Keepin' Cool...

...we hit 94* today...talk about a shock to the body that has been loving the mid to high 70s for the past few weeks, but we will TAKE IT because we LOVE summer! Poor kids have a lame mom that doesn't love going to the pool with the little baby so they have to wait until Greg gets home somedays-maybe once swim lessons are over and we aren't making 2 trips every day Colt will like it more, but for now the 1.5 hours we are there seem to be enough for him. So while they wait for dad to come home they find other ways to keep cool.

It Is Official...

...let the summer fun begin! We made it to the pool today, bought our season passes ($150 for the whole family) and spent a few hours cooling off. To our pleasant surprise they have fixed the heater and the water was perfect! Even with the slathering of sunscreen (twice) my kids are sporting their summer lines and will soon be little brownies. I was disappointed to find that Skye's swimsuit did not block the rays. You can see where the thicker parts of the suit (the straps) are but the rest of her skin looks as dark as the part that was uncovered...guess we will be lathering the sunscreen on before she gets dressed-lucky for my kids they don't burn.

You know I don't think it is possible to come home from the Oakley pool without being reminded of the HOURS we spent there as kids growing up. We would swim all day long come home with bloodshot eyes, eat a little dinner (I seem to be craving chicken noodle soup with fresh bread-I know not a summer time meal, but it was the BEST!!), nap during the Bill Cosby Show, and then as we got older we would go back later too.

Well the kids came home with...
bloodshot eyes

an appetite-she was munching on stale french fries from lunch-GROSS!

and even caught a little nap-she was out within 5 min. of changing her clothes.

and then I went back by myself for some lap swimming!

Yay for summer! (of course we wont mention the cold and rain forecasted for later in the week. We will just keep enjoying today's summer-ness!)

Our Trip...

...in a few words that you may or may not get and pictures

Tradition, cockroach, wilson, melvin, red rocks, relaxing, food, pro cheerleading jumps, shopping, tunnel, goldfish, poop talks, chocolate, Bodyguard, Temple, Zion's, driving, music, warm sun, Tuacahn, Aida, Target, blushing, Star struck, shopping, photography, laughing, spooning, headaches, Taco Bell deposits and withdrawals, snacks, Pretty woman, zoo animal statues, site seeing, sleeping in, lipgloss, nap interruption, wedding rings, fhwee pwus for, gum sneezes, hairball, dry scrambled eggs, beautiful, pulled hamstring, texting & sexting, housekeeping, forgotten firearms, fat foot shoe, moon, depantsing, sourpatch fish sandwich, hotel salon, real estate, bartering, market, friends, quietness, naps, pillows, shopping, pool, prairie dogs & ground hogs, Dirty Dancing, Hair, Shinnecock Dr., round abouts, frozen lemonade, soft pretzel, constipation, talking, ice cream, pedicures, hiking, kitchen store, shopping, lizard, cactus, pier 1 imports, comfy chairs, stinky cigarettes, movies, Kd's the favorite, cough & sneezing test, KD's smoker cough flem

now for the pictures...these are for you Carrie (since I missed my sentimentals yesterday) can you name all these places?

The bestests girls









I call this one "Phobia" we were not fans of this part of the trip...over a mile of driving through the mountain at 5 MPH (dang slow drivers didn't they not realize we were about to have a panic attack?)




waiting to go through the tunnel

at least there were a couple of windows

look how much mountain was on top of us...AHHHHH!!




I think my favorite part of photography down there is how BLUE the sky looks when coupled with the RED rocks...so pretty!

I love how the whole city is built around the temple and it looks so brilliantly white against all the red too!

PS) Kaydee and Lib feel free to take the pictures if you want them...if you want them without my name on them just let me know. Had a blast with you lovely ladies...thanks for the laughs!

The Sun Rises...

...after the longest night of my life the sun did come up again. Skye had a rough night and since she was sleeping with me so did I. We woke up this morning and were planning to drive the rest of the way to Oak City, but poor Skye just was not feeling well and rather than driving 1 hour to Oak City and then 3 hours back to Grandma's tonight we decided to skip Oak City this year. We were all a little more than bummed, but it proved to be a good choice. When we got to Grandma's Skye and I got to catch up on a little sleep and the kids and Greg rode with Grandma and Papa to Chad's work open house and they had a great time.

We will have to make a special trip to Oak City next time we come down to make up for this trip that we missed. So our vacation ends tomorrow. It has been such a great 10 days off of everything. I was telling my mom that although we did a lot of the same things we do at home to do it at someone else's house was a true vacation for sure. Especially the part about getting to use a dishwasher and doing the laundry for FREE. It was great to see all that we got to see and thanks for playing with us!

Camping 2009...

...so we don't get to go camping very often, but during our week of vacationing we are trying to make it a tradition. We like to go visit Greg's grandparents in Oak City and so we try to find a camp ground close to their house camp for a night and visit the next day or so. Well this year we also wanted to go to Oak City for the big "Oak City Days" and the famous lunch but that famous lunch draws crowds and therefore we figured the campgrounds would be full close to their house so we found one near Springville/Mapleton area. We camped in the Whiting Campground in the Unitas. It was a little more crowded then our secluded spot last year, but it was a nice campground (minus the stinky bathrooms that we read as flushies but turned out to be non-flushies).

On the drive there Skye started to say her mouth hurt and at close inspection we found a nice sized sore on her tongue...poor girl...it continued to get worse throughout the day and come night fall she was one miserable little girl. Lucky for her we had bought tylenol for her immunizations that we ended up not getting (the power was out at the Dr. office so they cancelled the appts), so at least she had that.

As we were going to bed the sky lit up with flashes and being down in a canyon the thunder rolled off of every wall and for about 10 min. there was no pause in the rumblings. With Skye not feeling well and the downpour that came with the storm Jacey and Dax slept in the back of the van, Greg, Skye and I attempted to sleep in the tent. Poor Skye tossed and turned all night and slept in 30 min. increments. It was the LONGEST night EVER, but we still managed to have a good time.

Getting ready for the hike



Skye was such a good sport even though her mouth was hurting so bad

the leaves are already starting to change

everything was so GREEN and pretty!


setting up camp in between bouts of rain


hiding

it was mighty chilly in the morning

Where Were YOU?

...I have this little nephew on greg's side that never ceases to amaze me with what he says to us. Today we planned to go to Nielson's to hang out with all the cousins that go there on Tuesday's BUT knew that if we went before naps there would be no naps so we went afterwards, but I guess the kids waited and waited and Kason got a little worried. When we finally showed up he hugged Jacey as he always does and said "Where have you been? I have been so worried about you!" just like a concerned parent might say. It made me laugh!

So the afternoon and evening was spent playing with cousins and just hanging out with the family...in the All American Way, eating burgers and dogs and playing some wiffle baseball where the girls TOTALLY dominated the game with way more home runs than the boys could ever dream of. One of the home runs didn't even go over the fence, but got stuck in the tree-way to confuse those guys Diane-they all stood under the tree trying to come up with the most efficient way to get the ball down...we could have run home 10 times in the time it took them!

This Is How A Vacation Should Be...

...falling asleep where/when ever you want in the apple tree swing.


We seriously love spending our summer vacation just hanging out with the family down here! We just kind of do what ever we want when ever we want to do it and life is grand and very relaxing.

Today we celebrated my beautiful mom's birthday and I thought I would just announce to you all how much I love and appreciate all she does for me and my family-she is the BEST!

Holy Candy...

...so we are down for the good ol' days of South Weber and today was the famous parade, known for lots and lots of candy. In fact I can't tell you much of who was in the parade past the sirens because the rest of the time I spent throwing candy from the middle of the street back to the kids so they didn't get run over. It is a fun parade and this years we had 9 kids with us (which included baby Lily and little Ammon who didn't get into picking up candy so much) and all of those 9 kids went home with over a lb of candy (and that was after we-the moms-threw away the hard candy and bubble gum). About halfway through the parade the kids even stop picking the candy up because they have already picked so much up. From the amounts of candy we take home every year you would think that there just weren't that many people watching, but really we all sit side by side (sometime in more than one row) up and down the entire parade route.

After the parade we all head back to my mom and dad's house and sort through and divide all the candy as equally as possible and spend the rest of the day playing and having a good ol' time.

We LOVE it!
(pictures to come later)

Celebration...

...first off I guess I should take a moment to appreciate the reason this town celebrates the week of the 24th more so than any of the surrounding towns, and that would be in honor of our beloved pioneers. In case you did not know this (which I think most of you will) when the pioneers dispersed from SLC some of them came and settled in Oakley. Burley and all the surrounding towns did not exist for a few years after.

Now on to the celebration of these great pioneers. Today was the BIG celebration with the town a buzzing. Like I mentioned yesterday the streets fill up around here with cars parked up and down main street and yards dotted with tent after tent and lawn chair after lawn chair. I don't recognize 3/4 of the people that are around because they are all family of family, but I do recognize some of the kids I grew up going to primary with up here and swimming with at the pool. Because I had a matinee performance I actually feel like I missed out on a lot of the fun, but thanks to my wonderful husband he stood in line for my Clark's Famous Deep Pit BBQ plate and it was so good! Because I did not have a camera to take a picture of it imagine a deep pit (hence the name) in the middle of the park with flames a flying then they drop the meat in, cover it and cook it overnight (I think that is what they do) and today we enjoyed a slab of that with a baked potato and salad all for $25 a family and our family consisted of 8...not bad at all. While I was at the play the family went to the park and swimming and then it poured for a min. to cool things down nicely for a 5:00 pm parade. I know what you are thinking because Greg asks it out every year-why do they do the parade in the evening-well today it worked out great because it was 20 degrees cooler! We skipped the rodeo because well we had played so hard this week that we were all so tired, but here in another 40 min. we will enjoy the fireworks from our front lawn...love it!

Today we also celebrate a training wheel free rider. I think papa is trying to condition Jace to ride so she can ride with him and grandma in all their races. He fixed Jacey and Dax's bikes and helped Jacey learn to ride without the training wheels. YAY for her! Since we don't have sidewalks we have been a bit leery of taking them off, but she did GREAT! (of course she will ride with her helmet)







What a great, fun weekend. Thanks Mom, Dad, Landon, Kirsten, Lily, (Jeremy earlier in the week) Crystal, and Ammon for making the trip to come celebrate with us and to come see my play. We had a WONDERFUL time. And to you all we hope you had a wonderful 24th of July weekend (even if you don't celebrate it where you live).