Lightning Storm

One of the nights we were at the beach there was a huge lightning storm. It was incredible. We sat and watched it for a good hour. It was lighting up the sky like it was day time. I spent a long time trying to catch pictures of the awesome bolts shooting through the sky but always seemed to be just a half second too late. After the kids fell asleep we walked out on to the beach and sat in a life guard tower and watched for awhile longer. I did manage to catch a few cool pictures.

You're Welcome

Virginia Beach

I am jealous of all your parties going on back home. I REALLY hate to miss family parties :( We did however just get back from our own family party. We took a week vacation to Virginia Beach. It was such a great vacation. I had so many worries going into it about how it would all play out with the two littles; and while they DID run for the waves every chance they got we somehow managed to keep them safe with a minimum level of stress.  I highly suggest you all make it out next summer for our next vacation. It is by far the best beach I have ever been to. (But I have never been to Hawaii) I think the water temps hovered around 76 the entire time we were there.

I think I took almost 200 pictures. :/ I will be sorting through them and posting them on my family blog in the next few days if you want the FULL version of the vacation. :)

Tolman Reunion

              The Tolman reunion this year was at the Heber Valley Camp owned by the church. It was a great place to gather and play! Activities included volleyball, horseshoes, ladder golf, frisbee, card games (protect your property and monopoly deal), campfire, sunset and sunrise hikes (where we saw a moose and a little bambi deer), star gazing (at least for Rob and me), canoeing or paddle boating on the lake, and challenge courses that included a zip line and a faith walk. It was a blast! We missed those in our family who were unable to join (Jill, Bryce, and Leanna and their families).

Notice Dad's cool new hat. 

 Gotta love these faces, even when they're grumpy.

We are so impressed with Heather, who is very scared of heights but accepted the challenge anyway and killed it!

New Truck

Well....out with the old truck and in with the new. Dad sold the truck and his car, and the truck above will be his new wheels. Pretty nice!

Your invited

I promised I would invite you all for the first Tee Ella from the garden. And that's what's on the menu tonight. So you are invited! :-)

Train Rides

I went on two train rides this past week...on a REAL train! And I think that anyone who lives in Utah should put it on their bucket list to ride the Heber Valley Creeper (we decided that creeper indicates that the train is slow, not that it's creepy ;)).

Train Ride #1--The Wizard's Train

Of course we wore our Wizard robes.

We were sorted into our houses and can you believe that I was put in Slytherin?! We were also provided with butter beer, chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's every flavor beans. (pretty sure that we got dirt, grass, and earthworm)

It truly was a gorgeous ride with the mountains, green fields, and Deer Creek as our scenery.

Train Ride #2--Provo Canyon Limited

This was a roommate trip, plus Jocelyn (Lena's sister).

The train was stopped in the middle of our ride and these bandits held us at gunpoint. Luckily we weren't robbed!

We actually ended up getting serenaded by one of the train robbers so that was pretty sweet. :) The train took us all the way to Vivian Park and back to Heber. 

It was fun, fun, fun!