Last Summer

 

 My camera had an accident and died about a year ago. We still don't have a new one. We just use our phones. I just found these fun pictures on Wes's phone. Wes bought a huge truck last summer so we had to take it camping. We went down to the sand dunes.

 This is everyone looking at the lizard that ran through camp.

 The kids playing on the big sand hill. Most of the sand dunes area was fenced off for ATVs. We were in the no vehicle section.

 Having Family Night at the temple.

 

 For Art City Days the city puts on a fireworks show. We threw Anna's mattress in the back of the truck and drove to a park overlooking the area where the firework were. It was nice and cozy.

 Andrew got to go to scout camp with Wes. They went to Strawberry reservoir.

 

 They fished...

 boated...

and fished some more...

 

 along with biking and four wheelering.

This is just a cute one of Anna at one of the many baseball and softball games we went to.

Resurrection Day

I'm attending the family history Sunday School class in church. Because of this I have made some goals. One of these is to resurrect the blog. It is a good way for me to journal and keep track of and share pictures and events going on in my family. I won't try to recap the whole last year+ that I've missed, but I hope to hit some high points.

 Andrew got pushed at school and hurt his shoulder. Boys will be boys!

 We went to the Native American Festival here in Springville. The kids made arts and crafts, we watched dancers, and ate fry bread. Kaylee and Kara aren't in the pictures because they were off doing crafts.

 

 Kara's hair got really long. I curled it and it looked AMAZING!

 But she struggles to take care of it so we cut it off. She saved it to give to Kelly. ( That's her hair in the bag) On the way home from St. George we stopped at Cove Fort and saw some hair art. The girls would save their hair and make flowers and vines with it to decorate their homes.

Speaking of St. George...

The kids and I went to St. George to watch Dad run his first marathon. He did great and we had a fun trip.

 The kids and I went to the zoo. It was pleasantly cool. We need to remember never to go in the summer. This is them with a grizzly bear. This was the first time we'd been since they opened the new Rocky Shores exhibit with the bears and seals and sea lion and polar bear. It was pretty cool. We need to go again soon because they are almost done with the African exhibit.

 After the zoo we went to Wendy's for lunch. This is what Kara got in her kids meal. Lovely right? She couldn't eat with it on so she asked me to hold it. I put it on my head backwards. Since I also had a hat on I forgot about it. A few minutes later I went to go get spoons for frosty's. Since it was lunch time there were a ton of construction workers in line. They all looked at me funny as I walked by. It made me kind of uncomfortable. Like 10 minutes later I realized I still had Fiona on my head!

 This is at Jakers, a pumpkin patch. They set up a great area for kids with mazes made of giant hay bales, a cornbox (think sandbox with corn), a couple of slides made from huge corrugated tubes, and a petting zoo. This pig was HUGE! I love that it's late October and still warm enough to go without a coat.

 In November Wes and I went to Las Vegas for a medical conference. We stayed at Planet Hollywood on the strip for a few days because the conference was in that hotel. I hung out and relaxed while Wes went to classes. On Friday night we went to a hotel off the strip. It was much more low key. We enjoyed the warm weather.

 Unfortunately, it was right by the airport. Planes were taking off every 5 minutes or so. Thank goodness we only noticed it during the day.

Santa!

Halloween

Halloween 2012!

It was 75 degrees today! What a beautiful Halloween. I went trick-or-treating in shorts. The kids didn't need coats. Lovely.

 Kaylee- vampire princess

 Anna- witch

Andrew- Obi Wan

Kara- Ayla (I don't know how to spell that) she's a Jedi. I told Kara to pose, meaning fighting stance or something. This is what she gave me- Top Model Jedi.

 The Jedis

The whole crew

The 5th and 6th grades dancing the Thriller. Can you find Kaylee?

A Weekend Away

This weekend Wes and I took a little break from life and went away. Wes wanted to look for deer on the Paunsagaunt (down by Bryce and Zions) so we drove down and slept in the back of my car- which, by the way, is not quite long enough for Wes. Saturday morning we got up and drove around looking for the huge deer that are supposed to be all over. We didn't see any. After a couple hours we decided to drive into town to put air in my tires. We were driving along a little dirt road when we went down a hill and all of a sudden the sides of the road dropped away.

Of course we had to stop and take a look and throw rocks down. It's called Bull Valley Gorge and it's really deep. While we were standing there another truck drove by and stopped to look. It turns out he was from the area and knew some history. Apparently back in the 60's there was a bridge across the gorge, really just two logs and planks. One day a jeep tried to cross, it was wet and muddy and they ended up sliding off into the gorge. Instead of pulling the jeep out they decided to push dirt on top of it to make a road across. He also said that if we hiked up a ways we could get down into the gorge. So we did! Very cool!

We only got about a third of the way back to the road. Past this point it was all giant mud puddles and we weren't prepared to tromp throught the mud.

After lunch in "town" (anyone been to Tropic before?) we went back to the wilderness. It was a nice relaxing weekend and just the break I needed. Wes wasn't quite as happy with the trip- we only saw one deer.

Soccer, Soccer, Soccer

Kaylee, Kara, and Andrew all played soccer this fall. That means 6 games and 3 practices a week. It was lots of fun to go to games and see them improve. We had lots of lunches and dinners on the run and we got to know the various parks in Sprinville. But, Whew! I'm kind of glad it's over. The girls had their final games last night and Andrew's is tonight.

Kaylee's game face.

 

Andrew and Kara both LOVED playing goalie.

At her game last week Kara blocked like 15 shots! Of course, I forgot the camera so this is the only goal shot I have.

Yay for soccer!