Dear friend,
July was jammed packed with adventures.
We celebrated our dear friend Jennifer Wilcox's retirement.
We enjoyed a gorgeous day at Naragansett Beach.
We enjoyed a delightful day with friends picking strawberries and peaches and making homemade jam.
We celebrated Boyd's 11th birthday.
We celebrated Smith's 11th birthday.
I can't believe they are about to start middle school.
I held a "Conversion Stories" fireside for my youth class and their families.
It was fascinating to hear so many cool stories; I think we'll do it again.
We celebrated America's independence with fireworks over the sound.
Summer was officially diagnosed with extreme allergies to everything outdoors.
We enjoyed a little time at home. 
Smith is my naturalist; he likes to sketch things and design projects. He likes rocks and magnets and is currently building a lot of miniature figurines of things used in medieval battlefields.
It not uncommon that Summer is working on a larger craft project using a hot glue gun or her sewing machine. Crafting is a release for her and she likes to sketch new outfit designs and create things with her hands.
Boyd is still really into origami. He is proud of his writing assignments and is constantly impressing us with new origami creations.
I had to take pictures of the kids' desks because I think they are pretty representative of them at this stage of life. Rose is still obsessed with dogs. She loves cuddly things and small trinkets.
Joy is in an artistic stage; she has loved these "paint by sticker" pictures and she loves little boxes and making slime.
Corie's family came out the week before Joy's baptism and we did sports camps together. Carolyn was at FSY, but Summer and Claire did volleyball camp, Smith and Peter did football camp, Boyd did tennis camp and Joy and Rose did basketball camp. The camps weren't amazing but we had a lot of fun with the rest of the time we spent together. Nana and Grandpa Peter joined us on Thursday.
The highlight of the month was Joy's baptism. We are obsessed with this kind, beautiful girl and are so thrilled with her decision to be baptized.
Two days later we hit the road and headed out west. Elias had to travel for work so this was my first year driving both ways on my own with the kids.
The drive couldn't have gone better.
We met up with Elias at Deer Valley in Park City where he was attending a conference. The kids and I enjoyed the pool and then felt so cool as we spied Elias in a meeting. We are so proud of him.
They had a pool staff that would come around to offer us small smoothies, frozen grapes or dry towels. They were all very kind and it was more attention from a hotel staff than any of us had experienced before. It was funny to see the kids' reactions to such a nice hotel.
Rose was her normal self, she was just obsessed with all the beautiful dogs there. "This is my favorite hotel! It has the best dogs!" She was bouncing from one hotel guest to the next, asking to pet their dog.
Summer was stressed out. "This place is too nice for us! Rosie keeps going up and talking to everyone!"
Smith said, "This place seems really nice...like I shouldn't climb on anything."
Boyd said, "I don't like how they are treating us like babies. They laid out our towels for us and they offer us baby smoothies and five grapes in a baby cup. It's weird."
And then there was Joy, who said multiple times, "I LOVE this place! I feel like my true self here."
There was a moment at the pool where Rose was looking for Smith and she went up to a couple of women whom we hadn't met and asked, "Do you know where my brother Smith went? He's 11 and has blue shorts and handsome hair." They got a kick out of that.
Kevin and Jeannie were so kind and watched the kids that night so I could stay at the hotel with Elias.
The next morning Elias and I joined everyone at Gram and Grandpa's new home to get ready for the big Erickson Reunion.
The reunion was a blast! It was so fun to catch up with everyone. We missed Kate and her family.
We stayed in Utah an extra week to spend time with Gram and Grandpa, visit with friends and enjoy so many wonderful things that only Utah has to offer. We saw the Day of 47 parade and Jeannie's friend gave us a tour of the Relief Society administration offices.
We were maybe slightly over-ambitious when we decided to hike Mount Timpanogos. It was 17 miles and it took us 14 hours but we made it to the summit and it was an unforgettable hike! Elias carried Rose for maybe a mile on the way down because it was pretty dangerous, but other than that, everyone did it all on their own! I am so proud of these kids. It was hard.
We enjoyed one more relaxing day with Gram and Grandpa and then we drove over to Tober.
Nana and Grandpa Peter met us there and we enjoyed a weekend of our favorite activities before the party started.
Corie was in charge of the reunion this year and she hosted an absolutely EPIC cousins camp! For two days the older cousins had challenges and activities all based on Gordon B. Hinckley's book "Standing for Something." It was mind-blowing. Nana, Grandpa and I got to stay and help and I'm so grateful I did. Elias and Matt enjoyed some cool hikes.
The rest of the family joined us at Tober and the older kids all served us dinner and then put on some performances for us. They were a riot!
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