This was our last full week in the lower 48.  The summer has flown by so quickly.  I will admit, I am ready to go home, but I’m not quite ready to go back to work.  It’s always nice to have your own bed and your own living space.  Tim and I will be leaving Idaho on Tuesday morning.  We’ll spend some time in Washington and then head to Alaska on Thursday evening.  I can’t believe we’re already headed up for year 3.

This week Tim has been pretty busy with homework.  He worked all day Monday and Tuesday to finish some assignments that were due.  Wednesday he finished up the last of his work for one of his classes.  He has completed the whole class and earned himself a 100%.  Not bad.  He has one more assignment to finish up for his second class and today is the last day of the semester.  So he is almost finished.  He has worked really hard on his classes this summer.  The good news is that he has also really enjoyed his classes.  I take this as a really good sign that he has made a wise decision in his choice of Masters degree.  A few years down the road I think he’ll be able to find a job that he loves.

Monday we were able to spend some time with the Jensens, my sister Carmen’s family.  I started out the morning by swimming with Spencer and then came home and jogged with Carmen.  I played some pretty serious rounds of Disney Sorry with Aja and Anna.  I opted to sit out of the Littlest Pet Shop and Memory games though.  Later in the day, the Jensens went swimming while I ran some errands in Idaho Falls.  It’s so nice to just be able to go pick something up from the store when you need it.  That is something that I totally have taken for granted earlier in my life.  In just a week I won’t have that luxury anymore. 

For family night we went to the cemetery to visit the graves of my sisters and grandparents.  My mother told stories about them while we listened.  Not a bad night.  Thanks Carm for the suggestion for family night.

Tuesday morning we were able to have breakfast with the Jensens before they headed back to Seattle.  It was good to see them one last time before we return to Alaska. 

Tuesday evening Tim and I went to see a movie in celebration of him finishing his homework for the day and because we wanted to fit in a movie before the summer was over.  We went to see the Avengers.  I must not have been in much of a movie mood perhaps because it was kind of late.  I wasn’t too impressed.  It had been talked up a lot, but I didn’t think it was anything special. 

Wednesday Spencer and I went to do a practice swim for the last time this summer.  I don’t consider myself a very skilled swimmer, but I have improved a lot this summer.  I started out with only being able to do one length or one lap of the pool before I had to take a break.  I also couldn’t do more than 1 lap of front crawl in a row.  Wednesday I swam 300 yards twice and both times I did front crawl the entire time.  I 'm not fast, but I can do it.  Too bad I won’t see a pool again for 9 months.  Spencer is going to keep practicing and be able to cream me on the swim.

I finished up some last errands on Wednesday, including mailing a box to ourselves.  We try to do most of our shopping in Anchorage because the shipping within Alaska is subsidized, but occasionally we’ll pick up some things in the lower 48 that we need.  Most of the time, we pack suitcases inside of empty suitcases when we leave Alaska so we can buy stuff and come back with more.  I wasn’t that smart this time though, so we we had to mail a box home.  In Alaska you can mail a 70-pound box for roughly $23.00.  That’s not bad and it’s a good thing too when you’re mailing 9 months worth of groceries.  The box I mailed from Rexburg this week weighed 37 pounds and cost $42.00 to mail. 

Also on Wednesday I did a little bit of work for Alaska FSA (families supporting adoption).  I agreed to help out a little with the blog posts.  If you’re interested you can read the post I wrote.  I wanted to talk about some of the things we can do to move forward with adoption.  This post is particularly about opening your mouth: http://alaskafsa.blogspot.com/.

Thursday Spencer and I did our last training for biking.  We just did a short 6.5-mile ride.  Afterward I went for a run.  I did 1.7 miles in less than 13 minutes.  I figured that I could do the Layton Triathlon in about 1 hour and 23 minutes plus my transition times.  Competing in less than 1 hour and 40 minutes was definitely going to be doable.

Thursday evening I jumped a little bit with Sarah and Kathryn Mickelson and Evan Dunn.  It was fun to jump a little.  I’ve realized that I’ve lost a lot of the strength in my arms though.  My arms, sides, and ankles have been a little sore since then.  It’s amazing that I can do a triathlon and not get sore at all, but I jump for about 20 minutes and I’m sore for 3 days.  Sarah and Kathryn came over to my parent’s house afterward so we could eat some pizza together and hang out with Tim.  As always, they kept me up past midnight.  They never let me go to bed before midnight.

Friday morning Tim worked on homework, trying to get as much finished before we headed to Utah.  I went to the temple for one last time this summer.  I decided to do initiatories because I haven’t done them for years.  I was happy to have that experience.  I am going to make sure to do those more often.  Sometimes it seems like a given to do an endowment session every time you go to the temple, but I think it’s good not to forget the other parts as well. 

Friday Tim, Spencer, Emily (Spencer’s girlfriend), and I left for Lisa’s at about 3:00 pm.  When we got there she had our race packets picked up for us and dinner made.  She’s a great hostess.  All four of her kids, Spencer, and I were racing the next day, so the living room was full of race bags ready to go. 

We left for the race on Saturday morning just after 6:30 am.  Greg, Dani, Victoria, and Valerie showed up to the race to cheer us on.  It was fun to see them.  Spencer, Ethan, and I raced in the sprint distance (300 yard swim, 5.5 mile bike, 1.55 mile run, repeat).  Leslie and Anthony raced in the mini sprint (300 yard swim, 5.5 mile bike, 1.55 mile run).  Alex raced in the kids’ triathlon (100 yard swim, 1 mile bike, 0.44 mile run).  Spencer finished in 1 hour and 27 minutes and took 3rd place.  Ethan finished in 1 hour and 41 minutes and took first place.  I don’t know Leslie’s time, but she took 2nd place.  Alex finished his in 14 minutes and 35 seconds.  My time was not quite what I wanted.

My Race
My swim went all right.  I don’t know my time, but I think it was probably between 8 and 9 minutes, which I was expecting.  When I got out of the pool I just thought, "man, I really don’t want to get back in the pool again." Usually I push myself through the swim thinking that as soon as I’m finished swimming I don’t have to do it again and I get to bike.  But, on this race, we had to get back in the pool after we biked and ran. 

I got on my bike and started riding away.  I really wished that I had ridden the course before, because I didn’t like not knowing the route.  I was a little nervous about the route not being clearly marked.  (Lisa’s warnings of this race being poorly organized were worrying me.)  About a mile into the ride I was feeling a bit more confident about the directions, so I kicked it up a notch.  Then I came to a part where I was riding on a walking path and noticed ahead that bikers were on the road.  There was no way to cross over to the road but to ride over the weeds between the two.  I didn’t like the idea of riding over the weeds, but I didn't see any other options.  I passed a guy that was stopped to fix his flat tire.  Bummer. 

Soon I came to a T in the road and there were no arrows drawn on the road.  There was an orange cone in the middle of the road, but the sign was facing the other way.  I looked around for other bikers in hopes I could see where to go.  I saw Spencer riding toward me from the right, so quickly turned that way thinking he had reached the turn around area and was coming back.  He started shouting at me that it was the wrong way, so I turned around.  Spencer stopped to turn the sign around and we continued on.  Spencer even shouted at the next group of volunteers we saw that the sign wasn’t staying put, but he reported on his second bike around that the sign was blown backwards again and he had to stop and fix it a second time.  By this time, we were about 4 miles into the bike ride when I realized I had a flat tire.  I didn’t have any supplies to fix a flat.  I was totally bummed.  I wasn’t going to stop though.  I asked the nearest volunteer if they had anything to help me with, which they didn’t, but they leant me their phone.  I called Lisa and she said that she didn’t have anything either, but told me if I made it back I could use Leslie’s bike for my second bike ride.  So I decided to jog the rest of the bike route while pushing the bike.  It was only another 1.5 miles.  I knew that all hope of placing in the top three was gone, but I was going to make the most of it anyway. 

As I was jogging along, I came across another lady with a flat.  Turns out it was her first triathlon.  Her husband had bought her all the supplies she needed to fix a flat, but hadn’t taught her how to change it.  I stopped to help even though she protested that I would ruin my race time.  I just frankly told her I wasn’t going to be much of a racer with my own flat tire, so I might as well help her.  Thank goodness I watched Lisa change a flat a couple weeks earlier, because I hadn’t ever done it.  My memory wasn’t perfect so it took us awhile to figure it out, probably about 20 minutes.  She didn’t have a new tube, but she had some patches.  We got it all patched up and she filled it with her CO2 cartridge, but didn’t get her valve closed up before all the air leaked out again.  Darn.  Now what?  I told her she could jog the rest of the way with me, but she was wearing riding shoes.  About then a man pulled over on the side of the road and asked if he could help us out, “I’m not a creep,” he said, “I work at a bike shop.”  It was technically against the rules to accept help from someone outside of the race, but I figured since at this rate we were coming in last and second to last that no one would care much.  He replaced the tube in the lady’s tire and then she let us have some patches to patch up the tube in mine.  There were tons of thorns in my tire from the weeds I crossed over.  He patched it 3 times and wasn’t confident that it was going to stay inflated, but told me I could probably make it the 1.5 miles I had left.  Just then, the friend of the first lady stopped on her bike.  She was on her second time around, but also had a flat.  At that time the first lady and I took off while our bike shop man helped the third lady fix her flat. 

I told the first lady I just decided to switch to the mini-sprint.  I knew that most sprinters would be finished soon and I didn’t want to make hundreds of people wait while I did my second round.  It was a good thing too, because my tire was flat again before I made it the entire 1.5 miles back and Leslie’s tire on her bike was also flat.  I passed at least 4 other people that had flat tires before it was all said and done.  (In case you ever sponsor a race, do not create a route that goes over weeds with thorns!)  I put my bike up and went out to do the 1.55-mile run.  Of course, the path wasn’t marked well and pretty soon I was running completely in the wrong place, but I had no idea where the right place was, so I just kept running, thinking that maybe I could make my own loop back.  Truth is, I really had no idea where I was.  I passed some residences where the kids were playing outside.  They cheered me on and the dad asked if I was winning, which I replied, definitely not.  I crossed an intersection where we had biked and asked the officer stopping traffic if I was going the right way and he said he had no idea.  I ran on for a few more minutes and then I yelled to a biker asking if I was going the right way.  They stopped to give me directions.  (Which was very kind of them).  I turned around and jogged back the way I came, past the officer who said no other runners had come by him, past the kids that said no other runners had come by him, until I made it back to a spot where I had missed the turn and finally saw other runners.  I finished the run in about 23 minutes, which tells me that I ran about twice as far as I was supposed to.  I crossed the finish line instead of doing a second round and just told the people taking care of scoring that I had switched races.  I came in 6th in my age division.  I haven’t seen the official results yet, but I have a suspicion that there were only 6 racers in my age category. Needless to say, I’m very happy that I raced in the Stansbury Triathlon last week and that this was not my only race this summer.  I tried hard to stay upbeat about the whole thing, but I won’t be doing the Layton Triathlon again next year.  I will definitely look for a different race and invest in the equipment to change my own tire.

Check out pictures from the race: Layton Triathlon 2012

After the race we kept with Black tradition and  we went to eat at Burger King.  They were having some sort of party there.  Ice cream cones for $0.25 and free face painting.  I think they meant the face painting to be for the kids, but all us adults did it too.  They even had a wheel you could spin to get a prize.  Valerie won some cool bling: huge plastic gold chain and a burger king medallion.  Now, all I needed to do was win that bling and I would have a medal like Leslie, Ethan, Spencer, Anthony, and Alex.  I spun the well and got the square that said . . . “Loser”.  Well, uh, thanks for rubbing it in.  At least I got a butterfly painted on my face.

We got to hang out with Greg’s family and Valerie a little longer at the Black house before they had to take off.  Soon after dinner, Spencer, Emily, Tim, and I left for Logan to see our friends the Mickelsons.  I helped coach/mentor the jump rope team in Logan for a couple of years when I was in college.  The Mickelsons had four kids that were on the team at the time and they always let me spend the night at their house when I went down.  I spent a couple of nights a month with them for 2 years.  We were sad that their daughters weren’t there (they had to grow up and go to college and, in Emily Mickelson’s case, get married).  It was really fun to see JoAnn and Mick and the boys though.  I figured since Sarah wasn’t there I could go to bed early,  (her goal was to keep me up past midnight every night I was there even though we had early morning practice) but Mick made sure to keep me up until midnight since Sarah wasn’t there to do it herself.  (Way to make me fell at home Mick.)  This morning JoAnn made us scrabbled eggs and pancakes.  I felt spoiled.  We left by 9:00 am so we could make it back in time for church.  Now we're at my parent's house trying to soak up the last few minutes of family time with the Harts.  Next week we'll be writing from Togiak. 

    This week was pretty packed full.  Monday-Wednesday Spencer and I continued our training for the triathlon, but on Thursday we gave ourselves a day off, so our bodies could take a break before the actual race on Saturday. 
    Tim spent the beginning of the week working on his homework as usual.  He only has one week left of this semester.  It has gone by pretty quickly. 
    Tim also tried something pretty crazy this week.  He did a juicing diet.  I guess the purpose of the diet is to reboot your system, but it's also good for weight loss.  Basically, during the duration of the diet he's not allowed to eat any solid food.  He drinks water and vegetable and fruit juices.  He juiced all his fruits and veggies himself.  He'd been wanting to give it a try, so he figured he better do it before we went back up to Alaska to the land of no fresh produce.  He juiced for 5 days.  I couldn't believe how well he did.  He even came to the table at dinner times just to converse with the family.  I thought that would be great torture, but he handled it really well.  Good news is, in the 5 days he juiced he lost 13 pounds.  He will gain some of those back as he goes back to eating regular food again, but hopefully he'll only gain 3 or 4 pounds back.
    I think I mentioned before that this summer I'm trying to take advantage of being close to a temple.  My goal is to go once a week while it's close and accessible.  I never made it last week, so I made sure to go twice this week.  I went once with my mother early Tuesday morning and then went with Spencer on Thursday evening.  I think I appreciated having the temple nearby when I lived in Idaho, but now that the nearest temple is an $800 plane ticket away from my home I REALLY appreciate it.  After a couple months of not being able to go to the temple you definitely begin to miss it.
    This week I worked hard on some adoption things.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with adoption agencies, most cost between $25,000 - $40,000 per adoption.  LDS family services however costs between $4,000 - $10,000.  The big difference is most agencies search for you and do quite a bit of marketing specifically for the adoptive couples.  LDS family services does almost nothing, so it's really left up to the couple.  I feel like Tim and I have done a fairly good job of marketing ourselves, but this week I had an epiphany.  You saw our completed paper profile on our post from last week.  We spent hours and hours trying to make it just right (until finally we realized it was never going to be just right and it was time just to print it).  After pouring in all those hours of work I wanted to be able to utilize it a little more.  So, I thought, if this profile can go in the binder in the Seattle office, why can't it go in the binder in the other LDSFS offices as well?  So Tuesday I called every single LDSFS office in the United States.  In case you were wondering, there are 65 offices.  Several of them said they had no use for paper profiles, but several others told us to send some their way.  I spent quite a bit of time at the copy shop getting nearly 100 profiles printed up.  I spent time addressing and stuffing 30 envelopes and finally got them mailed out.  I know that binders don't get looked at too often, because the internet is so popular now, but I feel really good about getting this tangible information out there across the United States.  I even created a spreadsheet of what each office told me so that other adoptive couples can use it in the future.  Hopefully that will save some other people the trouble of making 65 separate phone calls.
    Tim and I have also been working on a project "how to invest our money".  If any of you have any mutual funds that you are particularly fond of (or not fond of) we would love to hear your opinion.  We're pretty excited though to be a little fiscally proactive. 
    Friday afternoon, Spencer, Tim, and I headed to South Weber to my sister Lisa's house.  Spencer, Bob, Lisa, and I went for a 12 mile bike ride and then went to get our race packets and body markings in preparation for the race the next day.  We left the house on Saturday morning at 6:00 am to head to Stansbury.  The race was much smaller than the one I did last year.  I only have one other triathlon to compare it to, so I'm not sure how normal it was or not.  I think there weren't much more than 200 people there.  Once you start dividing 200 people into Sprint and Olympic categories and then further into Male, Female, and Relay categories, it starts getting pretty small.  It gets really small when you further divide it into age categories. 
    Bob wasn't able to actually do the race.  He's been sick for over a week and was though it was well enough to do this race until he had swam about 1/4 of a mile and just couldn't breath at all.  On the bright side of things he got to cheer us on and I know it helped me bike/run faster.  Lisa raced in the Olympic and got 6th female overall.  There was quite a bit of mix-up with the awards, so we're not sure yet if she got 1st or 2nd in your age division.  Either way she did well.  Spencer got 2nd in his age division and I got 3rd in mine.  I was also the 12th female overall.  I definitely was expecting to place.  I just wanted to improve on my previous time: which I did.  I shaved 15 minutes off my race time from last year.  This course was different and probably easier, but I still was pretty happy with my race time.  Last year I did the side stroke on the entire swim, this year I did the front crawl on almost the entire swim.  Last year I walked part of the run, this year I ran the whole run.  So, I have no complaints.  It was a good day.  I also thought it was cool that 3 Hart siblings raced and 3 Hart siblings placed in their age divisions.
    Tim came to be our support team and photographer.  He got to sit around and wait for us to start racing, then sit around and wait for us to race, and then sit around and wait for the awards.  I'm sure there's more exciting things for him to do, but he's a good sport.  It's fun to have lots of pictures of the race too.  Can't complain about having a husband you loves taking pictures.
    Click here to see pictures from the race.
    Saturday evening, Tim and I went to Scott and Sharon Wadman's for dinner.  Scott is Tim's cousin.  It was lots of fun to see them and their kids.  They have really cute kids and they are both so good with them.  Before we knew it, it was past 9:00 pm.  I'm sure they were ready for us to leave, so their kids could wind down at get ready for bed. 
    Today we drove back to Rexburg.  We made sure to get home in time for church.  Spencer had to teach Sunday School.  My sister, Carmen, and her three girls are at my parent's house too, so we want to have some time to hang out with them as well.

    The beginning of this week was fairly routine.  Tim worked on his homework and I trained with Spencer in the morning and worked on odds and ends during the day.  This week I've been working a lot on preparing primary lessons for August, comparison shopping (Amazon vs Sam's Club vs Wal-mart) for our school year groceries, and our paper adoption profile. 
    Primary lessons are a bit unique in our branch.  Since we teach sharing time over the phone it makes it difficult to do engaging lessons with games and visual aids.  To help with this, we prepare a month's worth of lessons in advance and create a packet with activities, pictures, and handouts for the kids.  We then mail the packets to each of the family at least 2 weeks before the month begins so they are sure to have their packets before the first Sunday.  It can be a bit stressful to have to plan everything all at once, but it's nice to have it all planned in advance.
    I've been working on creating a spreadsheet with prices for the items we want to buy for the next 9 months.  We would like to purchase as many items as we can from amazon with free shipping, because then we don't have to worry about shipping it.  However, it is often a lot more expensive to buy things from amazon because they will add in the shipping cost plus some to the price of the item.  I spent lots of hours comparing prices and at first was getting really frustrated because it was really time consuming and it seemed like I was finding nothing to buy on amazon.  The longer I worked on it though, the more productive it seemed to be.  I've actually found quite a few good deals.  I still have several hours of searching to go though.  The plus side is that from September-May I won't have to do much shopping at all.
    Over a year ago Tim and I put together our online adoption profile and adoption website.  We also made up some pass along cards.  However, we've had on our to do list for quite some time to make a paper profile.  Some potential birth mothers don't have access to internet or prefer looking at physical profiles.  Because of this, our agency has a binder of profiles for these girls to take home and look through.  Putting together a paper profile for this binder has been a big project the last few weeks.  (Thanks for all those who have given suggestions and critiques.)  Sometime next week I will get a bunch printed so we can send them to our agency.  However, I would love to print up extras for anyone else that may be interested.  I don't know if any of you have connections to any businesses or organizations that may be appropriate to carry something like this, but if so, let me know.  Comment on this post, email, call, or text me if you think that you may be interested in some of the paper profiles.

    Thursday around noon, my mom, Tim, and I left for Utah.  Gus and Cynthia (my brother and sister-in-law) invited us to come stay for a few days in celebration of Julia's baptism.  We took my mom down to their house in Mapleton and then Tim and I left to see his sister's Kaylin and Melissa in Salt Lake.  It was good too see them.  The visit was a bit too short, but I guess it was better than nothing. 
    It was really fun to stay with the Gharts.  We miss seeing family during the school year when we're in Alaska and we just can't get enough of it during summer vacation.  Friday we went to the museum of art on BYU campus and had a pizza picnic lunch at the duck pond.  We watched movies, played games, and ate good food.  We packed in as much fun in one day as we could.
    Saturday morning was Julia's baptism which meant more family.  All the Hart's in the Utah and Idaho area showed up as well as all the Christensen's (Cynthia's family).  I think we had about 50 people at the brunch following Julia's baptism. 
    Spencer, Lisa, and I took off from the party a little early to head to Stansbury.  Next week we're racing in a triathlon there and we wanted to familiarize ourselves with the route.  Lisa's husband Rob met us there and we went for a 22 mile bike ride and then a 1/2 mile swim.  It was a lot of fun and it made me excited for the race next week. 
    Saturday evening we stayed at the Black's house.  Once again staying up too late talking and enjoying one another's company.  Spencer, my mom, Tim and I drove back to Idaho this morning.  Spencer needed to be back to teach Sunday school and I also needed to teach primary.  Of course, since I teach over the phone, it didn't really matter where I was as long as I had a quiet place with a good phone.  :) 
    Summer vacation is quickly slipping away!  We're trying to enjoy every minute of it.

    This week has been full of fun.  Tim and I were busy nearly every single day with something different to do.  Unfortunately for Tim, it's hard to do homework when you have so many distracting going on around you.  He's been a pretty good sport though.
    Monday morning Spencer and I stuck with our training routine and went swimming.  This time our friends Warren and Rachel came with us while my mom watched their baby.  The pool was crowded.  They have 3 lanes and there were already 6 or 7 swimmers there when the 4 of us arrived.  We ended up trying to make the most of it in the lazy river, but eventually were able to get into the lap pool as some people left.
    Later in the morning, Sarah Liggett came and picked me up so we could spend part of the day together.  The mission was to explore 17-mile cave in Idaho Falls.  Neither of us had ever been there.  Unfortunately for Sarah, I dragged her to several stores before going to the caves.  When you live in Bush Alaska, you have to take advantage of being around stores, even if you're not a fan of shopping.  The caves were pretty cool, although I've never seen so much graffiti or such a complete graffiti job in my whole life.  The entire cave was graffitied from the entrance to the back of the cave.  It's been so long since I went caving that I forgot how important a good flashlight was.  Neither Sarah nor I brought a substantial flashlight, so we could only just see the step in front of us, but it was still fun.
    Tuesday was my mother's 65th birthday.  In her words "65 and still alive".  We started the day off really early by heading to Driggs at 4:30 am.  We had heard about the hot air balloon races and wanted to see them.  Tim and I went with my mom and Warren Powell and his daughter.  Unfortunately at about 6:15 am it was announced that it was too windy and the races had been canceled.  I came home and went back to bed.  I figured the rest of the day would be much more enjoyable if I finished getting the rest of my sleep.  I had several plans for the rest of the day, but most of them didn't happen.  I did get a lot of good things finished though. 
    After our nap, Tim got going on his homework and I went to the temple.  I decided about a week or two ago that I want to go to the temple every week that I am here.  Since, I don't have much opportunity to go to the temple 9 months out of the year, I might as well take advantage of it while it's 5 minutes up the road.  It was a really good thing I took a nap before going so that I was able to stay awake and alert (I had been a bit sleepy the previous visit).  I love the peacefulness of the temple and the opportunity for quiet meditation.

        I came home and started preparations for my mother's birthday dinner.  When I was growing up, my mother would also sit us down before our birthday and ask us what we wanted for dinner.  Picking the birthday dinner menu was a tradition, so I did the same for her.  I made chicken tacos, lentil soup, green salad, and corn on the cob just as she had ordered.  But I still had the matter of her birthday cake.  My mother has sworn off all sweets for several months, so even if I made her a birthday cake she wouldn't be able to eat it.  Instead I made a fruit pizza, because you can rationalize that that is not a dessert, so it is permissible.   It was a lot of fun to make and I had it assembled and hidden away before she got home.

        Dinner was a hit.  I pulled out the fruit pizza with a lit candle and my mom LOVED it.  I was glad that she decided it was permissible to eat.  My mom was surprised when we pulled out her gifts.  (Tim is a great gift-giver by the way.)  We got her a new bread knife, a new parring knife, and a slicing glide.  We also presented her with the flowers that Karen had sent since she hadn't noticed them yet.  I would say it was a successful birthday celebration.
    Wednesday Spencer and I woke up early to go swimming once again.  I did 17 laps (about 1/2 mile) without stopping.  I had yet to do that this summer.  I finished my laps in 25 minutes.  This is a super slow time for an experienced swimmer, but it was a good time for me.  I hope I can shave off a few more minutes before race day arrives.
    When we got home we started packing for a trip to Utah.  I sneaked away to the parade for a few minutes while we were waiting for Tim to get home from the gym.  After 11:00 Spencer, Tim, and my mom left for Mapleton, Utah to party with some more of the family.  We got to see Valerie's new apartment and then went to Gus's house.  There were water games and then great food.  Afterward we played some intense games of goaltimate.  Finally we had some ice cream and lit off some fireworks.

    It was a fun evening.  We even managed to get about half of the family there.  There were 23 of us: Gus's family, Lisa's family, Greg's family, Valerie's family, and our car load from Idaho.  Mom, Spencer, Tim, and I spent the night in South Weber at Lisa's house.  It's a good thing too, because I don't think we could have stayed up much later.  It was past midnight by the time we got there.
    We left the next morning.  Mom and Spencer dropped Tim and I off in Montpelier, ID and then headed home so Spencer could go to work.  Tim and I were meeting up with Warren and Rachel so we could go camping at Bear Lake.  Originally we were going to spend Thursday out on the boat, but it was raining, so we decided to hold off.  We set up our camp site and then went to the Paris ice caves.  I had never been there, but they were pretty cool.  Rachel and I were a bit adventurous and explored further into the cave than the men, but there wasn't nearly as far to go as there would be in a lava tube.  (I'm definitely more accustomed to lava tube caves.)

    It's a good thing that Rachel's mom lives close to our campsite, because there were a lot of forgotten items that we had to go back for.  Luckily, by the time we made it back to the campsite after exploring the caves and stopping by Rachel's the rain had stopped and the sun was out.  It was actually a really nice evening.  We had tinfoil dinners and of course s'mores.  Tim and I introduced Warren and Rachel to using nutella on your s'mores and they introduced us to using reeses peanut butter cups.  Both are good. 
    Friday morning Warren made us a feast of pancakes, hash browns, fried eggs, and sausage.  Fairly soon after breakfast we packed up our campsite so we could continue having fun elsewhere.  Warren had some exploring in mind to do behind Rachel's mom's house, so we were gone on the four wheelers in the hills and valleys for 3 or 4 hours.  It was actually a ton of fun to explore around and we did some fairly technically riding I think.  We found a grove a trees in which to eat lunch.  However, it is apparently a favorite spot of the cows too, because we were in the company of many cow pies.  Tim and I came back with our faces and bodies caked in dirt.  When we took off our sunglasses we looked like raccoons. 
    Our last bit of fun was going out on the boat on Bear Lake.  Warren gave Tim and I a few rides on the tube.  Rachel took a turn and then the boat broke right as Warren was about to go.  Luckily we were able to flag down another boat and we got towed back to the dock.  Tim and I took off for Rexburg shortly after.  We made it home just after 11:00 pm.
    Spending the entire day in the sun really must have tired us out.  We slept until 10:30 am on Saturday morning.  Once we got up, Tim started working on his homework and I worked on a few projects.  We got our return plane tickets to Togiak.  We will be flying back up on August 2nd. 
    Today Tim and I went to church in the Stonebridge Ward.  That is where we went when we lived in Rexburg.  It was a lot of fun to see everyone.  It's amazing how much hasn't changed.  I found myself sitting on the same bench or chair has I used to sit and the families all sat in the same places too.  The biggest difference was that all our nursery kids were all 5 and 6 years old (makes sense) and our webelos were all a little more grown up. 
    Overall it has been a busy and fun week.  No complaints here and we're only slightly sunburned.

     We should probably start out this week by mentioning that I (Tim) had to get glasses last week.  For those of you who are in the know, I had LASIK surgery last summer.  My vision was horrible. I had a prescription of -8.00 for glasses.  I don't even know what that is on a 20/20 scale.  What I do know is that in order to read the type font on a newspaper or book I would need to hold the book no further than 3 inches from my eyes without glasses/contacts.  I went almost the full school year without seeing any degradation in my vision.  About 6 weeks before we left Togiak I noticed a slight change and it simply continued to get worse.  When we visited the optometrist he said that my vision has degraded slightly, but not enough to warrant a LASIK touchup.  So, I submitted and decided to return to the spectacles.  I don't have to wear them all the time.  My vision is still light years ahead of where it used to be.  I simply use them when I need to read and when I'm driving, specifically at night when my eyes are tired.
     
     Karen and her kids wrapped up their visit in the West this week.  Tuesday morning Kaitlyn, Myrna, Karen, and the girls went to Salt Lake.  They had plans for a "girls trip to Salt Lake" and party with Lisa before Karen and her girls flew out.  Unfortunately, their big party plans where cut a little short as Karen and Kaitlyn were a little under the weather.  They did, however, get the opportunity to at least visit Temple Square with Camille, Natalie, and Emily. (Click the images for larger preview)

     I should mention that graduate school has been going very well.  Thus far, I have been very pleased with my decision to do Educational Technology.  My classes have been time consuming, yet very fun.  I'm taking an Introduction to Edu Technology class where I'm learning about various technology integration applications and an Intro to Web Design course where I'm creating webpages from scratch.  I've really been enjoying them. 

     As part of the degree I can choose to get an endorsement in a specified area of emphasis.  I have three to choose from, 1) Online Teaching, 2) Tech Integration into the classroom, & 3) School Tech Coordinator.  I have had a difficult time figuring out which to pursue.  The problem is  I want to learn them all.  I spoke with the university and they said that Online Teaching is the most popular certification, because that's where many feel that the future of teaching is headed, and I agree.  However, I've also been interested in the School Tech Coordinator certification only because I think it would be valuable to know and understand how a school (or university) runs their computer network.  There are so many options to choose that I have a hard time narrowing down my choice. My plan is to ask the university if I can get two certifications so I don't have to choose. :)