Our Ultimate Life: Atomic Days and Girl's Camp

Immediately after getting home from Redfish Lake we had the Beals come to Arco for Atomic Days. Keaton came a day early, so when we woke up the next morning we had a surprise visit from Violet and Daphne who came up on the four wheeler with Granny. I spend the day at Mom's house with the kids so they could have lots of cousin play time. Hart and Jory showed up that night as well.

The next morning is when the rest arrived and they all took off to hike Lower Cedar Creek. Justin had work and I couldn't do that one by myself with four little kids, so we stayed home and I offered to watch Keaton's kids so he and Amanda could go kid-free and my kids could have cousins to play with. I did a bracelet weaving craft with some of the nieces who stayed behind and mostly we just killed time until everyone returned. We did potluck dinner that night. I let the kids stay up way late and play in the dark while we had our campfire.

Saturday we had the parade and then Trisha got out her water whiffle ball game. I got my swimsuit on to join in on the fun - we played all afternoon and it was a total blast! I left early to help Justin get the coop ready for the Beal men to come help us move it to our new house. Paige Telford brought their flatbed trailer for us to borrow to transport it over. He amazing 12 year-old son backed it into position for us and drove it over like a boss. I love that about farm boys - raising them right from a young age! It was too bad the house wasn't complete in time for us to have everyone help us move in (two trips with everyone grabbing one thing and we would have been moved in!) but it was a HUGE help to get the coop all taken care of. Justin finished fencing in their run yesterday, so they are all set up in their new home.

Sunday a bunch of Beals took off for Redfish while a few stayed behind. Chase and Keaton stayed behind and came to church with us - that tickled Mom having her youngest three all at church just like old times. We got news that there had been a cougar just a few miles from us! Yikes- there were a few nieces and nephews who slept out in tents/hammocks the previous night! It took them a couple of days to catch it - doing chicken chores with the tall grass all around me gave me serious Ghost and Darkness vibes.

Sigh... originally I asked for a natural wood mantle to match the floating shelves. The carpenter painted it, so we asked him to try again. This is what he gave us. We hated it. The dark marbling streak and knots in the wood gave serious bar/cabin vibes that absolutely did not work. The easiest fix was to go back to having it painted. Yikes. We can't wait to be done!

The carpet was installed the Friday of Atomic Days - lots of Beals came to take a look which was fun!

Got the desk fixed.

Excited for this pantry door to go in

The beams and chandelier were installed while I was at girl's camp!

Phew - mantle back to an acceptable state.

Love the way this door turned out.

Got the light turned the right way. Still waiting on a couple of mirrors.

We had two days to recover from our Redfish camping debacle and Atomic Days before I left for girl's camp. I had help to watch the three big kids while I was gone and took Colby with me. Poor buddy was cutting four teeth and he didn't do well at all camping. He cried all night for two nights! Originally I was going to take our camper so when that plan fell apart I thought I was going to have to stay home after all, but Paige Telford (yw president) let me use their camper! He husband hauled it over just for me to use - how incredibly generous was that?!

We went to Beaver Dick park and lucked out getting the big spot right next to the river. The girls did the BYU-I ropes course and we hit Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner. We had time to spare between those two events so we got to walk around campus for a bit. I loved it so much! It was graduation so there were so many families out and about, and I just loved revisiting such a special place in my heart.

The next morning we got up at 4:40 to leave camp by 5:00 to hike the Menan Butte. I was in charge of the devotional when we got to the top. I shared about the geology of how the butte formed because it is actually quite unique and I wanted the girls to appreciate how rare the rocks were they were hiking on. I then shared about the Iron Rod and did a deep dive into the element of iron and why that adds to the significance of the parable in Lehi's vision - a concept I learned while taking a physics class at BYU-I. we hiked the entire rim after that which I thought would only take 30 minutes but it took a full hour and was tougher than I thought it would be! But it was honestly great - I'm so glad we did the whole thing.

The rest of the day we took it way easy. I snuck away to get a nap while Colby napped for an hour-ish which was so needed! The girls did crafts, painted, and spent time in the river catching frogs and fish. It was perfect. In the afternoon all the girls went to get snow cones and I stayed behind to help Karen assemble the picture the girls painted. I got to chat with her about homeschool which was a great conversation to have. That night right before dinner Karen showed the girls how all the papers they had painted came together to make a beautiful picture of Christ. They had their testimony meeting that night but I missed it because Colby was having a hard time so I stayed in the camper with him so they could have some peace and quiet.

We packed everything up the next morning and hit Rigby lake for a few hours before heading home. I had the opportunity to share about girls camp at church today along with two other young women. A few mentioned my devotional which made me feel good. One parent told Mom how much her daughter liked it, and another mom texted me telling me how much she and her daughter liked it. That always feels good - to know your preparation made a difference and hopefully those girls can remember to be reading their Book of Mormon every day.

Phew! That has been our July so far. Like I said, I came home from camp to see a lot of progress on the house. We are so so close to moving in. Justin has been moving things from the house to the garage with Clint's permission. we have just a few large things to move over once we get the green light to move in. I'll have to get some cleaning done once everything is moved out of the way, and I have a carpet cleaner coming at the end of the week. After 11 months, this week we will finally move into our new house. I am so overcome with gratitude. I can't believe it is actually happening. Grateful grateful grateful.