I Cut His Hair!

 Paton's first official haircut was back in May, and we had a professional cut it. But this time, I wanted to cut it, so it was my first time cutting his hair. I've cut Greg's hair before as well as other men's hair, but this was my first time for Paton. Overall, he was a very good boy. I put Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on, and he only protested when I turned the razor on right at the very beginning.

 I have to admit that I really miss his curls. But I'm glad for the cut since his hair was getting really long.

Pioneer Bible Camp

This past week Greg was the speaker at Pioneer Bible Camp. It was the camp's largest group yet this summer and consisted of junior high campers. He spoke twice a day, once during the morning chapel and once in the evening chapel. His morning chapels covered the characteristics of a good soldier in the book of Joshua, and the evening chapels covered Matthew 5's "Blessed are the..."

Since we live just down the street from the camp, we didn't have to stay overnight each night but that didn't mean that we weren't there much. Paton and I spent each meal at the camp plus a little play time before and after. At the end of each day, he was so filthy from playing with rocks and dirt and whatever else he could find. Paton made several friends amongst the staff and loved going to camp to see them. I was sad to see the week end since I too made several new friends. The staff is wonderful and friendly and I felt so at home among them.

Below is a pic of all of the campers with Greg in the center. Greg got to know the campers pretty well since he ate all of his meals with different cabins. He also went on a hike with them, and usually stayed and fellowshipped with them after each evening service. We found out at the end of the week that there were 13 salvation decisions! Praise the Lord for His working in their lives!

This Weekend

On Friday, I wanted to take Paton to one of our reservoir's beaches to play in the water. This would have been a wonderful idea had I remembered that the beach-ish areas that I knew of were flooded due to the mountain snowmelt, so we had to content ourselves with a few minutes in a grove of trees. There wasn't a place for me to sit, so this amusement didn't last long.

On Saturday, we found Paton a babysitter, and Greg and I took Ed to see Snowbasin Ski Resort. Ed is our missionary friend from Korea who's in the states for a few weeks. He took a week out of his vacation to come see us, so we rolled out the red carpet for him. As you can see, the top of Basin still has snow! While our area of Utah doesn't have mosquitoes or chiggers, we do have bitting flies...and they were out in abundance!

Looking away from the mountain gives you a view of our valley.

Later Saturday evening, our friends came over with their one year old son, Jonathan. Paton and Jonathan are buddies. Paton definitely needs a sibling so he can learn to share! But as you can see below, he had no problem sharing his easel. I wish I took a video of this since both boys were squealing and shouting as they colored.

Today was our annual church picnic. Greg and I installed a new tradition of a pie baking contest. And can you believe it, we had 14 pie entries! Our three judges were quite "pied-out" at the end of it all. A strawberry rhubarb pie took first, a chocolate pecan pie won second, and a caramel banana creme pie won third, and a cranberry apple won honorable mention. We're definitely doing this again next year.

Avon

Yesterday, Paton and I went to Pioneer Bible Camp for dinner. While there, we found Katrina and her sister Colleen. Katrina is one of Paton's favorite people. She's babysat him several times, and when he sees her he shouts, "Nina!" and runs into her arms.

After dinner, Paton and I met Greg and Ed and drove on the Avon pass. It's a rough dirt road that goes through the mountains. What beautiful views!

There were free-roaming cows that weren't in a hurry to get out of our way!

We're on the pass here looking into our valley. You can see our house from here!

A Pool!

Finally! I've got a pool set up for Paton. The first one was large but had a big hole right in the middle where all of the water leaked out. When searching for a sturdy hard plastic pool to replace it, I discovered that WalMart was sold out of the hard pools--they only order so many and when they're gone, they're gone. Apparently people buy those hard pools for their dogs. So I settled for this $8 little pool. So far it's been great. Paton loves to play in the water.

BJU Western Mission Team

The BJU Western Mission Team is here for the week. Part of the team will help Kaysville Bible Church with their VBS program, and the other part of the team will help out at Pioneer Bible Camp. They arrived Saturday afternoon, and joined our C2 (college and career) group on a hike and hotdog dinner. The hike was nice and short and took us to a wonderful waterfall. Paton was fascinated with all of the water but immediately started shivering due to the chill of the rain that began to fall. He was such a good boy on the hike and dinner afterwards, and Greg was a great daddy to carry Paton to and from the falls.

First few days in July

Greg went to Omaha to watch the Gamecocks take the World Series! On his way there, Greg dropped Paton and I off in Cheyenne where we met my parents and made our way to Colorado. So we got the best of both worlds-Greg watching the World Series in person, and I got to spend a week with my family.

We began the 4th of July with a 10k race in Huntsville. I didn't do too bad considering that I had a hard time breathing due to a sinus infection (didn't know it was an infection until the next day)!

Later, we went to Liberty Days-a family oriented day of entertainment in our local park. We stayed until lunch.

One of the activities was filling this giant pool with water and stocking it with trout. Kids were then supposed to catch the fish--with their bare hands or with a rod?? Not sure. But Paton was fascinated with the hose.

Paton's first time in a bouncy house. He wouldn't go in without me, so just so you know that I'm not in there for my own enjoyment!

That afternoon, we played with the bubble gun given to us by Auntie Lisa from Missouri. He loves that thing!

Our 4th of July feast consisted of corn on the cob, brawts, chips, strawberries, and coke. It was marvelous!

Paton loves corn.

We invited anyone and everyone from church to sit on our lawn to watch the fireworks. We had a tremendous view since our house sits up high in the valley.