Cozzens Camp 2016 - It Begins - Unplugged and Submerged.

 Wednesday, August 10 we started our first Cozzens Camp day at the Moab Giants Dinosaur Park.  It was a Dinoterriffic time!  Lots to do and see.

 Boys and dinosaurs are a perfect combination, but even our girl campers, Kaylie and Capri, were loving the dinosaur stuff.

Cute little Brody took time out of his dinosaur hunting to pose for me on a little Dinosaur Park arch. 

Future paleontologists digging for dinosaur bones.   

It was great fun, especially the Dinosaur Aquarium!! and no one wanted to leave, but we had a schedule to keep!  And it was lunch time.  The morning had just flown by, unplugged and everything.

We ate lunch and swam for awhile, then we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Cozzens house to do some service work for them.  We washed their car . . 

And pulled a few wheelbarrow loads of weeds.  

And discovered that work can be fun!!

                   Then we swam some more while Grandpa helped some boys, one by one, make stilts.
 

  And showed them and to walk on them. . .  kind of

 

While Aiden made snow cones for everyone.  

We ended the day with a fun hike in Arches.  We were going to go to everyone's favorite, Sand Dune Arch, but a bus load of adults showed up just as we got there, and sometimes adults are annoyed by excited little people, so we decided to hike to Skyline Arch instead.  It was a fun hike, and we plan to go back again when we have more time to explore.  But the day was winding to a close, we were hungry and tired, so we went home to eat and sleep and get ready for another fun Cozzens Camp Day. 

The Day We Met the Cozzens Cousins At The Splash Pad Park

Trek 2016 - Two Places At The Same Time

Sometimes I just want to remember a story, so I write it here.

Have you ever wished you could be in two places at once?  Well, this summer my Moab world, my church world, and my Stansbury Park world collided in such a way that, at least in some people's mind, I was, for four days, in two places at the same time.

This year our stake did a handcart trek somewhere in the mountains near Logan, Utah.  Last March or so I was called to do the music for that trek, which meant I would figure out songs to sing, get people to sing them, and then go on the trek and . . . well, make sure they sang them right, I guess :)  but as the time for the trek neared and my summer became more and more complicated, I began thinking and praying of a way I could still fill that calling, but not actually go on the trek.  I finally talked with the trek specialists and asked if they thought it would be a problem if I still did the music, got people to sing, practiced with them, found MP3 accompaniments they could sing to, basically do everything to prepare the music for trek, but then hand it over to a very capable and willing young couple in our ward who were already going on the trek as Ma's and Pa's.  In my mind, I would do all the work, all they would have to do would be to press play on an MP3 player.  The stake specialists said that would be fine, the my friends, the Gowen's said yes, and I got to work.

I formed a Trek Choir to sing some of the songs.  The Choir sang a song I found on the internet that another stake had written for their trek called He Is Pulling, Too, Link to the song is here.  http://oursaviorispullingtoo.weebly.com/choir.html and they sang a fun medley of Shall The Youth of Zion Falter/Carry On.  The boys sang Jenny Phillips' Let Me Carry You at the water crossing, and the girls sang When Faith Endures to the tune I Know That My Redeemer Lives at the Women's Pull.  I had a trio of girls sing Oh How Lovely Was the Morning to the tune Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, a young man soloist sang Savior, Redeemer of My Soul, and young woman soloist sang Jenny Phillips' He Will Hold You Up.  Everyone was practiced, excited, ready and I sent them off to trek while I stayed behind and thought about them every day, wondering what song they were siging today, and how it went.

I teach the 14-15 year old youth Sunday School class in my ward, and today, as we were chatting before class started, I asked them to tell me about the trek.  One of the young men - who was in the Trek Choir, incidentally,  looked at me kind of puzzled and said, "Carri, you were there with us."  I said, "No, I wasn't."  He said, "yes, you were."  I said, "I don't think so, Jerrit.  I did all the music for it, but I handed it over to the Gowen's.  I had to stay here and work."  He said, "Really?  I thought you were there . . "  And then his sister spoke up and said, "Are you sure, because I thought you were there, too." I have laughed about that all day.  Apparently I was on the trek last week after all.  Yay me!!  And, just as a side note, I really love my Sunday School Class.  :)

A Little Trip To Boston, Day Four

Day four was Saturday.  We had planned to do a session in the Temple, but we slept in, so didn't have time.  We stopped by to take a few pictures, anyway.  

Then it was on to Boston where we had decided to do a 90 minute historical boat tour of the Boston harbor and surrounding areas.  

It was a crowded boat, but nice and cool.  And pretty!  

I have a fascination with sailboats.  If I lived near the ocean, I think I would have to own one. 

These two pictures of Brennan and Emma are on two different days.  The one on the right is aboard our tour boat.  The one on the left is one I forgot to include when we were on Castle Island.  Notice Emma doesn't have any shoes on.  There's a story there, only not mine to tell :)

After the boat tour we tried to hustle over to the other harbor to tour the USS Constitution, but realized a few metro stops into it that we weren't going to make it, so we walked the Freedom Trail a little bit, then headed back to Concord and the North Bridge Park to take some pictures of this cute couple.  

It was later this night than we were there the evening before, and we were chasing the sun as it was setting, so I was having focusing issues.  Of course.

But I think we got some cute ones.  I just included a few here.  There are more!

It was worth it to get Brennan all cleaned up with a nice, new hair cut.  I think you guys are good for each other :) 

Thanks so much for the vacation guys.  We didn't even know we needed it until we took it.  It was SO much fun to hang out with these two for a few days and have then show us around their little corner of the world.

A Little Trip To Boston - Day Three

 One the third day we went to Salem and learned all about the witch trials.  I didn't pull my camera out much this day because we were inside much of the time - and mostly in dark dingy dungeons where they kept those who were being tried as witches until their trials or until they were hung.  We also toured a pirate museum, which I thought was very fun!  And we toured two different homes of people from two different cultures - one of a wealthy American ship builder and businessman built in the 1700's and another of a wealthy merchant from China built in the 1700's.  It was interesting to see the comparison between the two men of wealth in two different cultures.  Like night and day!  After Salem we went to Concord to see The Old North Bridge where "The shot heard round the world" was fired.

It was a beautiful place and we were there at a perfect time for evening photos.  Here are a couple of pictures of us on the bridge.  Still wearing my comfy sandals, as you can see.

Brennan and Emma on the bridge.  

It was fun after a day spent inside in small spaces to finally pull out my camera and take some pictures.  These two hammed it up for me.

Cute couple on the North Bridge.  Below, Brennan's face is being nicely shadowed by Emma's hat.  

It was so pretty there, we decided to return the next day and do a photo shoot with Bren and Emma. After a haircut for Brennan! 

 This was such a pretty little area, I decided to do a little Dave photo shoot :) 

                                                 

A cute old tree.  There is a story behind the tree shot.  When we were in Plymouth the day before, we saw a sign explaining some of the things to see around that area.  One of the sites was The Engagement Tree, an old tree that a girl, in 1806, planted when she was engaged.  Then, when the engagement fell through, she pulled the tree up and threw it out in the road.  A man passing by saw the tree laying in the road, picked it up and quickly dug a hole with the heel of his boot and replanted the tree.  And IT LIVED FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS!  Only someone who has babied trees along, loosing many of them in Utah's desert would be so fascinated by that story,  We looked for  the tree, but apparently the it was so diseased, it was cut down in 2007 and only the stump remains. So the tree above, in Concord, not Plymouth, represents the memory of that tree. 

This is the site where Paul Revere was captured by the British, in the midst of running around Massachusetts telling the revolutionaries that the British were coming.

The British took him to Boston, but later let him go.  So he lived to see the war won, but didn't get to finish telling all the surrounding town about the British army.  Other people carried his message, tho, so all was well.  

This was an old colonial graveyard literally in someone's backyard.  I mean, step off your back porch step and onto a grave kind of in the backyard.  The headstones were made of slate and were mostly from the 1700's.  

And that ended our third day.