Big Cottonwood Canyon

How great it is to be living so close to the mountains! For the weekend of July 24th we went camping with (who else!) Jordan's 3 brothers and their families. Logan's favorite part was building the fire with his dad and uncles, Emmy's was spending time with her fun aunts and Alyssa's was playing musical sleeping bags-ALL NIGHT LONG. Levi was his usual mellow fellow self and just enjoyed being held by everyone. Dad's was the fact that he didn't have to do any of the packing and mom's was... still thinking... just kidding. I loved just having my family all together without TV, computer, phones, gameboys and the noise of everyday life. I love being out in the beauty of the mountains and soaking up the peace and reminder of Heavenly Father's love that it provides.

Saturday morning we hiked around the lake and just sat and visited. Other than the mound of laundry that it created, the weekend was perfect.


We say a baby moose licking the road on our way up the canyon. No mother spotted.





Jordan Snedaker family- A little dirt never hurt anyone right?





Dave and Candace enjoying their gourmet tinfoil dinner




Bry and Melissa new parents to be!! Yeah!!! Practicing parenting skills on J-Park




Dan and Kathryn with their "adopted daughter during dinner", Alyssa
"Aunt Kathryn's hot dog was better than the yucky vegetables mom tried to get me to eat..."

Hey, Hey MBA!

After running the 10K, we decided to throw Jordan's brother Dave a surprise graduation party. We got the house all decorated and food ready. Jordan called him up and asked him if he wouldn't mind helping put our b-ball hoop up. Being the great brother that he is he said sure! Surprise, surprise. We shared a BBQ of ribs, twiced baked potatoes, watermelon, and salads. YUM! We were only sad that his wife Candace was feeling under the weather and couldn't make it. We all know this was just as much of an accomplishment of hers as it was his. Congrats, Dave and Candace. You are both great examples of patience, determination and fortitude! P.S Candace finished the 10K in 56 min! Awesome!

SHHHHHHHHHHH!





Dave always gives the greatest reactions... It makes the surprise that much more fun!

Dave with brother Dan and wife Kathryn

For you-David Lloyd Snedaker! Aka: Dave's favorite restaurant-Famous Dave's

To celebrate, Alyssa and Parker pretended to be puppies. Too cute.

24th of July

Time to catch up with what's been going on at the Snedakers! For the 24th of July, my sis-in-law Candace invited the sisters to run with her in the Deseret News 10K. Now what you all need to understand is that Candace is a great runner and I am SO not. But because I've always wanted to have a near death experience like this at least once in my life, I said "Wow, that sure sounds like fun!"... Well, Melissa and I finished!!! We did it in 1hr and 25 min. Not bad considering Melissa is expecting and we hardly trained at all! The best part of the whole thing was that the run route came in through the downtown parade route. There were masses of people that had slept on the sidewalks to get a good view of disc jockeys and prom queens riding in fancy cars waving at them (I'm a parade buff-can't you tell?). They actually got out of bed and stood on the corner cheering us on and applauding us in droves! What an amazing feeling! Complete strangers and random kids would stand in the middle of the runway handing us water. As one little girl about 7 or so held out a cup for me, I gave her a heartfelt panting of "Thank you sweetie". I looked back at the little girl who handed me the cup and I could see her look at her mom like she just saw Santa or something. Her mom looked at her so pleased at how she was helping and winked. What a moment. It was truly community. The whole run seemed like it was in slow motion, not only because that's about how fast I run, but just because of the beauty of the moment. Families together enjoying a cool summer morning, people of all shapes and sizes accomplishing lofty goals, parents and kids running together and most of all people sharing joy-together. Next year Logan says he'll run with me. I still don't consider myself a runner but Logan, I can't wait buddy.