The Zhao Family

We started another year of Park Quest! And of course we went Canoeing! It's 10 minutes from our house and it was a beautiful day for it! We learned about testing the water and  the environmental impact on it, so we had to paddle all around the lake to do certain things. It was really fun! So fun that Da paddled the boys while the girls had their canoe. Halfway through, both canoes were tied together so the boys can help the girls to haul them.

Afterwards, we went right to the pool! This year Abbey bought a season pass to our local area pool and we already went each day of the entire Memorial Day weekend. The kids love it since they see all their school friends to play with, although they still love to shoot at Da. 

We even get to wash our cars, which we haven't washed for many years. Well Da did most of the washing while the kids did most of the soap bubble playing. But in the end, both cars are washed clean. Now we can see all the dents and scratches on the cars. Lol

So the boys had a overlapping recital at their school. It was a hard decision but mom said that we will attend Brennen's first year recital and then attend Clayton's last year recital next year. She recorded their rehearsal but it's pretty much the same except they dress a little nicer.

Another busy week! Da took the boys to a Father Son Campout and also took three additional boys with him from the branch. They joined the rest of the stake to camp out at the Foulger Pratt Farm near Sugarloaf Mountain.

This year Clayton put up his own tent that he received as a reward for selling a lot of popcorn from cubscouts. He was proud of his orange two men tent that he slept in by himself. Brennan help setup the 8 person tent with me.

Our beautiful view

Here's a small sample of the tents from other fathers-sons camping.

Below are samples of photos Clayton took with his point and shoot camera that he takes everywhere with him when we go on trips. I have to say he has some pretty good skills of the grass, cows and the little pond that was there.

Mud, water, and fire. What can you do without having that during camping? However this time was pretty cool. One of the church members is a scientist, a pyro chemist to be exact. So he brought all kinds of 'safe' chemicals to react with fire. Needless to say, no one got hurt and the firepit fire display was pretty awesome with all kinds of colors burning!

By the time we came back, the boys already play with fire and cooking 'breakfast' which consist of wrapping rising dough around a cooked sausage.

The best part of camping was after most everyone left except for a few people. Then the after show began with a couple adults showing the boys about guns, gun safety, and then shooting some of the guns. None of my boys have ever handle nor shot a gun before, so it was all exciting to them. They get to touch different kinds of bullets for different kinds of guns.

Clayton was brave enough to shoot a .22 rifle while Brennan didn't like the popping sound so he refused to shoot and stayed far away.

So Abbey was very late getting to make something for the kids' teachers. But she made it up in a big way. Each of the 12 teachers get a box lunch that Abbey made herself. Brennan has 8 teachers, Clayton has 3, and FongFong has 1. Originally Abbey made 9 meals but come to find out that CC has one extra teacher and SS had two. So she had to make and extra three, the next day!

They happily helped out to cut fruits for their teachers too.

After several stores to get the right groceries and ingredients, Abbey literally cooked four hours to make sure all the teachers get their meals by 11am, their lunch time. She even emailed the teachers if they have allergies or preferences like don't eat meat, seafood, etc. One of CC's PE teacher actually preferred no fish. But Abbey insist that he try her Salmon. After eating it, he loved it so much that he joked about opening a Restaurant with Abbey and cooking Salmon all the time. 

The photo below actually have no place to post but I think it's worthy of posting...somewhere (here) So FF has been helping too. She helps with getting the dirty laudry so they can be sorted to be washed. She just found out the easiest and fastest way to get the clothes downstairs...dumping and letting them drop to the lower level.

Another year of Dragon Boat. This year it was raining the entire time, save it for a short period of time where it was on pause. This year Da was captain again and had to gather people to the race. But this year it involved many people that he didn't know and from a different state. Though many people didn't respond to his many emails, somehow they all showed up on the raining and muddy race day. And somehow Da ended up on the youth team. He was happy about that. Sadly the adult team didn't win any awards this year (some thinks it's because Da wasn't in the team) but the youth did win the Bronze metal. This was surprising good since this is most everyone's first time and they only had one practice prior to the race.