small town roots..

welcome to koosharem..

located on the corner of

is grandma and grandpas house!

it's also the house my mom was raised in..with her ten brothers and sisters.
it's also where some of my most favorite memories have taken place.
one including tractor rides with grandpa.

garth bagley:
farmer, teacher, bus driver, bishop, brother, father, husband
my grandpa

every year there is a parade on the fourth and twenty fourth of july. they close off the highway and if you aren't participating, you are watching. it's a town event. i have been on a float almost every year.

this year the reunion landed on the twenty fourth so more cousins than usual were in town. we always get first place, but killed the competition with the "jean" pool. its cute huh?

i wish all the grandkids were in this picture, we are missing about twenty kids. but nonetheless its a very meaningful picture.

some of the girls after the big game of kickball and the candy cannon.

this is one of my favorite pictures of my parents. look at that icicle! the stairway leads to an attic, where we rescued kitties, played house, and let our imaginations run wild.

town hall.

the walk to "charles" is about two blocks. it seemed like two miles as a little kid. but we walked it almost everyday when we were in town. grandma would give us a dollar and we'd stand in front of the candy counter forever. it was old fashioned. not your typical gas station. and thats why we loved it so much. along the main street is the scary house {photo on left} we would run as fast as we could past it. on the left side of the store {photo on right} is that ad. it has been there since my mom was a kid. its so classic!

top left: haystacks in the backyard
top right: goats living on the porch of an abandoned house
bottom left: grandpas old gas pump
bottom right: the basketball hoop in the backyard. if only the net could speak, it would have a million stories to tell.

can you say photographers heaven? the abandoned houses, cars, tractors, barns, and farm equiptment is unreal. isnt my mom so cute?

lunch at fishlake. family pic {minus josh} with grandma

i love my cousins. so much.

for some reason i get the feeling i wont have many more opportunities to go back to koosharem. grandma wont be in her house alone for much longer. so i felt the need to take pictures of everything and document it. i feel like i grew up there. i got dirty and wet, i played in the canal and in the carrels, i watched grandpa feed the animals, i drove all alone for the first time on the dirt roads, i made suckers and cookies with grandma, i ate ice cream at grandpas feet while he watched the news, i rode a horse, i drove fourwheelers for hours, i was in a parade. i was free. there are so many memories i could list off but the only way to sum it up is just simple.
i love it there.