Fifty Mile Hike

So Dad and the boys survived their second fifty mile hike this summer.  Dad wasn't able to make it for all of it (on account he was spending time camping with Hyrum and I) but, he was able to be there for the toughest day!  A seventeen mile hike on rough terrain and little water supply!  I guess it was pretty grueling.  Moroni and McKay did great and really made a fashion statement along the way.  In their words..."We've been rockin' these bad boys all week!"  See for yourselves...

I'm glad I wasn't there to witness McKay standing on this cliff with VERY steep sheer drop offs on both sides...SCARY!

Big Toys!

We rented a cat, crawler, or bulldozer, if you prefer, to do some heavy duty work on the property. We cleared a lot of brush and hawthorn trees from the property. Monty was able to create several roads for the quads around the perimeter and throughout the property. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of him on the beast, and he did all the scary work! I stayed on level ground, too afraid to do anything else. Moroni spent hours on the thing and did work on flat and sloped areas. Monty did the most daring things, making roads where there were none, removing stumps, clearing rocks, etc. We were able to discover some really neat areas of the property that we had never been able to access before. I'll try to post pictures of those at a different time.

It's a good thing that dozers have hand controls so that six year-olds can operate them!

Building a Bridge

We have a seasonal creek, actually a few seasonal creeks, on the property. Several of them have simple concrete culverts over them, but this is the main one you cross over so we wanted to make it special. With no shortage of rocks on the property, and I mean lots of rocks, we decided to build a rock bridge. Five days, 4000 pounds of mortar mix ( that's two tons people!), lots of water to drink (since the weather was in the mid to high 90's all week), and some help from each of the family members and Bro. Hatch, who is an experienced stone mason and just so happened to need the work, and we end up with a fun bridge that will hopefully give us years of enjoyment. Eventually, we will plant some trees and shrubs around it, but that's for another time!

This is where we started once Monty and McKay put in the culverts and the gravel trucks brought in the gravel.

Monty and Bro. Hatch worked the first day scraping away the extra gravel with the excavator, setting up a plumb line, and placing the first stones.

This is how far we got at the end of the second day.

Day three was spent on the other side.

We decided to put some sort of cap on top of the rocks to make them look more finished. We spent day four finishing the caps on the first side, then going to work on the second side with more stones.

On day five, everyone one had the "blessing" of working, including Hyrum!

Monty mixing up one of the many batches of mortar mix. We used over 50 sacks of mortar mix...80 lbs. each. Thanks Grandpa Mel for the use of the cement mixer and generator!

Placing the capstones on the second wall. That was a LONG day!

Of course, with the hot weather, one of the coolest places was inside the culvert.

Hyrum had fun in there, too!

If you had to be in the sun, a hat was essential. Hyrum is sporting his 50¢ garage sale hat. So cool!

At the end of day five...mission accomplished!

Go Bananas!!

So while Monty and I have been working hard at building a rock bridge on the property (an upcoming post) this is what the boys are doing with their spare time. Who cares about chores when you can make really cool banana suits out of old foam pads. They have been wearing them to various places, including the grocery store where they stood by the real bananas and held a sign, "Please don't eat my babies!" Moroni made a sign that said, "Need $$ my wife split." It's nice to see they are making good use of their summer vacation!

Seminary Graduation and Awards

Another milestone....Moroni graduated from seminary! He had a few (okay, about 30) make-ups to do from a previous year, but was determined to finish them in time to graduate. It was crunch time, but he made it! We are so proud of him.

McKay also did awesome with seminary, earning the Stake President's Award. He had to read 200 days, complete the Book of Mormon, memorize all 25 scripture masteries, and memorize the first presidency and the apostles. It was also crunch time for him the last couple of days. He knocked off 13 scriptures masteries in two days! We are proud of him also.

Eagle Board of Review

Moroni passed his Eagle board of review! Now we just have to get word from nationals so he can officially hold his court of honor. Yahoo!

Are these good looking guys or what?!

Ever since Jesse changed his name to Moroni, I've been wanting to take pictures of Dad and the boys and add these scriptures to them. Finally, on the day before Ammon was leaving, and only about 30 minutes before he was to be set apart as a missionary, we snapped a bunch of pictures...very quickly! It was quite the trick to get Hyrum to cooperate. He loves to close his eyes in pictures, but we got a few.

"Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men. Behold, he was a man like unto Ammon, the son of Monty, yea, and even the other sons of Monty, yea, McKay and Hyrum, for they were all men of God." Alma 48:17-18

"Now these sons of Monty had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God. But this is not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting; therefore they had the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with power and authority of God." Alma 17:2-3

On My Honor

Whew!! In a mad rush before he turns 18 on Easter Sunday, Moroni finished his last five merit badges (all required) and was awarded them at the court of honor tonight. (Isn't the scout motto "Be Prepared"?...maybe it should be "Don't Proscrastinate!") McKay, was also awarded three required merit badges and earned the rank of Life scout. Now he can start turning his attention toward Eagle. Of course, I had to get a picture of buddies Zach and Hyrum...future scouts. Yes, we'll just get McKay to the Eagle rank and the whole cub scout, day camps, pinewood derbies, pack meetings, den meetings, webelos, etc, etc, starts all over again!

Eagle Scout Project

Well the time is fast approaching and Moroni is finishing up the last few merit badges so that he can be awarded the Eagle. He just finished dry walling, taping, texturing, priming, and painting the new nurse's station at Camp Alpine for his project.

The "before" picture

Hanging the dry wall

Taping the seams

Texturing the ceiling...I'm sure no one goofed off during this process :-)

Q. How many scouts does it take to spray the texture?

A. One to spray...

...and eight to watch!

Painting...thank goodness for an airless sprayer!

The finishing touches

Quality control

The finished project!

Talent in the Family!

The boys performed at the ward talent show Friday night. Jesse sang a song called "Cliff Diving" by a group called +44. Mckay sang two songs that he wrote himself called "Everyday," and "Go Away."

I think they did a great job!

Band Concerts

"The Drumline"

The boys just had their spring concerts. McKay likes playing the bass guitar, but I think he would like more "jazzy" parts. If you really want to hear his musical abilities, check out McKay's original music to the left. (He actually had a recording studio check out his myspace profile and contact him as an "artist of interest" in looking for new talent to sign!) Ammon and Jesse are in drumline and band. Ammon also does jazz band. This video is of the drumline. I was excited to get both boys in the picture at the same time so that I didn't have to go back and forth and miss either one of their parts. Jesse does a great job on the mallets and drums (even a snazzy little hand clapping) and Ammon has some pretty sweet flicks of the drum stick!

"I Got Rhythm"