with the best camera (or phone) that was available to us but our last ones that were done by a professional were 10 years ago...yikes!

So I contacted our good old friend Casey who did our wedding pictures and he was only happy to do it for us.  We had wanted to go up to the trailhead of Wayne's Loop where there was a great spot but a few days after we hiked it Andy ran into an old student that lives near there and he told him it had just barely been closed.  I had Andy drive up and scope out the situation for us and sure enough, it said due to insufficient parking the trail was closed until the city could do something about it...AND a No Trespassing sign had just been put up exactly in the spot we wanted our pictures :(  I was sad since I had wanted to try that spot for sentimental reasons.  It is in the same area as the place that Andy proposed.  Ironically, Andy said there was a family taking pictures there when he went to check it out.

Luckily Casey had another spot that he thought would be great so we went there instead.

It was so fun to see him and catch up a bit since it had been years since we had talked.

He and Andy met while they both worked on the grounds crew of the Logan Temple in college.

Ben was struggling...he had just come out of his really rough patch a couple of days before and he was not in the best mood.

I was stressed because of course I wanted these to turn out great but could not get Ben to cooperate.

 Well, Casey worked his magic and we actually got some shots of Ben smiling and not too obviously struggling to get away :)

This one is my favorite!!! 

I stressed over the clothes and color coordinating...I even ended up paying about $20 in shipping to get the right size of shirt for Ben on time.  I found it at Old Navy and wanted to base everyone else off of that one shirt but they didn't have even close to his size so I ordered it online.  Looking back on it I wish Josh and Abby weren't in the same solid color but, oh well...I'm just happy we got Ben to smile :)

Father's Day and Celebrating Andy

 A couple of years ago for one of Andy's birthday presents I had told him I would go on a hike with him and take him out to lunch after.  This sounds really pathetic but we never ended up actually doing it.  Last summer we wanted to try again but it was always too hot or there was too much smoke in the air when we had a free morning.  So this year we were determined to make it happen.

There was an unusually cool (in the 70s) forcast one day in June so we took advantage of it and went up to Wayne's Loop.  Even with our super dry, drought of a year it was still green and beautiful!

We had such a pleasant time together.

Coming down off of the mountain we saw the cutest goats on the road.  I made Andy stop so I could get some pictures to show Abby.  She gets a kick out of things like that :)

Then there was Father's Day...

My cute dad and hubby :)  

Dad utilized the golden chair he bought for Josh's graduation parade.

This was another catch up celebration for Andy.

Since he was not feeling well on his birthday we took him out to lunch a couple of weeks later.

He chose Cafe Sabor.  It's a fun old train station and trains still use the tracks just outside on occasion.  One did while we were eating so we watched it go by...

Abby trying to get Ben to look at the train...

It's not often that we actually go to a restaurant to eat since it's so much easier with Ben to just bring food home but it usually ends up being good when we make the effort :)

Happy belated birthday to Andy!