July, the month of the great outdoors.

If we were doing anything in July it was outdoors.

We kicked the month off with a bang, beginning with a visit from our good Texas friends the Saddlers. Man I miss that family!! We floated the Salt River (which also served to be quite informative for the children: "see children this is what happens if you don't go to school." "and this is what you look like if you go ahead and get that tattoo on your forehead." "this is why it's important to know how deep of water you're diving into." "don't litter or your mother will hunt you down and kill you." "stupid is as stupid does." "paralization lasts forever." "these people obviously didn't read for twenty minutes per day growing up." "don't use those words, or those or those ones either." "they talk like that because they aren't smart enough to come up with other ways of expressing; excitement, fear, joy, terror, encouragement, etc." "dumb lasts forever.")

We floated down to Phon D Sutton where there is great fun to be had; (and the feasting ground for all those life lessons previously outlined) a natural lazy river, rope swing, and jumping off safely from a boulder into deep water. The crowd here was sketchy but Ashley and I managed to immerse ourselves quite naturally into loser culture (shocker). This was my first time to the river and being as it was only fifteen minutes from my house that was a shame. The river was beautiful! Fun rapids at parts, wild horses, beautiful scenery and its cool welcoming current was dreamy.

I have since rectified my absence from the river with weekly paddle boarding trips on Fridays with my hommies. See, the river has rubbed off on me, my verbiage is well, affected.

The following day we went up to Payson to escape desperate heat. To my surprise Payson was an hour away, door to door!! And it was beautifully green mountains. Like, the kind with trees all over them. Holy crap! Told you it rubbed off on me. Moments after we sat down next to the picturesque lake a bald eagle swooped down from it's nest in a tree and caught a fish. I AM NOT EFFING AROUND HERE, A FREAKIN BALD EAGLE!! Cereal. We fished and caught only guppies but with Ash and gang there we had a great time.

We sent the Saddlers home on Independence day and can't wait for their yearly trip out west next summer. Love you guys!