Tim, Sasha & Family

Summer 2026: Parades, Adventures, Creativity, and a Little Bit of Retirement

Summer is officially over and school is back in session, so I thought I would record a few of our final summer adventures before they get buried under homework, schedules, and the craziness of another school year. We packed a lot into this summer, and looking back, I think we managed to squeeze every last drop of fun out of it!

Parades, Candy, and a Whole Lot of Heat

On July 24th, our family got to walk in the Bountiful Handcart Days Parade. I love parades, so naturally I was completely on board with this adventure. I even made bonnets for our daughters to wear and bought $600 worth of candy to throw to the crowd. Yes… $600. Apparently, I believe in taking candy throwing very seriously.

McCabe got the exciting job of driving Todd Weiler, a politician. Well, technically, he drove Todd's wife and grandchild, but it still sounds impressive!

The parade was a lot of fun, although it was very hot—and this was only 10:00 in the morning! By the time we finished, I think we had all earned our parade participation badges.

The kids also spent some time putting out flags around the neighborhood. Here are Canda and Xavius helping Teagan and Xadia with the flags. There is something about seeing all those flags lining the neighborhood that makes summer in Utah feel extra special.

Soap-Making and Welfare Square

My nephew Clark Johnson has become quite the soap-making expert. He and Jacinda decided to have a soap-making day, and I was impressed by how efficient their little production line had become. They had the whole process down!

Jacinda also took us on a tour of Welfare Square, which is one of her mission sites. While we were there, she found a man from France who was interested in Welfare Square, so he joined us for the tour. It was fun having someone from another country experience it with us.

Tim: Practicing Retirement

Tim has been busy setting up his home gym and working out. He is getting pretty serious about his fitness!

Of course, even the most dedicated fitness enthusiast needs a little rest. At one point, Tim decided to take a break on an inflatable in the pool. When I asked him what he was doing, he replied:

“I look like I am practicing being retired.”

That absolutely made me laugh.

Tim is definitely ready to retire. I am not. Apparently, we are on two completely different retirement schedules!

Our Taiwanese Guests

We had another opportunity to host three Taiwanese students this summer. We do this every year, but this group was the youngest we've hosted. They were around 13 and 14 years old and didn't speak much English.

Thankfully, we had Google Translate!

Despite the language barrier, they had a great time. They rode in the Blueberry, shot a BB gun, and went to the trampoline park. Somehow, fun seems to translate pretty well into every language.

One Last Getaway to the Tetons

The kids got one more getaway before school started. On August 19th, Teagan, Xadia, McCabe, and Tim headed to the Tetons for some rock jumping, lake swimming, hiking, and enjoying the beauty of nature.

They had a great time exploring and taking in the scenery. Jacinda had to stay home and do her mission, and I stayed behind to work at the office—which actually worked out well because there is only so much room in a camper van!

Sometimes staying home is the best way to avoid being the person who gets assigned the smallest sleeping space.

Teagan and His Metal-Melting Hobby

Teagan has developed a very interesting hobby: melting metal.

He has a furnace and melts aluminum cans into bars. He also works with lead and other metals. Since he was getting more interested in forging, we decided to sign him up for a forging class.

He got to melt metal, heat it up, and then bang it on an anvil. It was something completely different and new for him, and he loved it.

I am really glad he got to have that experience. Teagan is a smart kid who loves trying new things, and this definitely kept him interested in the hobby. I have to admit, I never imagined that one of my kids would grow up wanting to spend his free time melting metal, but here we are!

Tim's Famous Diet and Fitness Lessons

Tim has settled into a steady diet of fish, ground turkey, yams, and cabbage salad. He likes it so much that he has started teaching other people about it!

Here is Lance Stubbs learning how to make Tim's famous cabbage salad. He was making a batch to take back to BYU.

Tim also enjoys teaching people how to exercise in his home gym. Here he is teaching Teagan about muscle-ups.

I really like seeing how healthy Tim has become. If he keeps this up, he may actually live forever—which is probably good because I don't want to have to start dating again.

Tuacahn Adventures

Tim has a tradition of taking the kids one-on-one on an outing to Tuacahn. Each child gets to see a theatrical production, which makes for a special experience with Dad.

Xadia got to see Grease, and she came home absolutely thrilled. She told me the play was really good and that the song “Hopelessly Devoted to You” was a real banger.

Apparently, that means it was a really good song.

She has since started playing the Grease soundtrack on Alexa, so I think we can safely say the musical made an impression.

Jacinda also got to see Grease and Les Misérables. She was completely enthralled by the stage production and the acting, which makes perfect sense because theater is right up her alley.

During their trip, they also visited Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon, all while traveling in the camper van.

One of our traditions is to stop at the St. George Visitor Center and fill the van with snacks for the missionaries. The missionaries are always very appreciative of this tradition—and I'm pretty sure they have figured out that we are coming.

Panda Express and Interesting Facts

While Xadia was off on her getaway and Jacinda was at her mission site, I took Teagan out for some Panda Express.

We had a great time eating and talking. Teagan always has some unusual fact or idea ready to share.

For example, he started talking about how Jesus was Asian because He was born on the Asian continent.

That is Teagan for you. You never quite know where the conversation is going to go!

Back to School… But Apparently It's Winter

School started, and here is a picture of Teagan getting ready for another school year.

No, it is not cold.

It is still ridiculously hot.

But Teagan has grown out his hair and wears a beanie because, according to him, it hides his earbuds.

Priorities.

My Creative Side

I have a few creative outlets, and one of them is sewing.

I found this fabric at Walmart and decided to create a pattern from one of my shirts. The final result was a dress with a belt, and I have been amazed at how many compliments I get when I wear my homemade clothes.

That always fascinates me. I think people assume that if something looks nice, it must have come from a store. I love being able to say, “Actually, I made this!”

My other creative outlet is singing and creating music. I recently released an album called Something About You.

I create the songs using AI instruments and my own voice and lyrics, and it has been so much fun experimenting with music. I especially love adding little details. For example, if I want a cello in a particular section, I can mark the measures and tell the program to add a cello there—and it does it!

It feels like having my own little recording studio and orchestra at my fingertips.

A Wedding Celebration

My nephew Quentin Johnson got married, and we were lucky enough to attend the wedding.

Here we are all dressed up and looking pretty snazzy!

This is Mimi's second child to get married.

Two down, two to go!

I think Mimi is officially entering the stage of life where weddings become a regular family event.

Thirty Years Later…

I was also able to attend my 30-year high school reunion.

It was amazing.

I am so grateful to everyone who came. It was wonderful to see old friends again and catch up on the lives we've all lived over the past 30 years.

It was also bittersweet. We learned about classmates who have passed away, and it made me realize just how much life can change in 30 years.

I ended up creating a movie of the reunion and writing a song about it. The song is based on the conversations we had that night, and I am really pleased with how it turned out.

Thirty years ago, we were just kids wondering what our lives would become.

Now we are looking around the room and realizing that we have all experienced successes, struggles, heartbreaks, adventures, families, losses, and a whole lot of life.

There are so many great people in this world, and I feel very grateful that our paths crossed.

My Birthday: Grease, Les Mis, and Feeling Like a Celebrity

My birthday was amazing!

Tim took me to St. George to see Grease and Les Misérables. We decided to make the experience extra fun by dressing up.

For Grease, we dressed up as Sandy and Danny.

Then, for Les Misérables, we changed into formal wear.

We met some of the cast afterward, and they absolutely loved our outfits. In fact, some people actually thought we were part of the cast!

That gave us a good laugh.

But the funniest part happened the second night. We went back to the theater, and this time we weren't wearing our costumes. Some of the cast members still recognized us!

For a brief moment, I felt like a celebrity.

It made me decide that I will always dress up for the theater for two very important reasons:

#1 — I love making the costumes.

#2 — The cast really appreciates it.

And honestly, life is more fun when you have an excuse to dress up. When we got home, the kids had decorated the house and invited friends over for a dinner to celebrate my birthday. It was so lovely and the cake was so good. I also finally met Jordan Hill, the guy Jacinda has been crushing over. He is very nice and polite. He gave me a sweet birthday card. That was so very thoughtful.

Goodbye, Summer

And just like that, summer came to an end.

There were parades, candy, flags, soap, Taiwanese students, camper-van adventures, mountain hikes, theater trips, metal melting, cabbage salad, sewing, music, weddings, reunions, birthdays, and enough memories to fill an entire album.

School may have started, but I am grateful we finished summer with so many good memories.

Now it's time for the next adventure!

Nate, me and Tim going on a side by side in St. George.

How is summer already half over? It feels like we've packed an entire year's worth of adventures into just a few short months!

Jacinda—or should I say Sister Fisher—is doing wonderfully on her service mission. She spends her time serving at the temple, the food pantry, and with Church Productions, especially Concerts in the Park on Friday nights. I had the chance to go watch her in action, and it was such a proud mom moment. There is something special about seeing your child serving others with such joy.

Xadia spent two incredible weeks in Taiwan on a foreign exchange trip. She visited several schools and was able to reconnect with students we've hosted over the years. Somehow, wrestling and hacky sack became universal languages, and she had a blast playing with the students.

She barely had time to recover from jet lag before it was off to Girls Camp! I was lucky enough to go with her, and it ended up being just as much fun for me as it was for the girls. We made beaded hair wraps, experimented with henna, painted rocks, climbed a rock wall, and tried archery.

Archery was easily my favorite activity...despite earning a magnificent bruise on the inside of my elbow from the bowstring. My solution? I simply started shooting "gangster style" by turning the bow sideways instead of holding it upright. I'm fairly certain that's not what the instructors were teaching, but it worked surprisingly well!

Father's Day was one of my favorite days of the summer. Rather than just giving Tim gifts, we created something he'll treasure forever. We interviewed each of the kids and recorded them talking about their dad, sharing memories and telling him why they love him. It turned into a priceless keepsake.

June also seemed to be wedding season. We celebrated our anniversary, Chris and Tricia's anniversary, and then Liza and Caleb's beautiful wedding. Their wedding dinner was held in the courtyard of a charming church in Salt Lake City that was built in the early 1900s. The wedding itself was at the Orem Temple. There happened to be a wildfire somewhere in the state, so tiny bits of ash occasionally drifted through the air like confetti. It was oddly beautiful.

If you're wondering why Teagan isn't in any of the wedding pictures, it's because he was off making memories of his own at All Stars Camp.

We also had family pictures taken this summer. We posed in front of the red brick wall outside our church building, but afterward I couldn't resist a little Photoshop magic and gave us an elegant ballroom backdrop. Personally, I think they turned out great.

Xadia completely disagrees.

She insists the photoshopped version "doesn't even look like her."

I remind her that it is, in fact, literally her face.

She remains unconvinced.

Tim also got a new office/camper van this summer. After giving it a successful test run at All Stars Camp, he decided it was ready for a real adventure. So he loaded up me, Jacinda, and Fozzie, and we headed to Willard Bay for an overnight camping trip.

Everything was going perfectly...

...until Fozzie broke the screen door.

Tim wasn't exactly thrilled. I, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing because having a dog sometimes feels exactly like having another toddler. Thankfully, we managed to fix the screen door the next morning.

That night, as we were trying to fall asleep, Fozzie repeatedly whined because he wanted to sleep on the bed. After enough persistence, Tim finally surrendered. Fozzie immediately settled himself between Jacinda and me like he had won the lottery. Mission accomplished.

For the Fourth of July, we went to see Young Washington. Kade McPheters joined us, and Teagan fully committed to the experience by wearing his colonial-style costume. The movie was outstanding. It left me feeling incredibly grateful for the courage and sacrifice of those who fought for our country's freedom and reminded me how much strength people can find within themselves.

Because June was so incredibly busy, Tim and I postponed celebrating our anniversary until July. We finally escaped to London and Scotland for our 27th anniversary, and it was everything we had hoped it would be.

The locals kept apologizing for the "terrible" heat wave of 85 degrees. We just smiled politely while thinking about the 109-degree temperatures we'd left behind in Salt Lake City.

I absolutely fell in love with the architecture. Standing inside buildings that are more than three times older than the United States gives you a whole new appreciation for history. Everywhere we turned seemed to have another fascinating story to tell.

We visited Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey, and so many other incredible places. One experience I especially loved was attending church in another country. One congregation mentioned that nearly 80% of those attending were visitors, which made for a wonderfully unique Sunday.

Scotland was breathtaking. Everything was lush, green, dramatic, and wonderfully gothic. Walking through castles and historic sites brought my tenth-grade European history class flooding back into my mind. Seeing the places where so many religious conflicts occurred made history feel much more personal. People literally gave their lives rather than abandon their beliefs or convert to another religion. It helped me better understand why so many early settlers sought religious freedom in America. I definitely would not have wanted to live during those centuries.

My favorite stop was Holyrood Palace, where the King stays whenever he visits Scotland. The palace is still filled with magnificent tapestries, elaborate woodwork, antique furniture, and beautifully decorated rooms. The closer we got to the King's bedroom, the more extravagant everything became. Every room seemed to outdo the last. It was wonderfully ornate, delightfully over-the-top, and I loved every single minute of it.