Hodge Podge

They had a cowboy-themed stake dance recently, and I thought Kendra and Ryder looked so cute for it!

With Melisse.  Kendra borrowed the hat from Wylan, who actually lives on a farm

McKinley, Luci, and Kendra

Ryder was thrilled to get to bring home this leftover root beer!

I feel like the handkerchief really makes the costume.  (Ryder's cowboy hat was a gift from Wylan to Camille; it was nice of Camille to let him borrow it!)

Brittney and I carpooled to book club and discovered that we'd dressed so similarly, with our soft greens and purple crocs!!!

Temple date!

We couldn't decide if we should focus on the flowers...

...or the building and sunset?  It's all pretty!!!

I mentioned once to Kendra that seeing bales of hay always makes me happy (that's not just me, right?), and she took note and convinced her siblings to all chip in with her to buy these for Craig and me for our birthdays!!!

Mine is the happy one.  But if I'm feeling grumpy, I can turn it upside down!

We had our annual Summer Party at the Snow's and it was the same hit it always is!  

Camille was excited to see the horses (I should explain-- this is where Wylan lives!  So he's actually a legit cowboy!)

I didn't get video of this, but Ryder's friends managed to get him spinning as he went down the slip and slide!  It was surprisingly impressive!

Ember, Jadyn, Kendra, and Lilyann

Luci was smart enough to NOT go down the slide, but she and Kendra appreciated that their swimsuits matched!

They aren't kidding when they call them "blades" of grass!!!

Camille and Peter enjoying all the soap at the bottom!

And while we were there, Bentley was off at King's Dominion with a bunch of other boys from the stake-- he totally blew off his last day of work before moving to Seattle, and I couldn't even blame him!

Camille having fun at Activities Days (which I think is now called Valiant Activities?  I dunno, I can't keep up with all the name changes...)

Sarah and I rewarded ourselves for surviving our first week teaching seminary by going to the temple!

Just hanging out with the chickens!

I had seminary training in DC on a Saturday morning, so Adam offered to take Colton and Camille to the farmer's market while I was done-- he sent the cutest pictures!

With the Holbein kids, Carter, Emma, and Hazel.  I DIE over how cute Hazel is with her popsicle there!!!

They're all so colorful together!

Kendra and Ryder have been busy with marching band-- here they are in their costumes, looking so dapper!

Kendra is one of two drum majors, which is very exciting, but also logistically complicated...

Kendra about to start the show, Ryder is up front on the xylophone

And now Evan, the other drum major, has taken over.  You can see Ryder playing trombone to the left of him, and Kendra on his right playing bass drum

And the moon looked cool, too!

That's probably enough for now-- I'm sure I'll have more to share soon!

One Last Hike for the Summer

The youth managed to squeeze in a planning breakfast, followed by a hike, before school began!  I was bummed that I couldn't go along, but someone needed to stay home with Camille, and I felt like I was already sort of stepping on the new presidency's toes by going to YWs Camp, so showing up for their planning breakfast would have just been way too much.  

So I stayed home with Camille and missed everyone hiking to and enjoying the natural water slides of Whiteoak Canyon!  One of our YM, Sawyer, wasn't allowed to get his feet wet (I think surgery from ingrown toenails or some other fun thing?), so Craig handed him his phone and told him to take lots of pictures and videos and he did!!!  I'm only including the ones of my family, but we ended up with a TON of pictures from the day!

By all accounts it was not the easiest of hikes!

Here goes Kendra:

And I'm pretty sure that this is Craig!

And here goes Colton!

Not many of the women attended, but here's Ember, Jadyn, Luci, and Kendra being cute

Here's Ryder looking very tired

And Kendra looking psycho

And Colton and Calvin looking like twins!

I'm glad they had such a great time, even if I was sad to miss out!  However-- Craig was complaining about having a sore tailbone for several weeks after, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise...

Young Men's Camp as Told by Colton (That Cool Guy Who Everybody Knows and Wishes They Could Be)

What's up, everyone, it's the best Smith-- Colton! Mom told me to write about camp so here I am. I was sharing a tent with my friend Calvin which was great because a) he's a great friend and b) he brought a battery-powered fan that was pointing at us all night. So it was a great choice sharing with Calvin. On the first day we got into our battalions (the theme for the battalions was "Important Places in Doctrine and Covenants" and my battalion was Ohio😑😑) then we went to different mini-stations. One station was first aid and you had to practice picking people up and carrying them to the water tower and back. Now, because I was one of the "not so big guys" I had to be picked up and then my Dad did the firemen's carry on me, too. So that wasn't one of my favorites. 

Ooh, that was awkward😞

That night we had Philly cheesesteaks and Brother Herring brought this delicious puppy chow for dessert. And then Camille and her friend Peter showed up:

Don't know what that goober was doing here?

We played some "Werewolf" (basically Mafia) and then it was lights out. The next day we had waterfront, which was just kayaking and paddle boarding. Me and Calvin decided to share a paddle board. I would joke about falling in but then that joke went too far and I actually did fall in! 😄 After that we had archery which was a LOT harder than it looks. Especially cuz halfway through they put stuffed animals on the target-- my stuffed animal was a wolf with these really puffy cheeks and the cheeks were so big that the arrow bounced off of the wolf! It felt weird to be celebrating finally impaling the wolf after so many times that it bounced off... I just might be a psychopath. 

Me looking so cool with my bow and arrow

Then we had Combat which I thought was actually a really cool lesson. It was like, first the guy in charge asked us if we could choose the side with a 100% chance of winning would we choose it? And obviously we all said Yes. Then he split us up into two teams: one side could only stay on their side, the other could move onto both sides if they wanted. And then he told the second side that the only way they could win is if they all stayed alive while the first side could only win by killing every one on the second side. It seemed like an easy plan, but then he gave the kids on the second side way cooler weapons, which of course made them want to use them! So they kept getting close to the line to use their weapons. But then we would kill them and they would lose. We battled for a while and then when we were done, he asked us why we lied? Then he explained that we could have won if we just stayed far from the line! And then he said that it's kind of like the real world, where people won't pass the line but they will get close and then before you know it, you're fully on the bad side! But all we need to do is just stay far, far away from that line and then we can absolutely win. It was a complicated lesson to explain in writing but I just thought it was so good, I don't want to forget it.

Ryder fighting Truman in a one-on-one battle

Anyway, our next activity was battalion time where I just napped in one of the hammocks and then stole borrowed Calvin's pocket knife and whittled. I was so exhausted at that point that my nap felt sooooooooooo good. After battalion time it was dinner-- also very good-- and then we had ward time where we had to make some pioneer thing which we all decided to make a raft which was actually pretty fun!

Gideon and Truman trying out the raft

Giving the thumbs up while the raft is half-sunken😂

The next day we had axe throwing, which was the one I was most excited for. They had axes, shovels, and spears to throw, and you would not believe how hard it was to throw those spears!  You basically had to throw them like a paper airplane, but it's like a 15-pound paper airplane! I kept messing up.

It's hard to see the axe in the picture, so I circled it in yellow for you

They also had a thing where you could try on armor. I didn't really want to do it, so here's a picture of Calvin doing it so instead:

Calvin's the one with the beard (No, I'm joking😁)

Then we had service where we picked a bunch of invasive weeds which I did not know was a weed because it is the only kind of grass that we have in our back yard. Embarrassing! But yeah, I don't have pictures, so just know this it was hot that day.

Then we had the egg drop challenge, but instead we had to drop the egg bare and build some sort of cushioning on the bottom. Ours worked really well and we were about to do the final drop when I said we should add one more piece of paper to our landing pad just in case. Oh, and by the way, we did this multiple times and it worked, we just still had to pass it off. So, yeah, we add a piece of paper to cushion it, and that was the one time that the egg bounced out and cracked. So I was kind of quiet for the rest of that activity...

 

Our final activity for the day was battalion time again and I had another great nap in the hammocks. Also, we found the guy you need to talk to to get free Propell packets (flavor packets you dumped in your water)! Then it was dinner and then the skits which were... um... well, it was something! We had one with a duck that took over the world and some that you couldn't even hear what they were saying, so... About the usual when you get a bunch of teenage boys to do skits. 

I didn't really understand what was happening in this skit but I thought it was funny how Ryder was yelling at everyone. Then we had some people talk and then a short testimony meeting. Well, no they said it was gonna be short, but it was like three hours long and near the end I kind of felt like this:

Save meeeeeeeeeee is probably what I was thinking at the moment

Then we went to bed and woke up on our last day of camp, which was just stations. There was one station at the gaga ball pit where the guy was talking about how his daughter wanted to do three pull ups in a row and every day right before she tried to do one, she would shout IN THE STRENGTH OF THE LORD and then she would try with all her might, and day-by-day she got better and better until she was finally able to get three in a row! And then he let us play gaga ball for a little bit and then we cleaned up and left and trust me-- when we got home it was so great to be able to sleep without worrying about daddy long legs in my blankets.

Also, Charlie is the best:

What a cutie patootie!