Hi Family!

Wow, we just walked in the door from being up in Powder Mountain with my family for a few days and found out the great news that our sweet Ardith Ann just had Caleb....yippeeeee! We are so grateful and happy he is finally here. Now we've got to figure out when we are really going to meet him in person. Then we opened our mail and it was so fun to see Hyrum and Jenna's wedding announcement. It is so classy and we love the photo! What a cute couple.

So, it's fun to have life slow down a little bit with summer here. It's fun to have the big kids home now and see more of them and plan out our days together. I'm seeing some fun park days ahead. The news here is that Rachel tried out and made the Rush soccer State team again this year, which she is pleased about. The competition was a little bit stiffer this year in the tryouts and many more came out for them. Spencer is thrilled to be done with school and has moved on to the weebelos scout group. He and Rachel are taking a little Archery camp this summer at the park. He and Rachel made up a new sport on the tramp called the "tramp stamp" which they took the wheels off of an old skateboard and duct taped around the whole thing so it's smooth and then duct taped some of my old flip flops to the top. The idea is that you slide your feet in and jump on the tramp whipping the board around and doing skateboard moves. Pretty cool huh. Melissa is our little teacher with Brigham and Nathan and Lauren....she loves to have "preschool" time with them and do little projects with them. Her favorite by far though is "princess time" with Lauren where she finds everything pink and puts it on a pink blanket and puts Lauren in the middle of it and caters to her every whim. Hunter and McKay are enjoying more free time together and especially are liking slam dunking the basketball while the hoop is back by the tramp. Brig and Nate find mud in any situation and can have the most fun ever with a little dirt and a little water which equals many baths. Lauren I think is the only baby who can first say "walk" before she does it completely on her own. She continues to bring us joy and laughter. This past month we had the opportunity to go on a little family pioneer trek for a day with some of my family and some friends. It was such a great reminder of what our ancestors did for us and what we can be grateful for. Our boys were espeically good at being the brakes coming down the hill as they dug their feet in from behind the handcart and "skied" down the mountain. We are so grateful for each of you and the good people you are. We are surely blessed.

Love, Jerem and Catherine