Evan is home from Germany! I’m so glad to have my smart, tough, hilarious, handsome, quirky brother home again.

On Saturday Logan, Evan, and I took the little kids (minus Violet) to hike to the Y and watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks. We stuck Julia in the baby backpack and Evan carried her. About halfway up she said, “Hiking makes me tired. I need to take a rest on your shoulder, Evan.” Yep, life’s tough when you’re two years old. 🙂 Also, we brought Natalie’s friend Megan with us, and Julia called her “Bacon” the whole night. Megan, Bacon…they’re interchangeable, I guess.

I hiked Maple Mountain for the first time with my brothers last week. (Yes, I’m a little ashamed of myself that I’ve lived in Springville almost half my life and had never climbed it!) We made pretty good time–we started hiking at 6:00 and summited by 9:15. Then we were back off the mountain by 11:00, so I still had time for a half day of work. Maybe I should hike Maple Mountain every day.

This week should be an adventure. Logan, Evan, and I are going to make an attempt at Gannet Peak, which evaded us last year because of terrible blizzarding weather. I hope we get a chance at the summit! Gannett is Wyoming’s state highpoint and is considered the second-most-difficult state highpoint (after Denali, of course!). I hope I’m ready for this.

I went to Samantha‘s bridal shower with my mom last week. Samantha has been one of my best friends since I moved to Springville and I’m so excited for her and Brandon (and I really really hope I can make it back to Springville in time for their reception on Saturday!). The funniest moment of the bridal shower was when Samantha pulled a beautiful framed picture of the Manti Temple out of a bright pink Victoria’s Secret bag. “Sorry! That was the only bag I had to wrap it in!” said the lady who had given it to her.

So, life is good. I exchanged e-mail addresses with a potential Jewish genealogy client at the FHL last week (if any of you guys have Jewish friends interested in genealogy, please direct them to my website), hung out with my awesome friend Jana, coerced BOTH my brothers into bearing their testimonies in sacrament meeting, had a good lazy Sunday with my family, cut Wendell’s hair today and didn’t make him look terrible, and went running a LOT.

Life is good.