Winter Fun

Here it is, our once a year sledding trip.  We can only handle the coldness that is sledding once so this is it until next year.  The scones and hot cocoa that we had when we got back made it worth it.  Unless you ask Jaycee and there is nothing that could have made it worth it.  She cried the whole time and was completely miserable.  Everyone else had a blast. 

The Hogle Zoo

 We woke up this morning and decided to go to the zoo.  Despite being a little bit cold we had a great time.  There were no crowds to fight and the animals that were out were very playful.  It was great to see the huge tiger up close instead of just being the sleepy head that we see in the summer.  Lucky us deciding to go today, when we got home there was a winter storm watch that will last for pretty much the rest of our Winter Break.  Sledding here we come! 

Halloween

 Carving pumpkins was a hit for all.

 Most liked the dressing up part.

Some did not!

Crazy Hair Day

We love Red Ribbon Week - it's the only time that we get to dress up and act crazy at school.  Today was crazy hair day.  Obviously Cassie needed a little extra bit of help in the hair department.  Anna is so excited to dress up every day but Joey has to be talked into everything (kind of like his dad).  We'll see how he does tomorrow.  Wish us luck!

Halloween Prep

Cassie's Halloween fairy wig needed some serious tlc.  Unfortunately she wouldn't sit still long enough to be much of a help.  Good thing for big brothers who save the day!  We're not sure who is prettier, we'll let each of you decide that for yourselves!

Fall Break

Our family really needed Fall Break this year.  By the time that the flu made it's way around our family (Cassie twice) three weeks had passed.  But it only struck on the weekends, how horrible is that?  We went into Fall Break with fingers crossed that everyone's health would hold up.  We were determined not to do any work unless we dang well wanted to.  We are happy to announce that we were successful and had a great time.  We played, napped and decorated for Halloween (in that order).  We are refreshed and ready for another week of school.  Bring it on!

Grandma & Grandpa

Last week Grandma and Grandpa came from Montana to visit us.  They were super excited to see us and so were we.  It was fantastic that they came to see us but I would rather that we went to their house.  We are already planning a trip to visit them next summer and we can't wait.  We love them both and hope to see them again soon.


We have been super busy now that school has started.  With all of our extra curricular activities sometimes we barely have time to think.  Our family has been working on building a school website for the last week.  We are pretty close to being finished.  If you would like to see what we have been working on here is a link.

 

Meteor Shower

When Anna was gone we watched the meteor shower and we saw lots of deer. Every time a car came by we saw lots of deer in their lights. I was a little afraid so I sat on the car so they couldn't reach me. We saw with our eyes twenty meteors. It was dark and we brought our telescope but dad couldn't get it to see through. On our way home we got some ice cream. It was lots of fun!

Camp Cloud Rim

Camp Cloud Rim was fun! My camp name was Petunia. I went swimming, funoeing and paddle boating. There was a floating dock that was really fun and lots of fish. My favorite counselor was Bear because she was the nicest and the first one that I met. My most favorite thing about camp was swimming because it was the funnest. The water was cold but it was still very fun. They canceled the polar dip which I was kind of hoping for but we still got credit for doing it because the water was super cold when we swam in it. My camp buddy was Shark we had lots of fun together.

Off to Camp

This is the most excited we've seen Anna all summer. We took her up to Girl Scout camp last night and dropped her off. She was a little nervous and hugging her teddy bear as we drove away but she couldn't stop giggling because she was so excited to be there. Now, while she is having a blast canoeing, swimming, eating a floating lunch, doing crafts, singing, etc. we are at home missing her and counting down the days until we get to go pick her up again. Saturday can't come soon enough!

Taking Time

One of the things we enjoy doing as a family is to take the time to find lesser known, possibly out of the way attractions. These adventures usually lead us to some of the most interesting and enjoyable places that we've been too. In Ogden that adventure was a small fort named Fort Bueneventura. It sat next to a small pond and they offered canoe rentals, $5.00 for an hour. When we take the time to slow down and smell the flowers we find all kinds of great things to enjoy.

Happy Birthday Bryce

I had a great birthday. It started out at about 2:00 AM with an old west style shoot out across the street. I even got a stray bullet in the side of my house as a birthday gift (I love my neighborhood).

Later that day we went to Kennecott Copper Mine. We had a blast looking down into the pit and learning all about copper. I ended the day with a barbecue (finally) using the new tools my kids got me. Man, I wish it could be my birthday everyday!

Summer fun......at last!

We have been waiting for this day all month, today everyone was finally feeling well enough to go out and have some fun. The kids had friends come over to play on their new swing set and being the genius parents that we are we thought it would be fun to use the hose to turn the slide into a water slide. With a pool at the end to catch both the water and the kids we made quite a splash in the neighborhood. Cassie however didn't think our idea was genius at all, she refused to get out of her chair.

Finally Finished

After 25 hours of hard, back breaking, sweat inducing labor our 10-14 hour project is finally finished. Cassie was so excited that she couldn't even wait for the slide to be bolted before she went down it. We followed the directions to a "T" which is why as we completed our last step and found two extra boards we were stumped. Hmmm, hope their not weight bearing!

Days of 47'

We had a lot of fun today despite Anna still recovering from pneumonia. With Her being sick we obviously had to tone down our festivities, but we still enjoyed the holiday. We watched the parade on TV this morning and had a BBQ tonight. Then, because Pioneer Day wouldn't be complete without fireworks we had a little fun in the street.

The bad beginning

We were completely dumbfounded by the amount of wood that came with our new swing set. Having gotten over our shock we set a pretty good pace in putting it together. When it started to get really hot this afternoon we brought the kids in the house for lunch and a little break. Whilst having our break a wonderful summer rainstorm commenced. We sat at the window enjoying the smell, coolness, lightning, etc. when to our horror we realized that our irreplaceable paper booklet directions were sitting out in the storm. Needless to say we have since been attempting to dry them with the hair dryer so that we can get back to work.

pool

After a week of swimming at a hotel pool we realized we just had to have one of our own. Having no level ground in our yard we worked very hard to make a level spot for a nice big pool. The problem came a week later when we were finished and went to buy the pool. It is just our luck that both the store and online were completely sold out. We were told that because it is the end of season they are not getting any more. That makes complete sense to us seeing that it was the first week in July, I mean who swims in July, or August for that matter? Rather then go with out we decided to used our small pool from last summer.

Games

With our kids being sick (still) we have had ample time to introduce them to a long lost love of ours. Playing card games. Pre-children we spent tons of time playing cards, something that was pushed aside, with so many other things, when our lives were overrun by children. It has been a lot of fun teaching them some of our favorite games (UNO & Phase 10) and spending hours playing everyday. Who could have guessed that Joey would be such an UNO fanatic?

Quarantined

As cute as they may look these three little darlings are as sick as can be. First Cassie then Joey and finally Anna has succumbed to Bronchitis. The problem is none of them are getting better before another gets sick. The Doctor said Bronchitis can last for up to 4 weeks and our summer is slowly whittling away. There have been a couple of time we just had to get out of the house. (Fireworks on the Fourth and a car ride tonight) we are going completely stir crazy.

Fireworks

We thought we were extremely lucky when we found seats for the firework show right up front and center. Unfortunately for us the show consisted of an audience participation segment for those in the front. We like to refer to it as the, "Run for your life" section of the show. The last firework that shot out into the crowd was a big one that exploded after hitting the grass (that's the burnt picture). We were sitting about 30 feet away and promptly moved further back for the remainder of the show. It took quite a while to get the kids calmed down and most of them, sadly enough, did not enjoy the rest of the evening. Our video was not as good as this one (we "borrowed" it from someone off you tube) some guy took from further back. Joey and our nephew Talen were absolutely petrified and spent the night crying and begging to go home. All of the kids were very traumatized by the event and Bryce just thought it was cool that he was there to witness the whole thing. Needless to say we will not be missing the Pleasant Grove fireworks from here on out. It was the most excitement we've had for a long time!

Reading

Our kids are completely wearing themselves out trying to get their minutes for the summer reading program at the library. If Anna reads more minutes than Joey he scrambles around gathering a stack of books and then hunts until he finds someone to read them to him. They both take turns reading to Cassie as well so that she can get her minutes too. The city library has an awesome program that not only gives prizes for minutes read but does ongoing fun activities that the kids can participate in. A couple of weeks ago they learned how to hula dance and sing a song in Hawaiian. We love that our kids love to read so much and we love it even more when the library creates a program that gets them that excited about reading.

Pooooools!

Is there anything better on a hot summer day than a nice, cool swimming pool? We don't think so. We spent everyday this last week in the swimming pool at our hotel. We even got the nice people in Logan to give us a late check out so that we could swim before we left town. We enjoyed it so much that now we think we need a nice big pool for our yard. We are going out this afternoon to buy one...can't wait!

Zoo

For some odd reason our family loves to to visit every dinky zoo that we come upon while traveling. This time it was the Willow Park Zoo in Logan. We had a pretty good laugh at the "on your honor" pay system that only cost our whole family $3.00, and no we did not cheat the zoo. It was tiny and they had more turtles and birds than anything but we had a lot of fun and would recommend it to anybody.