Aunt Linda's Strawberries—and other stories (a guest post by Zoë)

While we were in Utah, we picked strawberries with Aunt Linda. Her strawberry patch was by her front door. We could tell they were ripe, because the ripe ones were red. Phoebe only picked the green strawberries! That’s not good, because the green strawberries aren't ripe strawberries! Aunt Linda also has a strawberry rock. It fooled Phoebe! I think it’s to trick deer, chipmunks, and other animals that would try to eat the strawberry plants. Aunt Linda has a strawberry bucket that we put the strawberries in, and then, after we picked all the ripe, red, juicy ones, we brought the strawberries inside, and cut them up. 

Here are some pictures of me standing in Aunt Linda's strawberry patch on the Sunday after I got baptized:

If we had strawberries by our front door, chipmunks would eat them up. But we just have rocks by our front door! 

On father's day (June 18), Linda’s son Garrett came over with his wife, Emma, and their baby, Kate. It was so much fun! We had a very fancy lunch planned just for the occasion. I had no idea! 

[Mom edit: Because Aunt Linda was the one slaving over the beef brisket all day Saturday!]

Having Garret over was really fun. He was a bit taller than Dad, and Dad is almost six feet tall! Garret is taller than that. 

Dad, Garrett, Uncle Trevor, and Aunt Linda

Me, Ben, and Alex had fun chasing him around in the basement, and outside. 

[Mom edit: We had told the kids that Aunt Linda and Uncle Trevor, who were so kind (and brave) enough to host all of us for the entire time we were in Utah, were used to having a quiet house. Garrett is an only child, and he left home years ago. Linda and Trevor are used to just living their quiet Linda and Trevor way. So the children were to be respectful, they were to use inside voices, they were to play quietly, and walk calmly, and...then Garrett came. Man alive! He riled those kids up so bad, had them all screaming and yelling and running all over the place.]

Don't even ask me where they got those pool noodles from!!

Here's Phoebe playing catch with Uncle Trevor:

While Garrett struggles with children in the background:

And here are some pictures of some...calmer...play with baby Kate:

Phoebe loves babies and was just so please that Kate touched her!

"I'm never washing this hand again!"

[Mom edit: I snuck out of the house to go on a walk with Aunt Linda and Kate. I don't know that they really intended for us to come, but Phoebe, very much like a puppy, heard the word "walk" and knew she wanted to go! So we went with Aunt Linda and Kate and I took this picture:]

Another nice thing about visiting Utah was that we could walk to the park, so we did that several evenings.

The mountains were also so beautiful to look at!

The one bad thing about going to Utah was having to say goodbye to everybody. Here we are saying goodbye to Linda and Trevor the morning that we left:

Utah was so fun!