June Update

Before we plunge ahead into the very busy month of July, I wanted to share a bit about the first part of our summer!

Right at the beginning of summer, Josh participated in his first bike race:  the 30 mile Ride the Gap.  He came in third place overall (almost 2nd place!) and beat his own personal record by four minutes!  We were so proud of him.

As soon as he had his bike parked and shower taken, we hit the road for our first family summer adventure to Park City.  We have never been to this part of our state and the beauty captivated us like so many other wonderful places in Utah!

We took a road trip over the mountains and into Wyoming one day - the views were spectacular.  There was still up to 10 feet of snow pushed to the sides of the road, with lots of people riding snow mobiles and skiing - in June!!!

The boys thought it was fun to wear shorts in the snow and not be cold!

We stopped for a picnic lunch and some nature finds along the way.

Wyoming was a new state for all four boys!!

The next day we visited Utah Olympic Park, where Jack and Josh took a ski lift up the mountain and came down on a Zipline over the Olympic ski slopes!  We also got to visit an Olympic museum, where the boys took their turns on a virtual ski slope, saw Olympic medals and other neat things.  We also got to watch as an international Olympic freestyle ski team practiced their jumps, landing in to the pool!  It was awesome! 

After the Olympic Park, we stopped at an historic farm that has been preserved by the city.  The boys instantly declared they wanted to live there!  The grounds were just beautiful.

Sarah arrived shortly after our trip, and the boys (as usual) took no time at all welcoming her back and including her in the everyday moments of our family life! 

To celebrate Josh's birthday and Father's Day, we spent an entire day at our favorite place:  Yankee Meadows.  The little boys played in the mud, collected water bugs and butterflies and were completely happy while Daddy took the older boys to play war in the forest and Mom and Sarah read books.  It was a perfect day.  Just two days later, this part of our summer would be drastically altered.  (More below.) 

One of the things that has defined this summer so far has been our involvement in sports.  We have not really had the boys participate in official team sports up until this year, as we really believe it is most beneficial for little ones to just swim and throw balls and run around with their parents and siblings.  But Jack has shown significant interest and ability in sports, so we've happily allowed him to pursue a few of them.  

While all the boys love to be in the water, Jack decided to join out parks and rec swim team.  It is a small group of kids who race against their own times each Thursday.  Jack is the youngest on the team and keeps up with almost all of them, swimming up to 40 laps each practice!  He's already improved on his times and has shown his Mommy's natural inclination toward backstroke!  :-) 

The other sport that has dominated our summer evenings has been baseball.  I grew up watching my brothers both play baseball, and I still find it to be one of the most interesting sports to watch.  Josh also played baseball, so seeing our own boys play was quite an experience.

Jack has waited to play baseball for a few years.  This year he was in the 7-8 year old machine pitch league.  He loved every minute of it!  He also quickly proved to be one of the best players in his league, not simply because of his natural ability as an athlete, but because of his willingness to learn from his coach, work hard, encourage other teammates, etc.  We are so proud of him.  Since he showed up to practice with Josh's old first baseman's glove, the coach stuck him at first base and he did an amazing job!

We are also SO PROUD of our George!  He has not shown much interest in sports and is extremely introverted, so being in large groups of other kids is not something he usually chooses to do.  But he asked to do T-ball and he stuck with it the entire season!  He showed great enthusiasm and learned much about working as part of a team, as well as the rules and mechanics of baseball.  He's already said he might like to try machine pitch next year!

We are also so proud of the siblings who patiently and enthusiastically made up the cheering section for their brothers!  They braved the intense evening sun (armed with Gatorade) and did a great job of cheering on whoever was playing.  

Perhaps the thing that has most dominated the month of June for us has been the Brian Head fire.  It began on June 17th, reportedly when a cabin owner on the mountain chose to use a weed torch.  The fire quickly spread, and as of this posting, it has consumed nearly 70,000 acres of the beautiful land we have come to love.

During the first week, it was unclear whether or not winds might push the fire in our direction, so there was preparatory talk of evacuations.  Our town was never among those evacuated, but it has been a focal point for the fighting of this monster fire.  Our library was turned into a Red Cross station.  The Incident Command Post was down the road from us and the boys watched as fire trucks from Montana, Idaho, Nevada and Utah poured into our town.  Fire fighting helicopters have flown tirelessly back and forth for days over our house.  Evacuees from other towns and communities have moved into our area.  And the smoke has dominated our landscape for over two weeks.

Each morning, we race to the window to see if the smoke plumes have diminished and check the new incident reports.  By the afternoon, we are disheartened to see new plumes of smoke rise in new areas....or in areas we thought had been contained.  We know that our beautiful Yankee Meadows was right in the middle of the fire - and parts of it are still burning.  This has been a sad, sad time for all of us who love this area.

Here are a few photos of the progression of the fire from our perspective.  The first picture is on the first day of the fire.

Driving into town gave a whole new perspective on the expansiveness of the fire.

Our town has shown amazing support for the fire crews.  Every storefront on Main Street has been painted with a different sign to thank firefighters.

Please pray that the fire will soon be 100% contained, and that we might get some rain in the forecast.  High temperatures, extremely low humidity and high winds have made for disastrous conditions.  Additionally, much of the forest had been ravaged by the spruce beetle since the 1990s, leaving masses of dead trees to serve as fast fuel for the fire.   Conditions could not be much worse.  But despite this, no lives have been lost or harmed by the fire.