Dwayne Milton Pace 1920-2016

On July 12, 2016 McKay's sweet 95 year old grandpa passed away.  What a wonderful man he was and we will miss him dearly.  Grandpa was a hard worker his whole life, but the past few years have been rough on him and I know that he was grateful to move on to the next life.

His wonderful wife Joan Pace helped care for him in there home and I am sure she misses him dearly now.

A few things about Grandpa's life:

He was the youngest child in his family and was raised on a Dairy farm.
He served in the Navy and then attended BYU after the war was over.
He and Joan, his wife, had 6 kids and lived in Wanship their whole married lives.
Grandpa owned a dairy farm with his brother.
He retired from the dairy farm at the age of 59 and went on several LDS missions with grandma.
He served in the Ogden Temple for 25 years.
He took immaculate care of his yard and had the greenest grass you had ever seen.
He was an amazing story teller and he could remember so many details about his life and the things that he had done.

I am so grateful for this sweet man's example and life dedicated to his family and hard work.  I know much of McKay's work ethic comes from the example of Grandpa Pace.  McKay's middle name is Dwayne after Grandpa Pace and I know he looks up to him a lot.

Grandpa's funeral was held the Saturday after he passed away at the LDS church building in Wanship, Utah.  He is buried in the Wanship cemetery.

The funeral was so wonderful and spiritual as we celebrated Grandpa's life.  All of his children were there as well as most of his grandchildren.  So many stories and quotes that grandpa used to say were shared.  The great grandkids enjoyed playing together and running around the nursery at the church.  This was our kids first experience with death of someone that they knew.  They have asked lots of questions and were very fascinated with his body in the casket during the funeral.  I was grateful to be able to share with them more about the plan of salvation and teach them that someday they will get to see Great Grandpa Pace again.

Many of the Pace cousins are in the "having families" stage of life.  Lots of little babies, lots of kids all around.  Is it so fun to see!

This is during the viewing.

  These next photos are from the Graveside ceremony

  After the funeral their ward had a lunch for us back at the church.  It was fun talking and visiting with cousins and aunts and uncles.

Grandpa Pace you will sure be missed by many!  We love you.







 

Lost Pictures, Bear Lake, and a little Exploring

Guys I lost my camera.  (Freak out right?!)  Thankfully it was not my nice new camera, just our old one that have been using a bit here and there this summer.  I cannot find it anywhere and while I definitely think that I could show up at some point... (mom is it at your house?) I am not going to sit and wait till I find it.  So while I really wanted to show you all of the fun that we had at Bear Lake a couple weeks ago it will have to wait for another day.

But just for records sake, we had a fun time at Bear Lake.  We stayed at a KOA campground with my parents.  The campground had tons of fun activities to do right there pickle ball, playground, tracker rides, raspberry shakes, pool, mini golf, a big bouncy blob (like a trampoline), and basketball just to name a few.  So we stayed around the camp site most of the time, but we did venture out for a day and went to the lake.  It was hot while we were there, but not miserable which was nice (especially for this pregnant mama).  Adalyn got bit by a little snake (pretty sure she is scarred for life now haha!) and she learned that she LOVES the water.  The kids slept well the 2nd night we were there (rough first night) and we realized that we will probably out grow our tent with the birth of this next baby.  Overall it was time well spent with family and we are grateful for all of Grandma and Grandpa's help.  Here is the only picture that I took with my new camera as we were packing up to leave.

All 4 of my sisters and I are living in different states this summer so my parents have been traveling around and visiting each one of us on their break from school.  Our Bear Lake trip was their last stop and I am sure that they were pretty burned out from all of their "fun" but they still acted excited to see us and we enjoyed spending time with them.  They were troopers!

Slowly our summer is winding down.  We have one last family reunion in a few weeks, Adalyn's first friend birthday party, a quick trip to Jackson Hole and possibly another hike after that.

Every summer I always have grand plans to get out and explore Idaho a little bit more and every summer we fail to do much.  But this summer I made our plans SUPER simple and we have actually gotten out a bit more then normal.  Instead of trying to go on all of these amazing hikes I decided to just try and go "exploring" in the mountains.  I figured if I kept our expectations low we might actually be able to enjoy ourselves.  And it worked!  So far we have gone on 2 little family exploring adventures with 1-2 more on our calender's.  Idaho is a beautiful state you just have to drive a bit to find it!

Our first hike was with our backyard neighbors to Menan Butte.  They have 5 kids and we had our 3 so there were lots of little ones with us.  But the kids enjoyed being with friends and it made the hiking around a little more exciting.  Addie and Jensen loved the fact that it was an old volcano and they talked about lava the whole time.

These kids are all such great friends and we feel very blessed to have them! 

 
  Our next little family adventure was to Palisades Creek.  We made it about 2 miles down the trail before the kids were ready to turn around and head back to the car.  So 4 miles total which I thought was not too bad for a 3 and 4 year old.  The view was beautiful and we enjoyed a picnic lunch in the woods and playing in the stream.

Our next adventure we have planned is Jackson Hole and its surrounding lakes.  We have not been to Jackson since we moved to Idaho so I am excited to go and see it with the kids.  We had thought about going there this weekend (as in yesterday), but mama needed a break from all the traveling and our house needed some TLC.  So our trip got postponed and I wont lie it felt really good to do a bit of deep cleaning, mow the lawn, and take a few relaxing evening to just hang out at home.  Now I think I am ready to tackle this last month of our summer vacation.  

Hope you are enjoying your summer as well!
 

 
      
        

Red, White, and Blue 2016

The 4th of July was a great holiday for us this year.  My aunt, uncle, and 2 cousins came to our house to help us celebrate.  They came last year on 4th of July and it is always a treat for us when we get to host the fun instead of traveling.  The kids were excited for "Dayton" (my cousin) to come do fireworks with them.  They literally had been talking about it for months.

It was a pretty fast trip for them, but we were still able to have lots of fun.

Sunday night we had a barbecue and then did a few fireworks.

Addie and Jensen were SO excited to do fireworks and they really loved everything from the sparklers to the smoke bombs.  Oh to be a kid!

 

Monday, the morning of the 4th, we went to the Idaho Falls city parade.  This year I was in charge of saving the seats at the parade and McKay was in charge of dressing the kids and feeding everyone breakfast (last year we did the opposite).  Lets just say that we didn't have great seats and McKay and the gang were almost late to the parade so I think next year we will just stick with with our normal routine.  haha!

In general there seemed to be less candy being thrown at us then last year, BUT the kids still ended up with plenty.  Also Declin only spilled half of his cheetos and 1/4 of his juice on me so I would say the parade was a success.

After the parade the older boys and the dads went to play disc golf while the ladies and the kids went back to the house to make some yummy waffles with strawberries for lunch.  After lunch the kids, Camden, and McKay pulled out the kiddie pool and water guns for a water fight.  The neighbor kids joined in too and they all had a blast getting soaked.  I was happy to watch the fun from the living room window.  After the water fight some of us napped, others played games, and some watched a few episodes of the TV series Flash.  It was a nice relaxing afternoon.

That evening we had hoagie sandwiches with salad and fruit for dinner and then our visitors packed up and headed home to be ready for work the next day.  That night we skipped out on the big city fireworks and put the kids to bed early after the busy day, and honestly we were happy to fall asleep right along with them.  Maybe when they are older we will attempt the big fireworks, but for now the driveway ones are prefect.

I hope everyone had a good 4th!