Pioneer Day

Vic asked me what we were doing for the "24th of July". Remember folks... only UT celebrates the holiday. But this year we celebrated as well with a day at the lake. The youth went up for a day of water skiing and water fun. Jason was the only member of the bishopric able to go and so the kids and I decided to crash the party and tag along with dad. It was so much FUN! The only time Allie wasn't in the water swimming around was when she was in the canoe or the ski boat. She and Jason rode behind on the tube. She had a great time hanging on for dear life albeit they were driving relatively slow. Jason got to take his turn driving the boat as well and pulling skiers. Luke really isn't crazy about he water. He usually becomes catatonic and just wants to be held.

"Buoy Boy". He really didn't seem to care. I guess he didn't know it is not supposed to fit like that!
There. That's better.
Some of the youth in our ward.

This is what all that "swimming" does. Nice to have a recliner to relax in on the beach.
After the lake our little family took a drive in the mountains (Cibola National Forest) to check out some future camp spots. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! We had beef stroganoff for dinner (a backpacking meal) and played in the cold creek. Wesley had a fun as well. Hey Molly... do you recognize this outfit?


I think everyone agrees that music can be so powerful. My brother Vic wrote on his blog about moments in life where you feel overwhelming happiness. They tend to be simple often seemingly ordinary moments. We had one of those moments as we drove down a bumpy dirt road in the most beautiful wilderness with no one around, singing and "dancing" together- just our little family. This is a video of Luke rocking out. I could not get over how cute and funny I thought it was. We had to do a bit of editing work on the video... to cut out Jason and my singing.


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Nerd notes:
1) I played with the $30 100-300mm manually focused lens (because the AF was broken) I bought a while back. It is a pretty poor lens as it turned out but shows some of the cool things that a long lens will do. The photo of the three kids in the water, the ski boat and the canoe make you think that the three groups are all close to each other-- not so, this is just a compression artifact of a long lens (300mm in this case).
2) The pic of Luke's dirty face in the back of the truck on the other hand was shot @ 18mm, the widest setting of the lens that came with the camera. At 18mm his head (just a few inches off the front of the lens) is distorted in a cool way. So scene compression at 300mm and distortion at 18mm. The good portrait lenses (what I usually use) fall in at about 50-85mm...
3) Pic of kids sitting on the beach shows how a flash during the daytime can help out w/ lighting. (Same w/ Luke's legs hanging off the lawn chair).