the 24th: Races and Ridin'

What's better than the 24th of July races in Pine Valley?

I love the Gardner family traditions!! One such tradition that I love oh so much is the 24th of July in Pine Valley. Me and Jord would not miss it this year so we left work and school behind in Logan and drove to Pine Valley where we stayed for 3 days.

Pine Valley, every year, has breakfast, races, games and balloon tosses on the lawn at the church for the 24th of July.

It was Aria's first year in Pine Valley for the 24th. She Loved it!

Here we are waiting at the starting line for the races to begin.

Here she is at the end with Carly. Look at that pic. She beat everyone by a long shot!

Aria is feeding me some of her "winnings" from the race: Cracker Jacks.

Besides the festivities at the church, the Gardners traditionally do a cattle drive during the 24th of July weekend and take their 200 or so cattle from Pine Valley to Grass Valley.This is the second year that I have been able to go on the cattle drive and I love it! I always feel like Im in an old western movie or something riding along with the cattle.


Here we are getting ready for the long trip

How cute! Ashley & Garret riding out to the cows. This was Garrets first adventure with the cattle drive. He was a trooper!

me

Taking the cattle across the Pine Valley road to Grass Valley.

Justin & Maggie Gardner. My cute cowboy husband!
We had such a great adventure! I love Pine Valley!!

Backpacking & Celebrations

This is what we are trying to do every year for Jordan's birthday/ 4th of July Weekend.

This has been our second year backpacking to White Pine Lake from Tony Grove with the McDonalds and our first year with Adam Del Toro. We absolutely love it!

I think this year was a lot easier than last year because we were so unprepared last year. It was our first time backpacking and we didn't want to carry too much because its a pretty strenuous hike and we didn't want to get too tired. Well, what we ended up doing was not bringing a tent and sharing ONE sleeping bag. Kody and Cherri did the same. We basically froze that night and didn't get much sleep. We also didn't catch any fish that trip either so our meals were down to just hot dogs and granola bars.

This year we brought TWO sleeping bags and a tent (fits 4). It was pretty good that we brought a tent this year because around 10pm we started to get rained and hailed on. We also caught fish this time so we were able to eat that for dinner.

The real adventure this year was cramming in 5 people and a dog in our tent. What a cozy night!

The two fish I caught!

Jordan's Backpack

My Backpack

We love it at White Pine Lake, it is sooo beautiful! We definately look forward to this trip every year.




In other news, just before our trip to White Pine...
The McDonalds and ADT surprised Jordan with a birthday banana cream pie.
It was so delish! Im so glad these peeps live in Logan with us. We have such good friends!


Best Friends for LIFE!
These guys have been best friends since elementry school. How precious.

Genealogy

I had an odd thing happen to me today at work. We were having an employee birthday party lunch celebration at work and me and Suzy (the building inspector secretary) were chatting it up when we got on the subject of relatives. I just had to throw my only claim to fame out there that I was a Kimball, that my Great Great Great Great Grandpa (I don't know how many greats, but he was pretty awesome) was Heber C. Kimball. To my utter surprise Suzy said that he was her relative as well! We took the time to then look up our genealogy and see how we were related. Come to find out, we are distant cousins!! Her line came down from a different wife of Heber C. Kimball. This is the same Kimball that begat Spencer W. Kimball.

Strange eh?

After looking up all the genealogy I started to think, geez my Grandma was right, this genealogy stuff isn't half bad. It was actually fun to try to find out with line I come from. And here it is (cause I know all of you are dying to find out):

Heber C. Kimball + Vilate Kimball (first wife out of like 10)

David Patten Kimball

Quince Kimball

Lavon Kimball

Earl Kimball (My Grandpa)

Kerry Kimball (Mom)

ME!

Anyone else out there got some pretty sweet relative they'd like to brag about?

Happy Birthday Love!

Jord's Birthday Gifts

Yeah, Yeah, I know its early but Happy Birthday Husband! Me and Jo decided we should celebrate early since we will be backpacking to White Pine Lake on his acutal day of birth.


I love this man so much! He is the best husband and my best friend. Thanks for birthing him Janece!

I need to give another birthday shout out to Janece and Megan. HAPPY BITHDAY! You two are the best mother-in-law and twin-sister-in-law ever!

Lunch Picnic

Jordan surprised me today. He came and picked me up from work and we had a picnic on the Tabernacle lawn for lunch. What a great husband. We had sushi, unconventional but totally us.

I love that man!

Gardner Family Assembly

Every summer me and Jordan look forward to this:

FAMILY FOOD AND A FRIGGEN GOOD TIME

Gardners, ASSEMBLE

The "Produce Derby"

Our car

Megs carHolly and Lisa catching their cars
Me Jo and Allie
Little Gunner Gardner. Such a happy baby!!!

reminder

please leave your email address if you want to continue to view this blog. im going private. ive been private for a while but didn't have everyone's email address so im leaving it open again for a week or so then going private again. if you've already left your address then you don't need to do it again, but you need to accept the request to view the blog through the email address you left for me.