MS 258

Helping Dad rearrange his classroom before that very big day.

Harper and I visited Marc's classroom on Thursday and Friday last week. Marc offered hardened bagels leftover from breakfast before he put us to work organizing locker combinations for the 8th grade.

Things I like most about Marc's classroom aesthetic, and the only things decorating Marc's classroom :

* the leftover and wrinkled green paper Marc saved from last year's bulletin boards

* Picasso's Dance of Youth poster

* A poster depicting the old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword

(posters are old family heirlooms)

Swinging Photography

This is an artistic exclusion of the better part of Harper's face.

More artistry.

More face, less artistry.

Are you still taking pictures, Mom?


Photography: Sunny, Sarcastic captions: Marc, Cute: Harper

Summer's Last Hurrah

All smiles at Fire Island

MO

Swings with a dimple in her chin
St. Louis, MO

We stopped in St. Louis, MO to see Tyler & Emily & Ruby and baby Stella. While there we enjoyed the best chocolate chip cookies (sprinkles of sea salt on top are the secret ingredient), Olympics, Ted Drewe's Famous Custard (more than once), Emily and Tyler's home cooking, Lars and the Real Girl, feeding ducks, playing in fountains, visiting the Gateway Arch, seeing cool stainless steel sculptures by Wiktor Szolstano and the largest mosaic collection in the world (83 000 square feet and 7000 colors) at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, eating barbeque from Smoky O's, foot races at the base of the Arch (Tyler ran backwards and I ran forwards; I was not as victorious as I thought I would be). We had a great time.

One of said cool stainless steel sculptures


Also a very remarkable stainless steel sculpture

UT: 2

Sweet Harper

After the wedding all Wilson siblings and their families traveled to Marc's grandparents' old cabin in Lyman, UT. There we stayed for three days to enjoy hiking in Capitol Reef National Park, swimming at the old slippery rock which was not slippery anymore but still plenty of fun, playing cards, eating at Cafe Diablo, sharing pieces of pickle pie and pinto bean pie, and campfiring.

Eat watermelon naked


Gabby, Emma, Crystal, Kellen at Slippery Rock



Cousins in Capitol Reef


Staying hydrated

The Tanks

Pioneer Register: a rock wall where prospectors and other travelers carved their names when they passed through in the late 1800s

We were happy to see Jacques and Yvonne and their family when we returned from Lyman

Eloha, Yvonne, Hilarion

WY

From Provo we headed north to the Wind River Range in Wyoming with Ned, Matt, and Mark Gardner, and without Harper. She stayed with her cousins and aunt and uncle in Provo. We thought about taking her with us but she failed our test run in Minnesota (most points were taken off for pulling hair). It was probably for the best anyway as I spent most of the time praying we wouldn't get eaten by a grizzly bear. But then I worried about being left alone with Marc in case one of those bears got both of us and left Harper an orphan. When I wasn't worrying about bears I was enjoying carrying a really heavy pack, scrambling up and down big mountains, eating food good enough to be served in a restaurant, and meeting a Wind River ninja.

Thanks to Marc's mom's killer garden we enjoyed fresh tomatoes, eggplant, parsley and the most enormous and beautiful cucumber any of us had ever seen.

"Let the rumpus begin."
Lonesome Lake

Mark Gardner takes the plunge. Backwards. Everyone got in the freezing water. Some were faster than others. Some wore more clothes than others.

This picture is remarkable to me because when we were driving in to the park the rain clouds were so big and dark and ominous that I wished we could have turned around and gone home. We crawled into our sleeping bags after dinner and a rain-go-away dance and hoped for the best. Not only did we not get wet that night but we didn't see a cloud in the sky for three days.

Jackass Pass behind us. Moving up Texas Pass.

The Wind River Ninja

Some mighty tasty burritos

UT:1

Just Married
Mom and Doyle

Never having been to a real prom, I was not sure what to do here. Crystal gave me a crash course and was not harmed.

Marc and Tom, who was Marc's Sunday School teacher in Indiana.

Erin and Mark


Sara, Kim, Mom, Grannie Wilson

John and Emma