Grandpa's Cabin

Without much planning, we decided to head down to Jeff's family cabin for a couple of days.  The kids, like always were thrilled.  Planning even an overnight trip can be stressful. (Can I get an Amen! from you moms? :)  This time around it wasn't.  I didn't make a list let alone check it twice.  I did make dinner ahead of time at home with the intent of warming it up when we arrived.  (Worked like a charm, btw.)  We played and played and had a blast.  

Eating our yummy pre-made chicken and stuffing dinner with  corn muffins.

My beautiful, independent baby playing in the red ants.

Who plays miniature golf at a cabin in the middle of nowhere?  We do!  (Thanks Grandpa!)

I love when they start posing for pictures. :)

Still posing....Just cooler now.

Good morning!  Love the view from the front porch.

6 people and 1 dog finally finished 9 holes of Frisbee Golf.  Only 4 Frisbees actually survived.  Sorry Grandpa. 

After watching everyone else have a turn on the rope swing, Chloe insisted she have a turn, too.  She loved it!

Lyndsi was our big helper of the day, getting her  Sophie on and off the rope.

McKay trying his hand at archery.  A bow and arrow has now reached the top of  his Christmas list.  

Bells Canyon

A couple of Saturdays ago Jeff and I took the kids hiking. His friend at work had told him about this hike in Bell's Canyon that went to a hidden lake.  So.  We grabbed some snacks and water and headed to the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

The kids did really well and had lots of fun.  Even Chloe had a good time.  The kids made some walking sticks over memorial weekend and got lots of compliments on them from the other hikers.  McKay was wishing we had a canoe to row on the lake.

I think we'll find some other family-friendly hikes to take them on this summer.

What's a winter with no snow?

Heaven.

Unless you got a new sled for Christmas.  Then it's the pits.  Luckily for my little troops we had some decent snow a little while back and on a Saturday too!  Jeff got them all bundled up first thing in the morning and took the 3 older ones sledding.  I stayed home with the baby and lamented the end of 50+ degree January days.

September in a Flash

4 miles in
2 nights
4 miles out.
6 miles in between.
7 lakes (at least)
Too much trail food
Little Weight
No compass needed.
4 friends
1 awesome backpacking trip

Lots of junk
Giggly girls
Silly moms
Always a craft
Uplifting thoughts
Time away from boys
And presents! (Hey! That was mine!!)
Forever a good time
Marchant Girls Weekend in Park City

Butterflies
Fairies
Makeup
Music
Dancing
Food
Impromptu Fairy party/Costume Picnic

First.
Ever.
Principal Pride Award.
Happiness.

A Beautiful Day

After reading my cousins facebook post about all the fun and wonderful things she was anxious to be doing outside, Sophie and I were inspired to get out and ride bikes. 

She did really well on her bike.  We've never had a great place to teach our kids to ride bikes, so we've been really slow about it.  However, this house has a fairly flat and wide driveway. Perfect for 4 year olds learning to ride their bikes. 

I even got my bike out and rode around the circle a few times!

(Sorry-no pictures.  Imagination will have to suffice for that.)

Chloe was confined to the stroller.  Look at those yummy cheeks!

Sometimes it pays to not do yard work

At the beginning of spring, we found out we were expecting baby #4.  All my plans (not that they were grand) of gardening were thrown out the window.  I didn't even have enough time to get to my winter clean-up stage before sickness set in.  So, I decided, we'll just do what we need to to keep up the bare minimum, i.e. Jeff will mow the lawn.  :)

Let me tell you, for once, ignoring the yard has paid off!  Off my patio I have these 3 giant planters that I like to put the wave petunias in. They fill out nicely.  The only problem with petunias is they are annuals, causing me to shell out money each spring (wave petunias are a little more pricey than your regular variety).  Well, well, well.  2 out of the 3 containers are now blossoming with wave petunias that we neither bought nor planted this year!  That's right.  Due to my lack of diligent care for my flowers, they went to seed and I now have two containers full of beautiful, sweet smelling petunias.  For free. Ha!

One other gardening tip-wait til July to purchase your flowers.  What once was $6 or more per pot, you can now by for $2/pot.  Thus filling the 3rd pot.  :)

Hawaii

was great.  I'm so glad I got to go.  I think I can make it until spring now. ;)  Really, we had a great time.  Here's a quick recap of what we did:

Friday:
Departure late morning!

Walked around Waikiki
Ate dinner at Planet Hollywood
Went to bed kind of early (at least by whatever time zone is Hawaii)

Saturday:

Got up early

Hiked Diamond Head.  Beautiful.  I'll have you know Jeff did this on one granola bar and did not complain of hunger once.  I was in shock.  (happy shock, babe.  Happy shock.)

Came back and ate breakfast
Went to Aloha Stadium for swap meet.  Missed the exit.  (Thanks "Mandy" our beloved TomTom.) Eventually got there. 
Spent too much $$ (according to Jeff).  Ate an enormous pork sandwich there.

Visited the Battleship Missouri at Pearl Harbor.  Was in awe.

Sunday (My favorite Day)
View from our room

Sailed to Arizona Memorial. 

Went to church.  Loved the ward we went to.

Picniced at the Punchbowl cemetery.  (My favorite place we visited.  Beautiful)

Stopped at the Pali Lookout on our way to the north shore

Went to a Buddhist Temple

Went to the Lai'e Temple (where we acutally met Mark Eubank, funny enough, who is the visitor's center director)

Monday
My first day alone.
Read on the beach for an hour or so.
Took a nap
Had lunch on the beach
Read some more

Tuesday
Ate lunch at Seasider Cafe (BYU-Hawaii)
Polynesian Cultural Center all day with my aunt (wished the kids were with me for that)

Wednesday
Alone again. 
Read and watched TV
Dole Plantation

Matsumoto's shaved ice

Shrimp shack for dinner

Thursday

Waiemea Falls.  Got dumped on.  Wish I had worn my swimsuit.

Played in the ocean. 

Attempted snorkling.

Friday

Did not sleep well on plane.

Came home.

Happy reunion with kiddos.

Accessorize!

I love my new little accessory-






Jeff has a matching one. How romantic....





Last Friday we participated in our city's Halloween Horror fun run. To say it was freezing would be under exaggerating things. It was COLD. Despite the small crowd, I was nervous because I can count the numbers on half a hand that I've run in October. However, my mp3 player was fully charged and loaded with great music to keep me going. The run also happened to be in my own neighborhood which was very comforting. In the end, I ended up 3rd in my division (aka-age group)-a first for me and Jeff was 1st in his. It was not fun, but that silly little meddle made it worth all the effort.

Fall Fun

I love fall. I love going to pumpkin patches. This year my friend Anisa told me about a fun one by Hobby Lobby that had not only the pumpkins, but some tractors for the kids to play on and a little corn maze. The best part was that it was free! All of it. We rounded up some friends to come with us. The kids tore the corn maze at least 2 times each. They tried out every tractor (somewhere around 8), looked at the kittens that were there, watched some Irish dancers while listening to bagpipes (a pretty spur of the moment performance I'm sure). The pumpkin prices were reasonable so I let the kids each pick out a small pumpkin. Both my friend and I were so glad we did this.

Other things we're looking forward to this fall: Fall Festival at the District, family parties, trick-or-treating, fun costumes, falling leaves, sweaters, pumpkin pie and all things Halloween!

What are you up to this fall?

Ramble, ramble, ramble

McKay started soccer last month. His first game (pictured here) you couldn't pry the smile off his face if you tried. Ok. I guess some of it got lost in the concentration of the game. BUT-whenever I wasn't behind the camera he had this huge grin spread across his whole face.




Sophie also had a new beginning-dance! I love little girls in pink tights. The first class she was a little clingy, but she played along as long as mom would dance with her. (I'm sure that was lovely to see!) I wondered if she would do it at all until the teacher started their warm-up music. The first few notes to Mickey's mousercise was all I needed to know she'd be just fine. She is loving it and doing as well as a 3 yr old can in dance.





Off the topic of firsts....

I've been working around the house. Nesting I call it. Not for a baby but for fall. I think my subconscious has realized soon my little clan will be spending a significantly larger amount of time indoors. My very conscious mind realized I must be organized and cleaned up to accommodate that. :) So I've had a little bit of fun buying baskets for my bedroom closet, fabric to dress up some throw pillows, added a new bookshelf to the family room, figuring out what to do with the old one....I even washed all the bedding-sheets, baby blankets, animals, etc. (Not usually a one day event) and then remade the beds with the addition of a quilt for cold winter nights. There's so much more to do still.

The End of the Road

Seattle was our last official, picture-taking, vacationing spot of our trip. We met up with Jeff's sister and her family to hang out at Gas Works park, the zoo, Ballard locks, the beach, and of course Pike's out door market. Woodland Park Zoo:

The zoo had an awesome bear exhibit. We watched 2 of these guys for wander all around and play in the water.

Right by the bears were the otters. The only otters I've seen are PB&J Otter (remember that Disney show a few years ago?) They were beautiful to watch in the water and so playful!

For those that don't know (I didn't), Ballard locks are where they raise/lower the water to let water craft go from the fresh water lake to the salt water sound. The lake happens to be several feet higher than the sound. They also have a fish ladder there so the locks don't interfere with the salmon run. Lucky for us we were there at the perfect time of year to see them. We could watch the salmon jumping. We saw them swimming. Then we went down to the fish ladder viewing area and watched them try to swim upstream.

Seattle had one beach. We couldn't have a day without the beach by this point, so we went. This is a view of the Olympic Mtns. where we had just come from.

When Jeff and I went to Seattle a couple of years ago, his brother-in-law took us to the library at the U. of Washington to show us the Hogwart's room. This room is gorgeous. Since McKay is very into Harry Potter right now, it was a must-see.

The kids enjoyed picking out their own souvenir at the market. I liked all the free samples the food vendors showered on us. :)

That's it! Hopefully I haven't bored you all to tears by this point. :)