Gymnastics Meet

 Tessa had her first gymnastics meet on Saturday. Her gym did a meet just for their own students, which I think is an awesome way to help the gymnasts learn how a meet works in a low-pressure environment. They learned how to salute the judges, cheer for each other, and how to perform with a crowd watching. Tessa did such a great job! Her first event was floor.

She was frustrated with messing up on her "vault." She jumped too early, which made it so she didn't land correctly on the springboard. Her flat-back on the mat afterward was great though.

Next she did bars, and did well on that. Bars are her favorite event.

And her last event was beam. She rocked her beam routine!! Her form was so good, and she was able to do a more challenging routine than most the rest of her level. 

Because of her disappointment with the vault routine, she didn't think she would earn a medal. But her scores were high enough on the other events that she earned 1st place in the all-around for her level. It was adorable to see her excitement when they called her name!

She is very proud of her gold medal. We're all very proud of her too. She works hard at class and practices at home, and it is paying off. She's learning and progressing, and loving it!

Arizona Part 2

 Lori made tie dye shirts with all the kids. She is such an amazing host! We all felt at home there, and really appreciated all the fun things she had planned, the yummy food she prepared, and that she and Matt opened up their home to all of us...at the same time. :)

On Monday we went to brunch at The Henhouse. They have huge, yummy pancakes that were more than enough to feed us all. It was pretty crowded inside, but luckily the weather was pleasant and so we were able to eat outside.

After brunch, we headed over to Feed My Starving Children.

We got to put together meal packets to be sent to communities where children are under-nourished. It was such a cool atmosphere, working alongside people who are all there giving their time to help people around the world. 

After learning about their mission and how to assemble the meals, we all got to work. They turn on music, and everyone has a job. It was a really fun and fulfilling way to spend the afternoon!

Everyone would yell out their count whenever they would complete a whole box of meals. The teenagers filled 22 boxes (with 36 bags in each box)!! They had an awesome rhythm going, and were quite proud to be the team that filled the most boxes. :)

After cleaning up our stations, we all gathered to say a prayer over the boxes before they are shipped out. They have a very high rate of success for their shipments actually getting to where they're supposed to, and they believe that God has a part in that as a result of the prayers that are said over every box.

Tuesday was Al's birthday, and I tried to help her have a nice day by staying outside with the kids so she didn't have to be out in the heat. :) They swam all day, and it was fun to be out there with them.

The adults went out to dinner at Freddy's to celebrate Al's birthday, which was a lot of fun. I love to visit and laugh with my siblings!

We had such a great time in Arizona. We watched movies (some of them I stayed awake through and some I didn't :), Matt took us for a ride in their Tesla (the kids want us to get one now:), and enjoyed each other's company all week. Thank you so much Matt, Lori, Elena, and Cody for letting us take over your house and for all the fun we had! 

Arizona

 We flew out to Mesa to visit Matt & Lori last Friday.

Al & Mel and their families went too, so it was quite a party! Everyone was excited to play in their pool on Saturday. It was 115 degrees over the weekend, so the pool felt amazing!

We were up super late Friday night and then swam all day Saturday, and it wore the kids out! They slept well that night!

We also went to a Flea Market Saturday morning and each picked out something we liked from one of the stalls. Damon loves his bubble machine, Rockwell found a marble penguin, Tessa chose a stuffed dog, and I got a hummingbird Arizona shirt. Paul didn't find anything that he wanted that would fit in our suitcases on the flight home. :)

Sunday was Father's Day, and Lori had a fun game of Guess Who The Dad Is. :) Paul, Matt, and Keith were behind the sheet and would answer questions using a voice-changer while we tried to figure out who was who. The kids thought that was a lot of fun, and wanted turns behind the sheet too.

We were able to listen to Matt speak in church over Zoom, and spend some more time in the pool.

We all fell in love with Maizy while we were there. She is such a sweet dog!

Fifth Water Hot Springs

 Mel asked if we wanted to hike to Fifth Water Hot Springs in Diamond Fork Canyon with her and Ataiya and Amarie. It's a 5 mile roundtrip hike to some natural hot springs. Rockwell and I wanted to go, and Wyatt was able to come with us too. We started on the trail at 7:30 am so we could avoid the heat of the day. We glanced at the map at the beginning of the trail, and headed on our way. I never knew there was red rock so close to us. It was a combination of red rock and green landscape and it was beautiful.

Turns out, we were on the wrong trail here too. There were enough things along the way that made us think we were on the right path based on the comments from the AllTrails app. But we definitely weren't. Again though, it was beautiful and peaceful on this trail, and we all enjoyed the hike. Luckily Mel was able to let a couple other groups know on the way down that it wasn't the trail to the hot springs and saved them a few extra miles of hiking. We all felt like we had driven all this way and really wanted to see the hot springs, so when we got back down to the parking lot, we found the other trail and headed back up for another 5 miles. :) 

This trail followed the river most the time and it was beautiful as well.

The boys started complaining about the smell and I told them we must be getting close if it was stinking. They looked at me like I was crazy. Haha! (That was one of the signs on the other trail that made us think we were getting close there. The smell ended up being cow poop all over the trail though. Gross!) The hot springs smell like sulphur. It's pretty crazy that the water is super hot out in the middle of the mountains.

There were a bunch of different pools you could soak in. It was really slippery in the water and crazy hot, but really awesome too. It was such a different destination than I've ever hiked to before.

We made our way downstream, and each pool got cooler the further away from the waterfall we got.

This last pool was their favorite. It was deep enough to swim in and had the coolest temperature.

I was so proud of Rockwell and Wyatt for hiking 10 miles! Both trails were steep, so it wasn't an easy 10 miles. They did great, and I'm so glad they were there with us.