Our Summer So Far.....

First of all I can't believe we only have one more week left in July. This summer has flown. We haven't done anything quite as exciting as last summer. Our summer has consisted of a trip to the dinosaur park, lots of visits to various parks, swimming (one of my favorites this year), and swimming lessons.
A new thing this year is that Ben has taken up running. He ran a "The Dam Race" up in Mantua last weekend, it's a 5 mile race around the lake. He did really well for his first race he places 24th out of 200. Then this morning he ran a 5K right here in Tremonton and came in 3rd in his class (15th overall). Jarrett rode his bike in the same race and came in 3rd. Next weekend Ben will do the 5K in Garland for Wheat and Beet days, then in the middle of September he is going to do the Top of Utah run in Logan. That's something new for us.
I thought I would do a quick overview of our summer up to this point. Not a lot happened in June, so we will skip right to the 4th of July. We spent it with Ben's family in Riverside. They do a little family reunion of sorts, you go up the night before and are supposed to camp out on Pete and Dari's lawn(thankfully I have gotten out of that every year). Then the next morning they have a breakfast with a softball game following. Then you get to entertain yourself for the rest of the day until about 4 when the big parade starts. This year they had a theme for our float and it was a rock band theme. Then we went to the park and had some hamburgers. At dark we watched fireworks. (They were better than other years.)
The next event was Little Valley Days in Mantua last weekend. We started at 7:00 am with Ben's run, then the kids stayed with my mom for the parade while Ben and I went to Madalyn Fletcher's funeral. What do you say when she was only 2 1/2 and had suffered so much this past year. I have never understood why a child has to suffer like she did and to watch Terrell and Trish has been heart wrenching. Our heart and prayers go out to them and their boys. At least we have the knowledge that Maddy is in a better place free from her pain. After the funeral we headed back to my mom's. There my brothers, sister-in-law, Jarrett, Isabelle, McGregor, and Ben played on the slip-n-slide. They had a ton of fun. Later we cooked and ate a dutch oven dinner, then at dusk we roasted marshmallows and watched some dang good fireworks from my parent's back yard.
This week we celebrated Jodi's birthday with her. She came a stayed a couple of days. My kids love when Grandma Jodi comes. Today we will celebrate the 24th with a pool party at Curtis's and eat some smoked turkey and pork.
It has been a normal summer, but we have had some good times. We are now getting ready for Jarrett to start his first season of tackle football. Isabelle will turn 6 next Saturday, McGregor will be 3 on the 31st, and in the next 6 weeks we will finally get to meet our new member to our family. Which leads me to this poor boy's name. We don't have one and would love some suggestions. If anyone has one please let us know.