Fathers' Day 2019

David's the best!  I love having a day to celebrate him

We spent the first part of the day spoiling David.  

Then, in the afternoon, we went to a park and had family photos taken.  It was the one day my parents were in town between the MTC and Vancouver, so Katie called a friend of hers who is a photoagrapher and asked if she'd be willing to take a few pics.

All-in-all, the photos weren't very cute. I mean, they were cute, but we weren't very cute.  😁 As David likes to say, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Here are a few:

After our little photo shoot, we headed over to Katie's house for a Fathers' Day celebration.

It's always fun to get together with our family!  

Elder and Sister Smith.

Kristin, Kelley, and Aunt Susan.

As we were leaving Katie's house, we saw one of the most spectacular sunsets of all time!  Pictures can't come close to doing it justice!  It was a special Fathers' Day gift from Heavenly Father.  

RAD Kids!

We signed our boys up for the RAD kids program again this year.  It is a class taught by Layton City police officers about the importance of staying safe.  They have lessons about internet and phone safety, fire, seatbelts, sexual predators, kidnapping, etc.  They learn several self defense tecniques and safe strategies. I am so impressed with the class!  For one thing, it teaches the kids that police officers are your friends.  That alone is a good reason to take the class. They also do a good job keeping everything at a kid level, but at the same time addressing the seriousness of the topics. And the kids learn things that will truly help them if they ever get in a bad place. 

As part of the graduation ceremony, the students demonstrate what they have learned.  One officer dresses up in full safety gear and the kids are allowed to practice their new skills on him.  It's an intense, but reassuring thing to see your kids fend off an attacker.

Bron and Josh are in the back row.  Our two neighbor friends that took the class with us are in the front row.

After the ceremony, with the officer. 

Our Cul-de-sac crew.  Don't mess with them!

I have spent too much time trying to figure out how to get these videos turned around.  I can't do it - you'll have to watch them sideways. 

Grandma and Grandpa Are Going Away On A Mission

What an exciting time of life for our family!  Grandma and Grandpa Smith had been called to serve a mission in Vancouver, Brittish Columbia. Thay were called to serve in the mission office with President and Sister Whalen.  We were thrilled for them (and also a little sad about missing them for 18 months).  They spoke in church on June 9th. Afterwards, they had a gathering of family and friends in Katie's backyard. Here are some pictures.

It was in the morning, so we held a little brunch. In this picture, I only recognize my cousin Jeff, my sister Kristin, and my brother Scott.

My parents visiting with some of their friends and neighbors from their old home in Farmington.

The Gee family table.  Go socialize, y'all!

Cute McKenna!!!

Let's see: Scott, Jeff, Payton, Megan, and Adam (on the chair).

I know most of these people, but do you need to hear all their names?  Just know that it's my extended family on my dad's side.

More extended family.  The first three are Rick and Julie's kids. The fourth is a husband (although he was a fiance at the time). 

My cousin Rick and his wife Julie (parents of the three siblings in the previous photo). They live in Layton.  They're amazing!  Behind Rick is my dad's little brother, Brian. Jeff is his youngest son.

I think Adam handled all the strangers in his yard super well! 

Quinton spent the whole time bouncing between the play set and the treats!  I'm not even sure how many he ate, but it was a LOT!

Our amazing hostess, Katie.

My dad and his baby brother.  These two are so funny when they get together!  

Jenny, Brian and Kristin.  

Panned out, you also see my Aunt Jody (Brian's wife), Aunt Linda from my mom's side, and Sarah.

Scott, me, Alison, and David.

Jim, Carolyn, Brian, and Jody Smith.

After a few hours, my kids were ready to leave.  I get that.  They're young and they didn't know many of the people there.  I wanted to stay, however.  So David drove the kids home, then came back to be with me.  I appreciated that. It was nice to spend as much time as possible with my family. 

In the afternoon, we went with my parents to their stake center, where they were set apart as missionaries.  It was one of the most special, loving, emotional and memorable experiences of my life.  I felt very bad that my kids had gome home because they missed out.  (However, it may not have been as spiritual if the rowdy boys had been there 😆).

And with that, my parents were missonaries!  They spent a week at the MTC in Provo, then came home for the weekend to pack their car and drive up to Canada.

Youth Conference 2019

Our ward went to Youth Conference at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah this year.  Alison had a job babysitting two or three days per week, so she was unable to attend, but Nicole went.

Ha ha!  She looks super uncomfortable in this picture. Back L-R: Olivia, Jade, Cassie Front L-R:Sis. Mertens, Nic, Breanna.

There were so many fun pictures taken by our amazing youth leaders.  I tried to only grab a few.

This looks liek a crazy game.  She's with Karlton, Jackson, and Cassie here.

This is the first of many pictures taken at the water games.

Batter up!!!

Crab soccer.

That's Nicole on the right slip-n-slide.

She makes it look easy, staring at the camera and posing!  But I can tell you from looking at all the other photos of the other kids that this was not easy!

She's so cool!  I wonder if she could slip-n-slide for a talent show some time!!!

More water games.

She's chasing Jade around the circle in some sort of duck duck goose game with a wet sponge.

One evening, they went to the Manti pagent. L-R: Breanna, Cassie, Jade, Olivia, Nicole

This was the very last year that the Manti pagent was playing.  I am glad she got to see it before it ended.

Here's a sad story.  They spent the entire day at this ropes course camp.  One of the first things they did was a kind of hard, scary looking one.  You had to jump off a platform and try to touch something dangling in the air.  None of the girls dared to do it EXCEPT Nicky.  Because she's awesome.

So she went up with the young men of our ward.  When it was her turn, something went wrong.  She swung her arms behind her to get some momentum for the jump and somehow the rope wrapped itself around her arm.  As she jumped, it tightened.  Miraculously, Nicole felt it and yanked her arm out.  She was told that if she hadn't done that, things could have been much worse!  As is was, she had a terrible rope burn all up her arm (both on her forearm and under the top of her arm, near the armpit).  It was pretty nasty.  So, poor Nicole spent most of the coolest day - the one she would have loved the most - in the medical tent.

Here she is just chillin.  Wishing she could crawl into a hole somewhere so that people would stop checking up on her and telling her how tough she is, etc.  That made for an interesting experience, but she'll always have the scars so she'll look pretty cool.