Tauphus Park

Sarah and I took the kids to Tauphus Park yesterday.. we had a ball. We missed out on taking Kristi this time because she had a wedding to be to :(.. but that just means we will have to do it again so she and her kids can go too :) I have never been there before so it was refreshing to do something with my kids that we haven't done. First we checked out the zoo! Here are the kids.. Wyatt, Brayden, Carson, Mason, and Makayla.




Apperently at Tauphus Park, you can be hatched from an egg too! And take a ride on a chicken! And play in their nest!

The penguin exhibit was pretty cool. I didn't really know that penguins could survive in the heat.. but apparently, it is their natural habitat.. not the freezing cold like you always see on t.v. There is one type of penguin that lives in the cold but most of them don't. Food for thought.


Checking out the parakeets and other colorful birds.


Here's Brayden feeding the goats. I think it wanted more than the food!



"That's a real lion mom!" This was carson's favorite animal to see.


The crocodile! Just a baby one.


Well.. the zoo was fun but now it's time for the funland adventure!
This is Cameron and then Makayla getting spun around in the twirly cups! Cameron got so dizzy it gave him a headache and Makaylas pony tails were just out of control!



Carson and Mason can't get enough of sliding down the pole.


Carson, Brayden, and Wyatt with his buda belly hanging out, checking out the triple slider! That's awesome!


Tauphus parks little musicians, Makayla and Brayden


And on to the RIDES!
Brayden and Carson riding the flying octopus!


Makayla wanted to ride the ferris wheel.. she said "that was really high!"


Mason sure looks like he's lovin that airpline ride! :)


Well, that was our adventure. We had a ton of fun and I'm so glad I got this week to just really play with them and spend some good quality time together.

Graduation!!

Congratulations Carson! My little guy just graduated from pre-school! I know this post is late..life gets in the way sometimes but I did want to recognize him. He has really done great this year. I'm amazed at how much he learns everyday. He can even sing the alphabet BACKWARDS!



This is Carson and his two "girlfriends" Sadie and Olivia. They are adorable but wow, they really start young! Sadie got a little bit jealous over Carson sitting beside Olivia and paying more attention to her so she picked up something and chucked it at him hitting him in the face. He has a little bruise from it but he's ok and he has apparently forgiven her :)

They drew pictures of their favorite thing they did in pre-school and Carson's picture is of their weather frog. He was responsible for updating the weather frog when he was there by dressing him in different clothes. So, here's a picture of his drawn frog and the real weather frog.

Way to go guys.. looks like you had a lot of fun in school and you learned a lot.


It's official.. the hat toss! Congratulations buddy! Class of 2009!

Happy Memorial Weekend!

We have a family tradition that my mom and dad started to start out our camping season over the Memorial weekend...this year was no different. We packed up our gear and headed to Pallisades! It was truly a gorgeous weekend... only poured rain 1 time for a few hours on Sunday.. of course that was just enough to make a mud mess!
We went camping with our good buddies, Cort and Misty and their 2 adorable kids Teegan and Talon..


My brother Andy and Kristi and my 5 adorable neices and nephews Breanna, Danielle, Eric, Philip, and Charlize.. My 2 younger bros. Cameron and Brayden.. and John's former boss Keven and Cheryl who saved us a spot at the campground among 500 other camping fools with motorcycle fever! It was a mad house in the pit!




We couldn't keep the kids off the 4 wheelers and motorcycles.. they just wanted to ride :) They are all doing so well on them.


Justin has been riding for quite a few years now and I think this is the first time that I've really seen him jump.. Check out the air he's catching! That's awesome!


My little brother, Brayden, has been riding for a couple years and he is just fearless. John wants to start him racing.. haha.. we will see what my mom thinks of that! But John and Cort built him a little jump to go off of and Brayden had no problem reving the engine and going for it! He's doing awesome on his bike!


Here's a look at the 2 psychos trying to climb a steep, rocky hill! Took them 3, 4, 5maybe 6 times but they finally made it up. They claim there are no hills to steep to climb! Crazy!



Makayla and Charlize found something else to do with their time.. they collected snails, snails, and more snails! They left them sitting everywhere including in our chairs so we had snails climbing all over!! Grousse!!



Teegan is making fire the old fashioned way.. by rubbing stick between hands against rock! :)


We had a good time.. but this trip definately was not without its unfortunate events either!
1. There's nothing like starting out a great camping trip with a nice black and blue bruise! I twisted my ankle after stepping in a hole.. let the bruises begin I guess!

2. Kristi was on her way up with her 5 kids and got stranded just after Ririe.. my mom's suburban engine blew! She was stuck at a rest stop with antsy kids for a couple hours waiting for us to get there to pick them all up... poor guys!
3. We had a few unfornate crashes but nobody was seriously hurt! Whew! That's good news cuz it sure could have been worse.. broken bones and all.
4. Philip, my 6 year old newphew, fell in the fire burning his hand... but he's ok!

5. A friend of the family showed up to rescue us on Monday when we couldn't pull the 4-wheeler trailer home... however, when she got there, she realized her hitch had been jacked!! Luckily we had an extra one :)
6. Of course, there's always those few extra food items that it seems no matter how many times you check the list, they still get forgotten. It was a TRAGEDY that we forgot the ice cream and whip cream for the great apple and peach cobbler!!!

Thanks to everybody who came that made our trip an eventful, but fun campout! See you all next year!... minus the tragic events hopefully!

In Rememberance of My Dad

A year ago today, my dad lost his battle with cancer and left us to fulfill his calling in heaven. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him.


It seems like there's always something, no matter how small, that triggers a memory for me of him. Simply dropping off my kids to school reminds me of him, because every chance he got, he would take them and he loved it. He used to just chuckle to himself about how he couldn't believe how small they looked next to all the other kids. One time my dad was taking them to school and he was a little bit too early so he decided to circle the block a couple times.. well, Makayla was getting this annoyed look on her face and he asked what was wrong.. Makayla said, "grandpa.. you are wasting our time!" Dad said she was so serious about it and he just laughed. He laughed about it all through his chemo treatment that day.


My dad just enjoyed the simple things in life. Taking his family camping, fishing, going to the park..


taking his grandkids to the dollar store. They had him wrapped around their little fingers.


He was so amazing with them. He read them books and ruff housed with them. He did homework with them too. He liked to just have them around.

He was a man of great integrity and raised us by his great example. He was always lending a hand wherever needed giving such great service to others.

When the flood in Blackfoot happened in '97, I decided I would sand bag for one of my laurel projects which meant, 20 hours minimum. He was right there by my side chucking those heavy sand bags along the river bank. We had so much fun.. we laughed and laughed. He especially found it funny when he would toss the sand bag to me, but it wouldn't quite make it too me, so it dropped in the water at my feet, splashing me with water and mud and making the bag 10x heavier for me to heave to the next person! My muscles were like jello after 2 straight days of tossing those bags. It was such an awesome feeling serving next to him. He taught me the greater and important things in life. I have many wonderful memories of my dad, that I will always cherish. I miss him every day. He was too young to go... Life really is too short to take anything for granted, especially the chance to make memories with your family. I'm so grateful to him that he made it so important to have our family be close to each other and to make memories with us so that now, I can reflect on it all, as I miss him so much. I have a great love for the gospel and the knowledge it brings into my life. The knowledge of knowing that I will see my dad again brings the most comfort to me. I love him and will always miss him.

Happy Birthday Cameron and Wyatt!

We had a combined birthday party for my nephew Wyatt, who just turned 1 years old.. and my little brother Cameron who turned 15 today! Wyatt's little cake was a puppy.. he couldn't resist digging in to the black eyes and nose.. it was more appealing than the white frosting.. good luck cleaning that up Dustin and Sarah! :)

Of course, we didn't want Cameron feeling left out either so we made sure he got a good taste of his cake too!

We love you guys and hope that you both had a very special day!

Happy Easter!

This post is a little late but better late than never :) The kids had a ball this year at the big egg hunt! Makayla was sure she was going to end up with the big easter basket by the tree.. she was so focused on it that she didn't get very many eggs but it was all smiles that day.


We painted our eggs with the tie day pack that night.. What a MESS!





I like the old conventional way where you just dip your egg in a cup.. next year!

Look at my adorable little ones in there new easter clothes :) And then there's the one in the middle.. that's my handsome hunk!
Anyways, hope everybody had a Happy Easter with their families and celebrating the spirit of the day.

TWILIGHT

I finally decided over spring break to see what the fuss was about over twilight. I first watched the movie... it was pretty good.. so I had to read the books after that. The books were awesome.. better than the movie. They had so much more detail than the movie and the movie didn't follow the book as well as I expected. I started out reading the last friday of spring break and finished all 4 books by the next friday. 1 week! That's a lot of reading but the books have it all... mystery, intensity, danger, romance, excitement, action! I couldn't put them down. I'm definately a fan of the vampires versus the warewolves. I'm glad I'm done reading them though... I can finally start getting my life back together. I sort of put it on hold for a week while I read. I still got things done but it was super hard to juggle work and then come home and read while trying to cook dinner and watch my shows and do homework with the kids and find time to clean the house too! Exhausting.. I wasn't going to bed until midnight every night and I am an OLD women! I need my sleep. Anything past 10:30 is too late! :) Anyway, awesome series and I'm looking forward to the next movie! I liked the soundtrack they used in the movie. My favorite song was Bella's lullaby. I love that piano piece.