The Texas cavalry arrived! We were all excited to welcome Grammy, Ba, Z and the Thomas family. I love the Emma and DeDee "two-headed cousin" pic above, but that's just one of the interesting sights during our visit!
As part of our long tradition of exploiting our family members' skills and abilities for our own purposes (especially when we possess none of those skills), we spent part of one day keeping the kids away so that Ba, Uncle John Cluff, Grandpa Orson Johnson and Uncle Brad could break up the cracked portion of our driveway, clear it out and put in a new section. They had to dig out this huge, nasty root before they could do anything else. They did a great job; I'm still not quite used to the nice, smooth passage into my driveway rather than that big, jarring bump, and my neighbors are pretty complimentary about it, too. You may ask yourself, "Wait: where was Greg when all of this was going on?" Well, he had to go to work, having spent nearly all of his days off on this long, trippy summer, so he was sitting at his desk making lists on his computer during the driveway project. He's not sure if he should feel like a big wimp or like a genius.
To give Brad a chance to see some of the Utah sights, we spent a day driving up to Bear Lake (that's the scenic view, above, and it's pretty stunning, especially in person) to visit Minnetonka Cave. I'd never heard of it before, but it was a really interesting visit — especially towing nine kids along with us!
Aunt Jen with most of the girl contingent checking out the Bear Lake overlook.
Jen and Brad enjoying the Utah wilderness.
One of the cave formations in Minnetonka Cave. Gracie's favorite was all the "cave bacon," formations that, when a light was shone through them, looked amazingly like real bacon — except that some of them were 10 feet long. A dream come true for our bacon lover!
The kiddies and me at the turnaround point in the cave.
This is the rock formation that looks like a fairy-tale castle; obviously it was a favorite with the kids.
The walkway to the cave is built off the side of a very sheer mountain face and is not a comfortable traverse for anyone with a fear of heights. The kids all did fine, though, and Max had a tantrum and practically rolled off the side. Jebby rescued him, though, so all was well!
The walkway was just to picturesque not to spend a few minutes doing a little photo shoot there, like the one above of Jeb and the little girls ...
... this one of Jen and Brad ...
... and these two of all the Johnson grandkids.
Another major attraction at Minnetonka Cave was the old-style water fountain, at which Bella got totally soaked and all the kids had a good time with some super-cold, refreshing water.
DeDee learned how to make a fire pit at camp this past summer, and she made us a great one in our back yard so that the kids could roast marshmallows during their campout in the tent. We filled this one in, but I'd love to have her make one we could keep next time she's here.
We kind of did things backward on this cookout: we had the s'mores first and THEN decided to bring out some hot dogs to roast. Oh, well — everything got eaten, and everybody had a good time!
In the three pics below, I took the girls (minus Bella) to So Cupcake, a great bakery up in Holladay, for some awesome cupcakes. I'm not going to call them gourmet, because they're way more fun than that. But they're super delicious: before I could get to DeDee and Emma to take a pic of them enjoying their treats, Deeds had finished hers. That's why she's licking the wrapper in the last pic!
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