Joining the blogging bandwagon

I've been wanting to start a family blog for a couple of years now - I've enjoyed blogs of friends and family so much, so I think I'm going to finally start one!

This first entry will be a bit of a summer update on the summer of 2010 so far....

When the kids first got out of school in June, we had a great week of complete free time. We went to Lagoon (which was a first for us) where we

got pelted by hail and left shivering. We had a fun time, though, and it seemed only fitting that we should be freezing there in June after this never-ending winter this year! Later in June Isabelle, Abby and Lu went to "Camp Invention" with their cousins. They had a great time, especially taking apart their broken electronic item. At the end of that week, Mark and I left to

be a "Ma and Pa" on trek. We met at the stake center at 4:30 am for a 6 hour bus ride (in pioneer attire mind you!) up to Martin's Cove, Wyoming. We got quite the looks at the rest

stop bathrooms...We were freezing the first 24 hours with tons of wind, but had a great group of kids. We came away thinking that there are a lot of great kids in this area, and were also

amazed at what our ancestors suffered and

endured. We really can't even imagine it. June was also filled with 3 soccer tournaments for Isabelle. She made a traveling summer team and is really starting to love soccer. We have gotten to know some small Utah towns like Roy and Hooper thanks to our summer team!

The three oldest girls also did a basketball camp at Waterford, and despite Abby and Lydia insisting they didn't want to go and would hate it - they loved it. That was a recurring t

heme for Lydia - "I don't want to go." Then I would talk her into it, and tell her to just try it, and she ended up loving everything she's tried so far - phew! Good life lesson for her - to at least be willing to try something. Abby and Lydia also went to a "cave" camp at Waterford where the highlight was a hike to Timpanogos Cave.

July was a really busy month for us, especially Isabelle. She started viola lessons in preparation for middle school strings, then went to her first sleepover camp for BYU basketball with her friend, Samantha, from California. She was sooo tired when I picked her up! She insisted that they couldn't go to bed until 11:00 or so with all the activities. So while she had a great time,

she needed a couple of days to recover. That same week,

Abby headed out on a plane by herself to visit her friend, Sierra, in California to go to dance camp with her. She was in heaven, and I hardly heard from her! It really felt like these big girls were growing up with solo airplane trips and sleepover camps. The next weekend, I picked up Abby and her friend (who spent the next week at our house), and Isabelle's friend from Kansas City so that by Sunday night I had 8 girls at my house! It was really fun and really busy. That following Monday, I delivered Isabelle and her friend to a camp in Logan called "Retreat for Girls" and then headed home and back to Schofield, Utah to go to girls' camp for a few days.

Thank goodness Mark and Jen held the fort down during all of this. When I picked Isabelle up from her camp at the end of that week, it was so fun to see how many new friends she'd made, how much she'd learned, and how much her confidence had grown. It was a GREAT experience, and we'll be back!

The following week, we visited with more California friends in town, continued w

ith soccer, piano, and viola for Zelle, and packed for our cruise to Alaska.

We left Natalie at home with Jen, and the rest of us headed out to Seattle for a couple of days before boarding our ship there headed for Alaska. We visited the space needle and Seattle

Center where we visited the Children's Museum and played in an awesome fountain. In fact, I had one of those "true joy" moments as I sat there on a beautiful summer day watching these four carefree girls splash in the fountain

to their

hearts' content. Once on board our ship, the "Sapphire Princess" (which I love to hear Lu and Suse say - especially Suse with her lisp), we watched the beautiful Puget Sound fade from ou

r

view, and expl

ored our ship where we soon found out we were living in a bit of "Wall-E" world, for anyone who's seen that movie. (If you haven't, it just means that we were stunned by the amount of food available to us at all hours on this cruise!) We met all of Mark's family on the boat (except for a few of the younger grandkids), and had quite the setting for a family reunion. On our days at sea, the kids swam and sloshed in and out of the pools as the waves of the ocean tossed the boat around, we played a bit of bingo, read, played cards, and watched the spectacular scenery.

Our first port stop was Ketchikan where Isabelle, Abby and I did some serious ziplining

.

We were over a hundred feet up with the longest zipline

being 750 feet. We also did some suspension bridges, and since we were harnessed in, the heights didn't bother me at all. Mark took Lu and Suse to the loggers' show there, where they saw some axe-throwing and log-ro

lling/running. The next day, we were in Juneau

where we took a helicopter ride to the top of the Mendenhall Glacier. We actually landed on it, hopped out and drank from the running glacier water up there. It was so cold up there my camera stopped working. I can't imagine what it's like there in the winter. The following day, we awoke to the most gorgeous scenery I think I have ever seen. We headed up on deck around 6:30 am to watch our boat cruise up the Tracy Arm for a few hours. We kept saying how it felt just like scenery from "Lord of the Rings." The size of the mountains made the Utah mountains seem puny. Alaska is truly the most raw and expansive landscape I've ever seen. We had another magical moment on the deck of the ship, sipping hot chocolate with our kids, watching the scenery with clear blue skies - again! I have failed to mention what perfect weather we had on this trip, which is incredibly rare from what I hear.

Our final Alaska stop was Skagway, where we explored the town and boarded the famous train there that passed through - you guessed it - amazing scenery!!! The glaciers, waterfalls, and vistas were constantly passing before us, and we just sat there, glued to the windows. Our final stop of the trip was Victoria, BC, where we would like to have gone to the Butchart Gardens, but we didn't have enough daylight time there. So, we explored the city and took a little harbor cruise. On our last night on the boat, Mark's niece, Samantha, won the "American Idol" contest for the whole ship, and we celebrated with a Harris family dance party. The girls were in heaven - dancing with everyone until midnight. Their other favorite were the song and dance shows on the boat at night. Every night they'd ask if there was another show. It reminded me of adults performing a Morningstar show :), but the girls sure loved it.

It was great to get home to Natalie, who is walking and saying a few words. Just tonight she said a very fast, but pretty intelligible "hereyougo." We were cracking up.

Way too long of an update, but I guess that's what happens when you get so far behind and have so much going on all the time. I'll try to write less of a travelogue and more interesting short blogs. Enjoy the last month of summer! It's definitely my favorite time of year. I always hate to see it wind down.