OUR SUMMER

Our summer was busy, fun and productive. Between soccer games, scout camp, Helaman's camp, girl's camp, trek, hiking, moving kids to college, family reunion and Education week at BYU, we did get a little bit of rest, though it never seems to be enough. I have been lax on posting, so here is a huge post to make up for it. Starting with James on Trek. Every four years our stake takes the youth over to eastern Washington to Ensign Ranch. There they get to relive the pioneer times, eating and sleeping like they did. James had a great time this year, he made good friends, ate great food and came home absolutely filthy!! I've posted a few pictures from his week. Most of the ones I found of him were when he was eating or resting, I didn't see alot of him pushing or pulling a handcart!

Here he is with his Trek Family.

Skit night - always the ham. Yes, that is a plunger in his hand, don't ask me what he was doing with it.

With his family again - Brother and Sister Barbosa are his Ma and Pa.

This must be the beginning of the week, he is very clean.

One of the activities that happens during the week is the woman's pull. The men are all shipped off to go to war with the Mormon Battalion, and the women have to pull their handcarts by themselves. And of course it involves a long, steep hill.......

Then the men, dressed as angels, come to the rescue and help to get all of the hand carts up to the top of the hill. Here is my 'flying angel' coming to the rescue.

And finally, here is is, just chillin' with friends.

Okay, next is Nathan. He has had a very adventurous year, going to Japan, build boats, hiking all over Washington state and right before school started, he spent two weeks in Costa Rica. Here are a few pictures, sorry they are so small, I stole them off of his Facebook sight.

He spent the first week by himself, just going all over. He visited Montezuma, ate lots of rice and beans and didn't get robbed or sick. (You know I always worry, it is my job!) The second week, two of his friends from school met up with him and they did some more sight seeing. He zip-lined through the forest, played on the beaches and just had a fabulous time!

Just last weekend, he went with some friends to Zion's National Park in Utah. He got some gorgeous shots of the canyons and of course had a great time!

And then we had the 2nd Annual Olsen family reunion with all of my brother's and sisters. One of the things we forgot to do is get one big group picture, we were all together on Saturday at Lagoon, except for my brother-in-lay, Brian and Erik. Oh well, we will remember next year. Here are a few random shots.

My sister-in-law Kate and my sister Kathy. Both Katherine Olsen, funny huh?

My sister Becky and I.

Here is our family, minus Erik, of course. It was fun to have us all together! Only 5 more months and we will all be together again! yipee!!

One of my favorite pictures, Jay, Dad and Ken. For those of you don't know, there are 7 kids in my family. Ken is the oldest, then there are 5 girls, then Jay is the youngest. Ken was 21 years old when Jay was born, so needless to say, they weren't really raised together.

And finally, we spent the day at Lagoon in Salt Lake City. Here are my children, begging to be let out. Actually, we were getting ready to eat lunch and they just wanted me to hand their clothes to them over the fence and Grandpa couldn't resist snapping a picture.



All in all, it was great summer. Now here's to a great fall!