So Sad!

Ulli is still limping and has even started whining incessantly!

I bought him this blanket online and we have been putting it in his crate at night just in case he needs a little extra padding.

So Good!

Ava is better at surfing than Kyle and I and it so fun to watch her out there with no rope riding those waves!  We have been using our boat every chance we get and have clocked over 40 hours already in a month!

Sunday Best

I'm not sure how Bear Lake does it, but when all 40 of us arrived and required 5 rows to ourselves, the ward didn't blink an eye and even passed out smarties to every single one of us!  The meetinghouse was bigger than a stake center and house multiple groups who were just visiting!  It was fun to all be together at church for once!  Since the reunion shirts were two weeks overdue and lost, we just took a picture in our church clothes, which looks much cooler than a t-shirt would have.  First picture ever taken with everyone in it that didn't have someone in a wedding dress!

Kyle and I were relieved to have a day with everyone on land and spent our free time cooking dinner, cleaning up, making nutella no bakes for dessert and relistening the Komenda history Nana prepared (with a slideshow) for Grandpa Komenda's 100th birthday party back in Pismo.  People started leaving today and eventually, we all cleared out Monday morning.  Good times, hope we manage to pull another one off in two years.

Cousin Time!

Kyle spent almost the entire reunion on the lake in the boat.  It was fun at first to see all the cousins enjoying the water and the tubes, but the clouds that kept appearing and the rain that was freezing and the wind that blew us into the dock and another boat were not fun and neither was all the time we wasted trying to coordinate everyone's arrival/departure from the lake. 

The few hours we had an adult-only crew were the most entertaining and surprisingly the warmest part of trip!  Kyle even got on the tube with Matt and Michael-priceless.  The only thing more entertaining than three grown men on a duck tube, was one grown man getting thrown off a duck tube at 29 miles an hour!  So glad we did this, wish we didn't have all these repairs needed on the baot now!

Family Reunion

Kyle picked a place and planned the first Komenda family reunion for this weekend about a year ago.  He got a lot of pushback from most of his siblings, but somehow we kept the reservation and with Kristine's help-the reunion was a total success!  The food was bounteous, the boat was so fun, the tubes were thrilling, the jet skis were cool and the company was great.

The kids loved every minute of their weekend with their cousins that actually started a day early when the Cluffs arrived at our house Wednesday night late and helped get the food in Ogden tomorrow as well as tow all the coolers and big games up on their trailer.

Before the Cluffs arrived, though, the boat had a breakdown and the jack snapped rendering the boat immoveable and undetachable from the Lexus.  We were in full blow panic mode with the reunion the next day and the boat being the main form of entertainment at Bear Lake.

With the help of a tender mercy, I was able to break down in the Audi in front of the camp directors for the camp down the road from us who were able to both help the Audi kick out the rock that got stuck and stopped the wheels from turning without a crazy noise as well bring up a jack to lift the boat off the tow ball on the Lexus.

Kyle and I couldn't believe we were able to receive such divine intervention!  Once the Boat was jacked up, we put it down on a tall log that the camp directors had brought and Kyle was able to drive to Centerville for a new part early on Thursday before doing the majority of the grocery shopping by himself at Smiths.  It was a lot of food and filled two grocery carts while the Cluffs and I hung at the house.

Eventually Kyle made it back home, we loaded up the trailer with the food and the Cluffs met Nana and Papa at Sam's Club where the rest of the food and water was purchased and loaded on the trailer.  We stayed behind, installed the new part and loaded our boat as well as packed our bags.  It was a crazy morning and once we got all packed up and made one last trip back home after getting all the way to the Liberty church, we headed to Ogden to drop Ulli off. 

The Cluffs barely made it to the rental in Bear Lake before we arrived all out of breathe when we almost ran out of gas on the canyon to the Lake.  It was another tender mercy, because we drove the Lexus up a mountain towing a boat with no cell signal or gas station for about 15 miles.  When we finally made it to the top, we had to stop at a weigh station, but thankfully the gas station was downhill from there with plenty of room for a boat!  Phew!

Everyone arrived throughout the day and evening and when we were all finally together all the hard work and planning seemed worth it!

So Sick!

Ulli has been limping since Cassie's visit and although we have taken him to the vet and gotten two different x-rays, the results are inconclusive, so we just keep medicating him and hoping he will either heal or grow out of this ailment.  He sure is cute!

REAL Birthday Cake

Since Kyle's Nutella cake needed so long to set, we finished it up today and had for dessert tonight.  It was so smooth and delicious, reminiscent of the Oreo Cheesecake we made Kyle for father's day.  The crushed-chocolate stuffed Oreos used for the crust were pretty amazing!

Plan B Birthday

Kyle's special day became a bit of blunder from the start-culminating in not enough time to go out to eat, a home cooked lasagna dinner, an amazing dessert that took 18 hours to set and a plan B pizzoookie that was good, but not 40th birthday amazing.  I wish I could have done more to make this day special, planning is not my forte!  I'm sorry Kyle, I love you!

iFly

For Kyle's 40th birthday I wanted to give him a thrill that wasn't so thrilling he wouldn't want to do it-enter indoor sky diving!  Him and I are both was too scared of actual sky diving, so this seemed like a perfect substitute.  Unfortunately for us, I mixed up the arrival time when I was preoccupied with Kyle's cake and we had to reschedule for a later time that did give us the chance to go to one of Kyle's favorite Mexican cantina's here in Ogden.  Lunch was great, and so was the flying!

Kyle went first in our group of 10 and I went second.  We got to do everything first and as a result had some unexpected events!  The second fly was by far the better of the two and Kyle ended up doing it all by himself while I was able to spin really high in a tandem fly with the instructor.  While we waited for the rest of our group to finish, we were able to watch our videos, which was when I discovered I was flying in tandem!  It was a fun afternoon!

Birthday Boy!

We let the big guy sleep in today for his 40th and then hit him with the birthday parade!  Kyle didn't know it was so late and I had lost track of time as well while working on an impressive birthday cake that he and I had planned a few days before.  His BBQ birthday seemed like a good idea, but wasn't as big of a hit as I'd hoped and poor Kyle just got some gifts he didn't really want for his super special day.

Anniversary Hike

Today, we decided to go for it and start hiking Ben Lomond.  Kyle has a goal of hiking this mountain before winter, so he thought why not start training today.  He was a much better hiker than me, who kept wanting to stop and look around.  I bet he could have been half way up there in the time it took us to a third of it. 

For dinner tonight we went to Park City and looked at the galleries along the street before hitting up a Mexican food restaurant with some fancy schmancy dishes!  We enjoyed our food and loved looking at all the artwork, but left empty handed when we realized the piece we liked the most was $5000 for a picture we could take in our backyard.  Maybe I will take some of that money and spend it on a ood photography course and some high end printing and framing that will deliver a much more personal result.  We got some gummies for the long ride home and loved every minute of our drive as we talked and read the book Kyle got, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger.

So Clean!

This guy is so silky soft from his bath, it's hard not to cuddle him!

4th of July!

We made our traditional american flag jello fruit salad today as well as doing our family bike ride in the rain.  We also managed to support Kyle and Ava in their debut at the Liberty Days volleyball competition with Ulli in tow, take Ulli to the groomers for a de-shedding, go see Toy Story 4 at the theater, have a BBQ and make it to the fireworks once it finally stopped raining!  It was a fun day!

Cookie of the Month!

Jack has been keeping his monthly commitment to the cookie of the month club and this month he decided to make these super colorful rainbow sprinkles cookies.  They were really chocolaty with a crunch from all the sprinkles.  I think the recipients enjoyed these a ton!