Books, Birthdays, Cannons, and Catch-up

I have quite the catching up to do on my blog! This past week has been consumed with finishing my Zion book, but . . . I DID IT!!!! I finished the book on Friday at 5:00 p.m.--which is the exact moment it was due :-) Two of the main things I learned at graduate school were 1) how to read very fast and 2) how to successfully finish a project at the last minute--literally. It feels great to have the book finished. I will get the page proofs in a few weeks, which I will then look over and make any changes that need to be made, then after that we just wait for the book to be printed. They're planning to have the books ready to sell in December, which will be cool!

As far as catching up goes, I never had a chance to write about Father's Day! We had a great time here last Sunday with the whole family. As you can see, Sidney especially enjoyed the festivities. We had a delicious grilled salmon dinner to celebrate our favorite dads. I am so grateful for my dad--he's the greatest dad in the whole world!!! He's also a wonderful grandpa, and all of his cute granddaughters love him very much, as do I! Nate and Joel are great dads too.

Eliza, sporting her "I Love Daddy" onesie for the big day, also enjoyed the Father's Day fun.












The next celebration was Camden's #6 birthday! She is such a sweet girl, and I can't believe how big and grown-up she is. Lindy whipped up a tasty dinner for Camden's family party yesterday, and the girls loved the pinata--which was, very appropriately, a fingernail polish bottle :-) Here's Riley taking a big swing--watch your knees, Nate!







Here's the birthday girl with her birthday "cakies"--birthday cake cookies. I am so grateful for all of my cute, cute nieces!








Yesterday I had the experience of participating in my first "History Adventure Camp" at Camp Floyd, for kids ages 8-12. There were 25 kids there, and the day was full of activities--including a Civil War battle. The best part was that I, decked out in my hoop skirt, got to fire the cannon (for real)! :-) First they give me a musket, then a cannon. What's next? Also this past week, on Tuesday, I helped out at Camp Floyd with a school group program. The program they have for schools is really neat and the kids get to make bricks and candles, learn how to march with a musket, learn about the Pony Express, and tour the park. Since we ran out of dresses that day, I got to dress up like an 1857 U.S. soldier! The only bad part about that was wearing wool when it was 95 degrees outside. It was a lot of fun though, and the kids bombarded the gift shop after the activities were through. We seriously sold $450 worth of stuff--most of which came from selling those crystal rock candy suckers. I think instead of going into the history field, I'm just going to open a crystal rock candy sucker store and get rich quick. :-) So, it's been a busy, eventful, and fun week!