July 2021 - Utah Trip-Fishing, 4th of July, & EFY

We continued the tradition of letting Tessa drive for the very first time on the way to the lake outside Vernal, Utah. She didn’t drive very far and she drove very slowly, but she did get to be in the driver’s seat and make a few turns. She has a lot to learn, but her birthday is farther away than Abby’s was when she took her first drive, so we’ve got plenty of time for Tessa to learn and practice. She was happy to give it a try though and proud of herself for not running us off the road.

We fished for the morning and had a much better experience than the last time we fished at this lake. Last time we didn’t catch anything, but this time we caught quite a few. A couple fishermen on a boat were out on the lake and gave us some tips of where to cast our line and Tyler thinks that helped us a lot. All the girls were able to catch a fish except Aubrey. She did have a bite, but her fish got away which made us think that her fish was probably the biggest of the bunch. Tessa’s picture is my favorite because when I was trying to get a picture of them holding her fish, I accidentally still had my phone on the video function and right when I thought I was taking a picture, the fish jumped and Tessa squealed and laughed. So I actually got the whole thing on video which was cool, and then I had them pose again for this picture, but you can still see their huge grins from the last time they were surprised by the jumping fish. Taryn was happy with her catch as well.

Abby was the first to catch a fish and was proud to hold it up herself. The weather was beautiful until it started to storm, but luckily we were about packing up anyway so the big raindrops didn’t hit us until we were trying to load everything back up in the van. Once we made it to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, Abby had the honors of learning how to clean her fish. She was excited to learn and she did really well using the knife and pulling out the fish guts. Tyler ended up cooking the fish for anyone who wanted to try and the recipe he found was so good. The fish was delicious and even the family members who claim they don’t “do fish” gave it a little try and decided it was pretty tasty. 

On Saturday morning, we had scheduled an appointment at the temple for the youth aged grandkids to do baptisms. We got there early, but parked on the wrong side of the temple, so we took a quick picture of just our family before we found everyone else and headed into the temple. It was an awesome experience, but we were kind of rushed. It wasn’t really organized, so by the time they figured each dad of the three families that went would do the baptisms for their family members, we were a little behind in the dressing room. I ended up doing some baptisms, but since Tyler was the first one in the font, I basically got dressed in the jumpsuit, walked into the baptistry, walked down into the font and then back out again after being baptized for the family names I brought. I was happy to be able to be baptized and for Tyler to do the baptizing, but I didn’t really get to see the baptistry and I didn’t get to see any of my girls get baptized. But they were rushing us through to make sure we got through everybody and were finished within our hour time slot. After the confirmations, Abby was a little stressed because she didn’t know where all of her names were and if they got done, but one of the temple workers verified that her names did get done. She was very nice and helpful. I wish we hadn’t felt so rushed, but I was happy that all of us were able to go together.

 

After we were finished and we left the temple, we were able to take our time getting the pictures we wanted. We got our family picture and then one with all of the cousins who went into the temple. Jacob and Aubrey were the newest youth of the cousins. It was Jacob’s first time and Aubrey’s third time. We loved being able to serve in the temple and doing it with our extended family. That afternoon the teenagers decided to go thrift shopping. They went to DI where Abby found a church dress and cowboy boots. Then after stopping at Walmart, they found these matching Corvette shirts. Tessa’s was the only small size; everyone else had to get XL or bigger which was pretty funny, but the girls all loved them. 

 

For part of our weekend festivities, we played a family game of kickball. It’s a tradition to walk down the street to the elementary school yard and play kickball. We divided into teams and had a fun time playing. Some of the kids really got into it and were pretty competitive, but for the most part, all the kids had fun and were able to kick the ball and run around the bases. I love doing activities like this where the entire family is playing together. It was one of the highlights of the family reunion.

On Saturday, July 3rd, we had our family celebration. We got matching shirts made and the kids took turns getting rides with Grandpa in his four-wheeler. He took the kids in groups of three on a little ride to see Dutchess the horse. I got a picture as Abby rode shotgun during her turn. The kids played a lot of games downstairs and they played the Wii a lot too. They always have so much fun together making up their own games or just hanging out. We love being together with our family.

With our matching family reunion shirts, we had to get some family pictures. Here’s Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons - we love them!

Here’s our picture with everyone. The only ones we’re missing are Andrew and his wife Maddie who were out of state and not able to come for the weekend. We even got Kiya in the picture. That’s Tiffany and Justin’s dog and we love her. 

They also took a picture of Grandma and Grandpa with just the grandkids and then we had to do a funny one too. I love how close the cousins are and that even though we live in Texas while everyone else is in Utah, when we’re together, it’s like we haven’t been apart. All the kids get along so well and are such good friends.

The grandkids really wanted to run the river like we had a couple of years ago, so we did that while we were together. We all drove up the mountain, picked up the rafts and life vests and then made our way to the river head. Tyler and I manned a boat with the three littles - Taryn, Anson, and Lucy.

 

I love how pretty the view is as we float down the river. Tyler tried fishing off the end of our boat, but he didn’t get any bites. I was able to get a picture of the mid-teenagers who rode with Tim and Lora. They got stranded on a sandbar at one point of the rapids, but they finally got their boat moving again. I think Tim even got bounced out of the raft during that adventure, but everyone was ok.

Abby and the older teenagers were in a boat with Tiffany and they did great on their own as they floated the river. The water was freezing, but the bright sun kept us warm. A lot of the kids jumped into the water at some point down the stream and we all had fun as we paddled through the small rapid portions. It was just as fun as we remembered the last time. And we got just as burnt as last time too.

 

On Monday, July 5th, we drove Abby and Tessa up to Salt Lake to drop them off at the University of Utah for a week of EFY. They don’t do a lot of EFYs anymore because they’ve started doing FSYs instead, but there are still some special edition EFYs and the one in Salt Lake is one of those. They learn a lot about church history and toured a lot of church history sites in Salt Lake and at Temple Square. The girls were very excited to go. 

The best part was that they were meeting their friends from home there. Tessa roomed with Taryn Standage from the Redd ward. Abby roomed with her cousin, Anna, but there were a lot of boys from El Paso too. Reve Andersen who just moved from El Paso to Idaho, came down to EFY and roomed with Jacob Whetten. Logan Kasallis roomed with Ryan Marshall, both from El Paso, so it was fun seeing all of our Texas friends in Salt Lake City. We checked all the youth in and then took some pictures. Here’s Tessa with Reve, Logan, and Jacob. Aubrey got her picture with Lexi and Sam. 

 

We had to take pictures with our friends too, so here’s Tyler with his besties, Tony and Marshall. Marshall is Reve’s dad who lives in Idaho now, but he was one of Tyler’s closer friends when they lived in Texas. I got my picture with Jessica Andersen, Audrey Kasallis, and Jennifer Whetten. I love these ladies. It makes it a lot easier living away from family when you have good friends from the ward.

 

Aubrey and Lexi are the same age and are good friends. Aubrey was very sad when Lexi moved. Sam did a good photo bomb in this first picture. After dropping off the teenagers, we took one more picture of all the younger kids before we all left to go our separate ways. The second picture is Cort, Taryn, Teagan, Sam, Lexi, and Aubrey.

Here’s Taryn with the kids her age - Cort and Teagan. She’s had fun growing up with these boys and she never had a problem with being the only girl in their friend group.

We were able to grab lunch with everyone before leaving the teenagers at the campus. We ate at Zupa’s and it was delicious. We had soups and salads and sandwiches. Our family had never been to a Zupa’s before which everyone else thought was crazy, but we were happy to try it and we really enjoyed it. Tessa sat with the teenagers and all the younger kids took the corner booth. Tessa had a loose tooth that she had Tony pull right after we ate lunch so that she wouldn’t have to mess with a wiggly tooth while at EFY. Tony’s a dentist and my girls love having him pull their teeth. It’s so funny that all of my girls run over to his house whenever they need a tooth pulled and his own kids run the other way - they hate having their dad pull their teeth!

 

We were able to text and talk to the girls during the week while they toured and had devotionals and classes. But I didn’t get many pictures. Abby did send this one to me on their nice-dress day. They had multiple dances and a testimony meeting during the week. They were grouped in companies with boys and girls their age and they did everything with their company. They had boy and girl counselors who were in charge and ran their devotionals. The girls had so much fun. They took so many pictures themselves, but this is the only one I got from them. As I picked up the girls at the end of the week, I did get this picture of Tessa with her counselor. The girls loved seeing temple square and visiting places like This is the Place Monument, the Family History Center, and the Temple Visitors Center. They were spiritually uplifted and just had a lot of fun.

 

While the teenagers were at EFY, we spent the week at Tiffany and Justin’s house and found things to keep the younger kids entertained. The girls really wanted fake nails so we stopped by a store and let them pick out nails. They were really long, but the girls didn’t care. We spent the week glueing on nails over and over, but they were happy. They played games together and sang karaoke a lot too. They made up their own games and these four girls just entertained themselves. They were too cute.

Here’s another close up picture of their long nails. Anson had to make fun of them and their nails, but the girls just kept saying he was jealous and he wished he had nails too. It was funny watching the girls try to figure out how to do things with long nails - things like pulling up their pants or eating.

We spent one day at a rec center in Springville. The kids were excited to swim and it was at a new place, so my girls were happy to try the new slides and pools. There were indoor pools and outdoor pools, a lazy river, two slides, and a lane pool with diving boards.

 

We spent a little time in the lane pool that was really deep. Aubrey and Taryn were excited to try the high dive. They jumped off of it a couple of times and I tried to take pictures as they jumped. It was really high, but they were very brave and went right up and jumped right off.

 

We got to spend some time with Tara and her kids too. Here’s Taryn with Lucy and also Ava and Camden. We love being able to hang out with family and let the cousins just play and have fun. Even though it was after the 4th of July, we finally got to do sparklers outside Tiffany’s house. I really like this picture of Taryn because it looks just like Abby when she was Taryn’s age. They always love doing sparklers and having one in each hand.

We went to the Spanish Fork reservoir and the kids swam while the dads fished. We took dinner with us and picnicked on the side of the reservoir and we stayed until they kicked us out at dusk. Aubrey and Julia did the cute hand letters to spell LOVE as the sun was setting. I thought the picture turned out really cute.

I took a lot of pictures with the beautiful sunset behind us. Here are all the girls as we waited for Tyler, Justin, Jacob, and Anson to finish fishing.

One day, we decided to take a hike to a grotto in Payson Canyon. We had done this hike before, but it’s a relatively easy and fun hike with a cool waterfall at the end. I love it because it’s also in a scene from the movie, Once I was a Beehive, so I like being in the same place that I’ve seen in a movie. The kids were excited to take off their shoes and walk on the cold wet rocks at the base of the waterfall.

 

The water was very cold, but after the hike, it felt good to put our feet in the cold water. After hanging around the waterfall for a little while, we started the trek back to the car. We took a drive along the canyon and found another lake we thought we’d try and fish on, but it didn’t have much of a shore, just weedy marshes, so we took a bathroom break and then headed out of the canyon. We also spent an afternoon at the new Spanish Fork park and splash pad that’s just a short walk away from Tiffany and Justin’s house. The kids loved the huge slide that they could all go down together on. There was a tiny stream and waterfall where we could sit under the waterfall and keep out of the sun. Tiffany, Tara, and I sat under there in the shade while all the kids played in the water and on the playground equipment.

 

Jacob had a soccer game one night, so we all went to cheer him on. We brought a blanket and camping chairs and we all cheered on Jacob as he played. It was fun to watch him play. The kids also got a quick turn on the playground before we headed back to the house. Finally, on one of our free days, we drove up to Orem to visit with my Grandma Willes. She’s usually busy at the senior center teaching classes, but we caught her on a day when she was home for the afternoon. We visited for awhile and got a picture. Taryn loves to see if she’s taller than her great-grandma. Each time we go, Taryn’s a little bit closer to passing Grandma up. We love being able to visit and hear about her adventures and being able to fill her in on our activities. We love our family and had a great family vacation.