Month: July 2009

Sunday we blessed Hallie in my parents ward in Salt Lake. It was much easier then having all the family travel to us and we wanted to go to SLC anyway. On Saturday night my cousin and her kids and my Aunt and Uncle came over to my parents house for dinner. The kids had a fun time in a little pool my mom set up, and I was able to visit with my family. I don’t get many opportunities to visit with family much I need to make that more of a priority in my life. My cousin made a beautiful dress for Hallie’s blessing and the whole day was wonderful. I always want to write down the blessing, but never have. One thing that stuck out in my mind was what an inspiration to others she would be.

My mom’s apricot tree had lots of fruit on it this year, and she didn’t have any plans for it all, so up my kids went into the tree. We brought home lots of fruit, and I’ve been making all sorts of apricots creations with it. Jam and baby food were the tops on my list. I’m sick of apricots!

Cousin Megan and the girls. Thanks Megan for all of your help, church is a breeze with a teenager in tow.

Where are we? Any guesses?

Aubrey and Alyssa playing beauty shop, why they play this I will never know, I only manage to get a hair cut 2x a year and they never go with me. They were playing so cute it was worth a picture.

Our trip here was crazy. When we left Fernley I saw this beautiful gray/purplish mustang. I commented to Danny how someday when it’s just the two of us I would love to have a car like that one. I also told him that I had a funny feeling about this trip and that speeding was something I wouldn’t be doing on this trip. I always drive when we go on long trips, I truly enjoy the art of driving, and tend to be a bit of a control freak when it comes to driving. Anyway, we went on with our trip and stopped in Winnemucca for a potty break, then on to our usual stopping place outside of Elko. When we got back on the road in Elko I got into the passenger seat to Danny’s surprise. We were just outside of Wells heading up the Peaquops when a semi hit an orange barrel and sent it flying our way. Danny was driving, and he quickly hit the brakes, slowed, and slammed into the barrel. The van behind us saw it, slammed on his breaks, and was promptly slammed into the rear end by my pretty little mustang driven by a bunch of teenagers, they were slammed into by a large truck, and we were barely avoided by inches. After a quick call to 911 Danny ran to see if everyone was ok, there were some injuries, and a helicopter was sent. I was relieved at Danny’s quick thinking, he quickly moved cones to protect us on the highway while redirecting traffic around the wreck. It took the police almost 30 minutes to get out to us, and it was very hot. The helicopter came and landed just feet from our van, what an amazing thing to stand so close to a helicopter while the blades are whipping. The semi that struck the barrel took off! The good thing to the whole incident is that no one was seriously injured, and after the police took a statement we were allowed to go. Traffic was being held, we had the highway to ourselves the rest of the way to Wendover. We quickly said a prayer of thankfulness and headed out, the kids were freaked out, but it was a great teaching moment that the Lord had answered our prayers that morning when we left. I was grateful that Danny was driving, I’m sure he did a better job of keeping us out of an accident then I would have done. I’m pretty sure I would have over corrected to avoid the barrel whereas he reasoned it would be better to hit the barrel then completely avoid it and be hit from behind.

The rest of the trip has gone smoothly. We drove up to Rexburg to visit with Danny’s brother and their cute family. Gunner, their 3 year old son, kept saying he was going to find his girls, referring to my girls. He asked his Mom if they were his sisters, what a cutie. I need to get some pictures from Heidi of the kids together. Thanks Johnny and Heidi for lunch and a great day in Rexburg.

Children’s Museum is always a winner with the kids, we spent hours there, and the fountains at The Gateway was a great close to the day. We had a blast just going to Letherbee’s, I couldn’t believe how many people were at an ice cream restaurant on a Tuesday, and the kids were amazed that there was just a restaurant just for ice cream. One of our kids favorite places to go is the Children section of the Church History Museum. Alyssa dressed as and angel in the dress up nativity scene, Tanner built a temple out of blocks, Aubrey spent most of her time playing with the baby doll doctor area. We also went and looked at the church art contest entries at the Conference Center and we cast our votes for our favorites. We love going to the garden mazes for kids at Thanksgiving Point. Danny was chasing them through the mazes, making them scream and the Noah’s Ark splash park is always a hit for the kids. We wandered into the larger gardens, and found the Secret Garden, which turned into a mini photo shoot, the kids were posing left and right for me, and begging me to come and take their picture. I wished they’d not been in swimsuits and all wet with crazy hair, but I took advantage of their generous moods and took lots of pictures. We followed up the 24th with a night of fireworks with all the cousins.

I can’t believe the trip is coming to an end. Tomorrow we bless Hallie, and then we head for home. Back to reality, but that’s ok, reality isn’t so bad, and I’m so happy that we had a good time with family and we were able to enjoy our time with Danny.

Now for some pictures:

Tanner and Aubrey building a fort at the Children’s Museum

Tanner and Aubrey putting on a play at the Children’s Museum

“This is the Place” park with Grandma and Grandpa

Tanner winning a prize for the Hokey Pokey at the Galavan Center Disney party

Alyssa at the Church History Museum Nativity dress up area

“Stop licking the water”

Rock Band: Thanksgiving Point Gardens

The kids being angels and posing for photos without me even asking

Danny and Hallie

Aubrey lost her first tooth while we were here. She pulled it out in the car, you can see the gap in this picture, so cute! The tooth fairy came and she was able to buy a little tea set at Ikea and she served all of her cousins while we were doing fireworks. I love all the cute stages of growing up.

I’ll tell the story tomorrow, but we feel very blessed to be in Salt Lake City tonight safely. We narrowly avoided a large accident today, here’s a picture of our exciting afternoon. We are saying prayers of thanks tonight.

Above: Winnemucca Lake
Look at that snow, we were at an elevation close to 9000′

Let me just say I agonized over my decision to go on this hike. I am not in the best of shape, but LOVE to be outdoors hiking. I really didn’t want to be embarrassed by not being able to make it to the end of the hike, and had decided not to go, when at the last minute I put on my shoes, said a fast prayer and headed out the door before I could talk myself back out of going. You see I really HATE (hate is a strong word I always tell my children; use it sparingly) that I am not where I want to be in my appearance, and I know it affects who I am inside and out. OK enough of that downer, we’ll move on to the positive part of this. I MADE IT!
The hike was to Winnemucca Lake in the Sierra’s. It was 4.4 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 400′ give or take a few. Not overly challenging for some, but I knew for me in my current state, it would be a challenge. I loved every moment of it, except a few hills.
When we got back to the church it was pretty late, everyone was very nice and paused with me while I stopped to feed Hallie so we got back later then we had anticipated. I had to get Hallie into the car and when I went to start my car everyone was gone, and my car wouldn’t start. Luckily a lady who I was hiking with paused to see if I pulled out of the parking lot and when I hadn’t she quickly returned. I’m so glad that she did, because Danny would have had to wake the kids to come down and help me and he didn’t have car seats for everyone. Anna’s husband quickly came to the rescue and got me on the road in just a manner of minutes. I had one of those moments of thankfulness for the people in our ward, and this place that we live. I’m thankful for spirit that touches my heart and being in nature reminds me of the wonderfulness this world still has even when there are times when I think that everything is falling apart.
Now off to Utah for us tomorrow. 9 hours of driving, maybe more with stopping to feed Hallie.
These pictures were taken by one of the ladies on the hike. Thank you to everyone who took my backpack, held the baby, and made the evening a lot of fun.

This is Sunset Lake I think, one of many lakes we could see or passed on the hike

The kids were playing one of their favorite games the other day titled “Get on Mom’s Last Nerve”. So before they could win the game I came up with a game of my own, and told them to go dig a hole in the backyard. Of course, as hoped their imaginations went wild, and they started dreaming about digging a hole so big all we would have to do is pour concrete in it and we’d have a swimming pool, then it morphed into tunnels that travel through the backyard, with lighting and benches along the ways… I let them run with it. I love their imagination. If you have ever seen our backyard you’d know it’s like digging in cement, but I didn’t tell them this, I just handed out shovels and let them go. They quickly discovered this wouldn’t be as easy as they imagined but they put Aubrey on water duty and she shuttled water from the hose in a bucket to the place they were digging to help soften our concrete dirt. Somehow though with the running buckets of water Tanner’s shovel connected with Aubrey’s head…sigh… now I have to come up with a new game. (Aubrey wasn’t seriously injured, just a little wound).

So hiking we would go, NorthStar at Tahoe is only charging $5 for an adult to ride the gondola’s and ski lifts and free for children. This is the first time I have walked into a place with a big grin on my face and said “5 children please!” It came to $10 and we spent an entire day riding gondola’s and hiking in the Sierra’s!

Aubrey and Tanner on the Gondola

My little Aubrey has a loose tooth! NO! I refuse to let this happen, it happened with Emma and Tanner, and left me with thousands of dollars worth of orthodontic bills in my future. Aubrey has had such cute straight white teeth and that’s all about to change. When I looked in her mouth to see her loose tooth I noticed that the other tooth has already come in behind it, I swear it came in overnight and it’s huge. I see more orthodontic bills coming my way.

Well, my blogging time is quickly coming to an end this morning. Tanner just came in and informed me that since Emma’s having a friend over today that there will be too many girls here and so he’s wearing camouflage so he can disappear, the fun has begun.

We’re off to Utah this next week, I can’t wait!

Cute kid saying of the week. Yesterday the kids were asking me why the moon was still up in the afternoon, so I asked Aubrey why she didn’t put the moon away this morning, and she quickly informed me it wasn’t on her chore chart. Hmmm, if that is all it takes to get things done, I think her chore chart is about to double in size.

Aubrey loves to cook with me. We made the absolute best chocolate chip cookies last week. Can’t make those anymore, too addicting!

After the parade on the 4th, we headed home for some quiet time. Danny pulled out the slip and slide, then back up to Virginia City for fireworks. We usually don’t stay home for the 4th of July, but we usually find fun with each other no matter where we end up.

Over the last few weeks Hallie has put on almost 4 pounds, which is just amazing. To think the doctor was worried because she wasn’t gaining as quickly as she thought she should. All is well, she’s getting chunky and cute, and is now smiling and laughing at us. That first month goes so quickly. If you take a deep breath you can still smell her newness, I am going to miss that newborn sweetness, but look forward to all the wonderful stages ahead of us. I can’t wait to see how her personality is going to develop, the kids are all so different and wonderful and we have one more to get to know.

Family Friendly Fun in Nevada

Oops, How about our family having fun in Nevada?

Alyssa waiting for the parade to begin

Aubrey gathering candy, economic hard times have hit home, not much candy thrown this year!

Poor Alyssa, waited so long for the parade to start only to fall asleep and miss it.

Meeting up with some friends from Dayton

Sorry to leave those icky spiders on there for so long. I looked at the blog this morning, and they gross me out so I have to make a post just to get rid of them.

We were at the library on Tuesday and they had a water painting class for the older kids. Tanner sat by his second grade teacher who was also taking the class. She sat and chatted with the kids while they painted and asked them about their summer. Later that afternoon when I was talking with the kids I asked them what they told her when she asked what they were doing this summer. Their response to her was they were just hanging out and really not doing much of anything except chores (insert me banging my head on the wall here).
Considering we have a one month old baby, I feel like I have tried extra hard to get them out and about and having an activity at least weekly. We have been up to Lake Tahoe twice, and hiking countless times. Oh well, we’re headed to SLC on the 17th of July, and I’m sure we’ll find some summer fun there.