June is the month for Strawberry Days, here in Pleasant Grove–the weekend when we all get together to celebrate our city. There’s a parade, 4 nights of rodeo action just down the road from us (this year there were even fireworks!), the children’s art show, and the carnival. In years past, we’ve done more–gone to the rodeo, sat out on Main Street to watch the parade–but this year we decided to take it easy and just go to the carnival. The kids were so excited and it was a great tool for bribery that whole week. “Okay, guys, go right to sleep so you can go to the fair on Saturday!” “All right, Amelie, stop whining so you can go to the fair on Saturday!” You get the idea. We had a fun afternoon at the carnival–just a couple of hours was plenty of time for our little ones to enjoy some rides. I love that they have each other and can do stuff like this together.

Cruisin' in their orange jeep.

On the dragon coaster. Calder looked a little nervous at first, but that didn't last long.

Journeying into outer space together.

Here's Amelie pointing to her entry in the children's art show. It's a drawing of, in her words, our house and us looking out the open windows and a rainbow and baby trees. I asked why the grass was black and she said that she did that to make the picture more colorful.

Oh, and by the way, I am now a member of the Pleasant Grove City Arts Commission! The mother of one of my violin students is the head of that commission and mentioned that they were looking for a couple new volunteers, so I sent in my application, got voted in by the city board, shook hands with Mayor Call, and went to my first meeting. We work to promote and support the arts in Pleasant Grove, including our various performing groups (the orchestra, the children’s choir, the theater troupe) and other artsy efforts. We’re even hoping to have our very own arts festival next year. It’s fun to be involved in the community and I look forward to helping improve the art experience in Pleasant Grove!

Just thought I’d share this cute little picture of Calder posing with his homemade Statue of Liberty torch from an activity we did one morning.

Little Boy Liberty.

Now whenever we see a picture of the statue in a book, he’s the first to yell, “The Statue of Liberty!”

We went to a great playground the other day and it had this fun “log” for the kids to climb up. Just in case you happen to be in American Fork, Utah and want to give this a shot, here’s a little tutorial:

Step 1. Approach log and figure out how to get on it.

Step 2. Continue ascent.

Step 3. Climb and try not to fall off.

Step 4. Approach summit.

Step 5. Glory in your triumph.

This is what happens when you try to photograph a 2 month-old who thrills in the fact that his limbs move. Or maybe it’s that his limbs move without his even knowing it.

Not quite the shot I was going for.

Blurry.

More blurriness.

Amazingly enough, his cuteness doesn’t seem to be diminished by blurriness. Guess we’ll keep him 🙂

This Saturday, Bryce ran his first marathon! Can you believe that? I mean, that’s 26.2 miles, people! I can’t even imagine running that far. I am so proud of him. He hit “the wall” around mile 22, but with the help of Brad and Brock (who also ran–way to go, brothers!) and his own determination, he pushed through and crossed the finish line.

I love this picture. Brotherly love.

Brock and Brad had great runs and felt like they could have kept running forever. Bryce's run was definitely hard, but he pushed on and made it.

It was a fun morning (well, at least for those of us that were only spectators) and such a huge accomplishment for these guys. They’re already dreaming of the next challenge and looking for races to register for!