Lisa can grow anything!! Especially produce.

I buy her a little green wagon. Take care of the "dumb labor" stuff like tilling, hoeing the ditches, a little weeding, (and I mean a little, as she did most of it) and lots of supervision as usual, and look what happens!! I tell you she talks to the plants. Sometimes I look out there and she's sittin on her butt in the middle of the vegetables, smiling from ear to ear, and jabberin away with no one around but the ladybugs. All I can say is "Whatever you're doin out there, keep it up cuz it works!" This load is what we picked this morning. The wagon has cantalope, honeydew, tomatoes, cukes, spagetti squash(we picked 13 of them today!) crook neck squash, zuccini, the last of the string beans, a few cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, and red potatoes. Special thanks to a great neighbor who's ground we garden on (between the houses) and the irrigation water he gets everything wet with each week. Gotta go, it's time to water.

Go Soph!

What are you now Soph...14? 16? 9? It's so hard to keep up with the rate that you're growing. Besides, with cheeks that rosy you have to be wearing makeup by now. Right? That would make you at least a teenager. No? Well, in between going to get your learners permit and chasing bugs today we hope you'll pause, take a deep breath, and think to yourself (heck, say it out loud!) there are a LOT of people that love me. And today they're all wishing me a happy birthday!

Collage 101

To make a collage you need to have Picasa. It's a free download. Just google picasa and voila. After that (in Picasa) you select the pictures you want (in a square number) and push the collage button. That's it.

Here's my summer collage:

Happy Birthday Huds!

We can't believe Huds is ONE! He's had an amazing birthweek(that's what we celebrate at the Draper's)! I'm not sure who liked the birthday cake more, Huds or the adults. :o)

WHO KNEW 4 YR OLDS PLAYED SOCCER!!

Kelly, Kristen and I went to watch Morgan and Lauren
play soccer. They play 3 on 3, and only with girls. It
was really entertaining!
Here's Lauren trying to keep hydrated!

Back to the game.

Morgan scored a goal!
She was quite traumatized when she didn't get to go in the
game at first. She started crying and said: "But I wanted
to play soccer, too"

The coach could not keep their names straight.
He had to look at their numbers to know which girl
he was talking to. I guess I should teach him the
Bangs----No Bangs!!

Kindergarten kid

Today was Coops 1st day of school. We arrived at the school and I was telling Cooper how excited I was for him and he told me "It's just Kindergarten". I guess he's ready. The class made peanut butter chocolate banana sandwiches for snack time today and he was so concerned about eating a banana. He made sure his teacher knew of his banana phobia and all was well. He made a peanut butter and chocolate sandwich and his crisis was over. It's now his new favorite sandwich. Funny kid!

Thomas update

Just thought I'd give a quick update on Thomas. He's been trying to talk - he babbles all day long and really thinks he's carrying on a conversation. It's very entertaining.

He has also just recently become quite the dancer. I posted this video on our family blog as well but figured I'd share it with you all too. Here is a montage of some of his moves. He's got some great rythym if you ask me...but you can see for yourself. :)

Back to School

While most of you probably start school tomorrow, those of us at the Draper house have already got a week in of school. Does back to school get farther from September every year? I mean August 18? We're barely 1/2 way through the month. Here are our back to school pictures:

Mason the 4th grader:
Sadie - who's not going to school but cheesing really good for the camera.
Rylie - does she look ready for kindergarten or what.
I don't know how I did it, but I managed to not take a picture of Kenzie alone. Here she is with her Jr. High friends. Yes, Jr. High.
I would love to see other back to school pictures when you get them. You included Ms. Denny. :)

Happy Anniversary Baby...Got you on my mind!!

Lisa and I just celebrated our 25th anniv. last weekend. Our actual day was wednesday the 20th, the same as Mother and Dad, but their's was 61 years!! We went to Cedar City, Zions, & St. George to celebrate. Thanks honey for 25 fantastic years. I look forward to 25,000 more!! We're not as young as we once were, but we're more in love than we ever were!!

We started out at Cedar Breaks, about 10 miles above Cedar City. Absolutely breathtaking!

Of course we found some cool trees. I love trees!! Thanks to Mother. This one was in Zions.

This huge thing is up by Cedar Breaks in Cedar Canyon. You have to hike a little to it but it is definitely worth it. Actually, I had to pee and found this little trail...to this gigantic tree. It was more than 2 of my armspans around, almost 3!! The lower limbs were at least 2 feet in diameter! Probably about 80 to 100 feet tall!!

We went to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City and saw two plays. One shakespeare, "Two gentlemen from Verona" which was awesome, and the other, which is my favorite was "Fiddler on the Roof" The photo is the Green Show on campus at SUU before the Shakespeare play. They sing and dance and perform for the crowd for about an hour before the outdoor evening plays. It was "Italian night" so they did everything with italian accents. Very Fun!!

We spent all day friday in Zions. Breathtaking, hot, but worth it!! The scenery is amazing and we were just about the only ones speaking english. Lots of italian, french, german,spanish, japanese, chinese, etc. With the dollar weak, the foreign travelers on holiday were everwhere.

The wildlife was also prevalent. Ok, this little guy wasn't that wild. He just wanted food, but you can't feed the animals in the Park. I almost touched him, but Lisa wouldn't let me.

Five shots of a Lizard wasn't really necessary, but he kept posing.

This guy wasn't too wild either, but he was very photogenic, even through the fence. He lives in

Springdale, in a field full of huge Elk. I think he's a Texas Longhorn. Made us think of Justin.

We hiked a ways up through "The Narrows" in Zions where the Virgin River comes into the Park. This is how we cooled off. She is such a babe!!

We rode our bikes all the way through Zions. We took the shuttle bus to the top and rode them all the way out. Most of the 10 miles is downhill, but , as Rand would say, " It feeds your soul" It's true. The PA'RUS TRAIL, which means Piute, meanders along the Virgin River for about two miles off the road. Really cool!! No cars allowed in the park, only shuttle buses and bikes. When a bus comes on the road you stop your bike or they won't pass you. Very peaceful and very beautiful!!! She really is isn't she.

Not exactly french bicycle pants, but hey, I'm old and fat. See the beautiful mountains, they're all around you.

It just doesn't get much better than this! The river was very refreshing!! It was 100 degrees that day, but we didn't care.

The scenery is awesome!! I would highly recommend a visit if you get the chance. We had a picture perfect day.

We got home late saturday night and set our alarms for EARLY and took Travis up to the balloon festival in Eden on Sunday morn. It is up in Ogden Valley by Pineview. 21 balloons were up all together when we got there. They come down by about 9:00 AM when the air starts to warm up. We got really close and they are huge and very colorful. We watched this one land.

Worth the 25 mile drive. Even Travis liked them, between naps, as we went real early.

Hope I didn't bore you with our trip. The best of all was being with my baby. Thanks Lis, I love you more!!

Draper Family Vacation - 2008

It was time for the Draper Family Vacation - 2008. This year was the Bateman's turn and they chose Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. We had a great time this year including fishing, rope swinging, game playing, swimming, river rafting, Rock Band jamming, exploring, dodgeballing, indoor soccer playing, basketballing, golfing, and country enjoying. We all stayed at the old Schoolhouse Inn. It was totally haunted, but it had a gym so we didn't care about Lizzie the ghost.

Here's lots of pictures of the 4 day fun-filled event. Here is some of the group fishing. I don't know how anybody managed to catch fish with all the "help", but there were some fish caught.At the fishing pond was a rope swing. I guess if the water is a little higher you can swing into the pond, but we just swung back to the bank. This was FUN! Can you identify everyone? There's Clayton, Kenzie, Jessie, Em, Ang, Lexi, Kenzie and Jessie again, and Ben.Ice cream collage. Lots of cute kids. :)
Describing the pictures in the collage below: 1. Check out baby Laynee totally hiding in the corner of the gym during some game that included balls flying everywhere. 2. Ah - Sade and me. 3. Cousin bath. 4. Thanks for bringing Rock Band Josh. Although Heath kept hogging the video game TV with Super Mario something. 5. My morning walk scenery. 6. Baby dodgeball. 7. Pause indoor soccer for a picture of Em and Jessie. Most of us came away with bruised shins after indoor soccer. 8. Mason with a little "Schoolhouse Rock". 9. We're just glad it's not green. 10. Sadie cheesing and hoping someday she can be an expert on the drums like Uncle Josh. 11. More morning walk scenery. 12. Indoor soccer - totally my favorite part of the vacation. 13. Cutie patutie Sadie. 14. These 3 were total trouble. 15. Cam and Kelcie. 16. A D self portrait. I'm not sure why it was taken in the kitchen, and not outside in the beautiful country.
If you're wondering what these guys are looking at, it's a headless grasshopper. Thanks Uncle Brian.
Friday we tubed down the river. Again, lots of fun. The young group - Jessie, Kenzie, Mason, and Taylor.The old group:Of course we went swimming at the Lava pool. Quite a few went back to the hot pots that night, but I have no pictures of that. If you think Michael Phelps is an amazing swimmer, you should see Lexi and Kelcie. I'm thinking Olympics 2020. To end I'm including a picture of Taylor with his Napolean Dynamite look. It's awesome in person.

Morgan and Lauren make fashion statements!

Morgan and Lauren came over tonight to visit. I thought
it would be fun to share their sense of fashion.
Morgan out did herself tonight!!!!

Lauren matches ...but she still needed her picture
taken.

I couldn't resist putting this shot of Sophie
on too. This was taken at the Family Party.
Like Grandpa, like Grandaughter!!

Happy Anniversary Nate and Sarah!!

2 YEARS!! Happy Anniversary to the both of you it is so great to have such an awesome Brother and Sister-in-law. Way to go guys, we love you both!!

Brayden Moved!

Hey family and all, Well im getting transfered to parkland. It's still in the city, but in the south. My new address is 223 parkside cr, Calgary, Canada my zip code is t2j 4j3.
mom, you know that package that i sent home? Well if my camera box is in it and myreceipt in it will you send it up to me because there is a problem with my new camera, so iwill take it back to the store I got it from.
I will be living with members here. They are the Olsens. My new companion is Elder Whit.I dont know nothing about the kid, but that he is cool and fun and a hard worker, so that will be great. Next week I will tell you more about the kid and stuff like that. Elder Haug, my comp now, is training s new missionary, so he is excited. This transfer kinda stinks, because on sunday is stake conference and presidant eyring is coming to speak, so that would have been cool to see.
Well this past week we were able to teach Rob on Sunday and invite him to stakeconference. The lesson went great. We watched the testments and the spirit wasreally strong and I think he felt it. We were also able to see soulee and had a great lesson with him and found out some concerns. so now Elder Haug will have to help him with that. Those are the lessons we were able to teach this week. We have done alot of finding but that can get old fast.
Well it is good to heard from you all that wrote, and hope to hear from you guys that didn't write. Everything is great here, I'm excited for my new area and new companion. i love you all. love peace and chicken grease Brayden Denny

One Proud Papa!

No, this isn't Garrett, or Kent, or any of the Howell kids admiring their new little baby girl. This is JON admiring the gorgeous little Andrea. What could be better on your birthday than a reminder of what had to be one of the happiest days of your life? Well here's to another happy, happy day...today! Have a blissful birthday Jon. We love you.

Cooper's first game

Cooper just started his 1st soccer season

Here he is looking really in to it.

Don't let the pictures fool you. This is more like it. Cooper preferred to watch his team instead of getting in on the action. He liked to look for bugs, pick up dirt, say "I need a break", etc. while he was on the field. We have officially bribed him with a Transformer if he scores a goal at his next game. We'll see.
I had to include a picture of Sophie enjoying the game.

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(Thanks to my Brother-in-law Jason for taking the pictures. They're great)