It's all about the culture

At the beginning of last week we had to say goodbye to Will and June.

Jameson loved having them around for a couple of weeks and tried to hug June several times in her car seat before they left.  He referred to them both as "JuneWill".

 "JuneWill at Grandma's house?" 
"I want to play with JuneWill."

 Sorry buddy, it will be awhile before we see them again. Soon they will be heading back home to China.

There is an opera festival in our area every summer and performers fly in from all over the country to appear on stage right here in our local community.  The talent really is amazing and people travel from far and wide to attend.  The last few years I've taken the kids to a matinee of one of the shows playing.  Only one of the four shows in the festival is a true opera, the rest are musicals.  We always get the cheap seats but its good for the kids to get a little culture in their lives.  Last year Britton, Jenna, Korinne and I went to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".  This year we got to see Les Miserables.

 

The kids really enjoyed it and I felt the company did a great job.  They didn't have a revolving stage, however, so it was a little different in the staging.

 

On Friday night Adam and I were invited to go and see Oklahoma by someone that Adam does business with.  He brought his wife and also invited my parents since he also does some business with my Mom, too.  I had never seen Oklahoma and didn't know anything about the story line.  The acting was superb so even though some of the songs were sung just a bit too opera-ee for me, I really enjoyed the show.  We even got some free Aggie ice cream during the intermission which was definitely a pleasant surprise.

My sister Heather and her kids rolled into town on Friday just in time to go to the Friday matinée of Les Miserables.  On Saturday we had a full day of hanging out, hiking, swimming and we even hit the county fair!  The kids love it when the cousins come to town.

 

 I took Heather on her first bike ride. I think she liked it.

 The kids couldn't get enough of the dress-ups.

J-mo's always ready to cheese it up. 

 

We love having a canyon 1 mile from our house.

 

Crossing the stream to get to the hiking trail.

Adam is always a good sport when it comes to hiking with Jameson.

Setting up for the picnic.

 

Nothing better than a picnic in the mountains.

 

 

Jameson decided it was a little cold, but he liked having his shoes off.

The party continued when we headed out to the county fair that just happened to be running.  Grandpa surprised the kids by giving them each $5.00 to spend however they wanted.  In the end only Korinne used some of her money to buy a carmeled apple.  Everyone else decided to save the money for another time.  Grandpa is a genius, no one asked for a single thing the entire time we were there! :-)

 

Who needed to buy anything when they were giving out creamies and otter pops at the booths?  Jameson had so many treats he ran out of hands to hold them.  In his book it was the best. fair. ever.

 

He especially liked the sheep, and his green balloon, of course.

 

They headed home after sacrament meeting on Sunday so it was short but sweet. 

 

On Monday I went down to SLC for a few hours to see 2 of my really good friends from high school, Christy and Emily. Christy was in town from Boston.

 

 

 They don't do facebook or blogs or other social media so unless we get together every few years it is hard for us to stay connected. They are what you call "low maintenance friends", meaning that no matter how long it has been since we've seen each other we still have a lot to talk about and we can easily pick up right where we left off.  Low maintenance friends are the best. 

Can't believe it's been over 20 years since our x-country days.  We have a lot of great memories together.