Devin celebrated his 20th birthday on his mission on July 30. When I asked if there was anything he really wanted (not easy buying birthday gifts for a missionary), he mentioned that there was a Cheesecake Factory in his area, and since Devin's love language is food :), we sent him gift cards so that he and his companion and the other companionship in his area (the ones with the car) could all go and Devin loved it! He also celebrated with a member family who were kind enough to make him a cake...
Devin also earned his bike pin, which is earned by spending at least 4 transfers on a bike, with at least 2 of those transfers being in the summer months in Phoenix. He's pretty proud of this pin. :)
For Bryce and I, the best part of the month began August 4 when we boarded a plane headed to Tahiti. We've planned this vacation in our heads for more than a decade, and it did not disappoint. We spent 10 days there and had the best time. We landed on the island of Tahiti and immediately boarded a ferry that took us to the island of Mo'orea.
We spent 4 days there and had lots of fun adventures, including:
Lots and lots of snorkeling, most of which was in the lagoon right on the resort where we were staying (and it was awesome!), but we also took a tour to go snorkeling with black tip reef sharks and stingrays, which was lots of fun.
Paddleboarding and kayaking...
Renting a motor scooter and riding it all the way around the island. This was our only rainy day of our trip, and it was fun to ride and hike in the torrential rain and see all the sites...
After 4 days on Mo'orea, we flew to the island of Bora Bora where we spent the remainder of our vacation in an overwater bungalow and it's truly just as beautiful and fun as you think it's going to be. It's practically impossible to capture the beauty of the island of Bora Bora on camera, but hopefully these pictures which were taken right from the deck of our bungalow give you some idea...
The view from inside our bungalow looking out to our deck. The entire back wall is glass doors that open up to let the breeze in.
On Bora Bora, we spent a lot of time on our deck or jumping from our deck into the crystal clear lagoon and enjoying the water or snorkeling right off our deck. It was just perfection.
We also went kayaking and biking around the resort...
We also took a water taxi to the main island of Bora Bora to do some souvenir shopping and to take an ATV and jet skiing tour. It was tons of fun, we saw some more beautiful sites and then got to jet ski around the entire island...
Bryce enjoyed all of the tikis around Tahiti and couldn't resist when we found this one that looked an awful lot like his high school Senior picture pose...
We also enjoyed some amazing food - everything from Polynesian to Chinese, American to French cuisine - and had fun watching the dancers at a couple of Polynesian buffets...
It was a pretty amazing time and we were sad to say goodbye to Tahiti and head back home, after enjoying a few pretty amazing sunsets...
We returned home to find Megan, Seth and Autumn all doing well and enjoying the last few days of summer. Autumn spent many hours this month working on the choreography for her 5 dances that her competition team will compete this year and she is liking all of her dances for this year. She also had a few summer practices with her Jr. High dance team and is looking forward to another year on that team as well, especially since she is serving as an officer on the team, specifically over planning parties for the team.
Seth spent the last few days of summer busy at work and spending lots of time with his friends.
Megan was busy with work, saving money for her final year of college and making sure her younger siblings were home on time while we were gone. She also spent a ton of time this summer studying for the GRE, which she took at the end of August. She did awesome on the 2 multiple choice sections of the test and is waiting for her essay scores and then she will start applying to grad schools.
On our actual anniversary, the kids made us dinner and then presented us with our gifts - a picture of the kids holding the numbers of the year we were married (LOVE!) and then a jar filled with slips of paper on which they had written what they love about us and lessons they have learned from us - BEST. GIFT. EVER! Thanks to Megan for getting it all organized. :) She even mailed Devin's number to him for the picture.
Seth and Autumn headed back to school for another year...
Autumn heading to early morning seminary on the first day of 9th grade
Seth's first day as a Senior!!
Megan moved back to Logan and started back to classes. She has a really busy year ahead of her with lab work for one of her professors and 2 jobs on top of all of her classes. She's excited to be back in Logan and back at school.
That's about it for our August - see you all next month! :)
