The rest of our trip

Ok, it has been a really long time since I posted, but I wanted to finish our trip so that someday in the future when I finally scrap these photos I will have some kind of journaling for it. On Friday we went to a family fun center just down the street from our hotel. The first thing we decided to do was the go-carts. We had fun chasing each other around the track in these carts.

McKenna

Lindsay wouldn't drive the first time we did the track. She was scared that the cart would tip over around the curves, or that she would crash. The second time we went I told her I would ride with her and she had to drive. Of course she loved it and wanted to go again, but we had used all of our tickets for that ride.
Then we went to the miniature golf course. We haven't played mini-golf for years so it was fun spending some time doing that. The weather was perfect and it was nice being out in the sun.

On Saturday we got up and headed towards home. We decided to see Bryce Canyon on our way home even though it was out of the way since we didn't know when we would ever be that way again. We stopped at another museum full of animals that was a lot bigger than the other one. It had all kinds of animals, bugs, spiders, butterflies and even fish. The owner had been collecting for years and had finally opened his own place. The kids really thought it was cool and once again the girls took tons of pictures! The weather in St. George had been awesome, but out by Bryce it was a lot colder and there was even snow on the ground still. Bryce Canyon is totally different than Zions. It was incredible, but kind of freaked me out a little bit because of the heights. Along the path there are steep drop offs and of course that made me really paranoid.

Marcy and Perry at our first stop.

McKenna and Brooke on the path. Brooke kept going over by the edge and trying to scare me...which it did. I didn't like that part of it, but it really was amazing being right there by all those awesome rock formations.
So we finally headed home. We ended up on a scenic road that I can hardly begin to describe. First we were in the rocks...more rocks than I have seen in my entire life. For miles upon miles upon miles of nothing but being in the middle of rocks. We were rounding curves that had no guard rails and nothing but drop offs on both sides. As far as we could see there was nothing but rocks. It was really cool, but a little scary. When we finally came out of the rocks hours later, we went into the forest. We climbed, and climbed, and climed. I couldn't believe how high we were. At one point we stopped in the road to see two wild turkeys cross the road. Right down the road from that we stopped to watch a herd of elk that was only 30 yards away from us. I kept telling Dave that I couldn't believe this road and how crazy it was that we were on it. Usually when you drive in the mountains you stay mainly low and there are mountains high around you....not on this road. When we reached the top there was nowhere else to go to get any higher...we were at the very top. We could look out across the valley and I swear CLOUDS were lower than us! It was insane. Dave made us all get out of the car so we could document the moment!

We had driven for hours and in all that time we had only passed two cars going in the opposite direction, and we had passed only one car going in our direction. We drove forever even after this picture looking for somewhere to eat and stay. We kept coming to little towns, some of them that didn't even have gas stations, where there was no fast food places, and the ones that did actually have a restaraunt were closed. We were all starving and tired. We stopped finally at the first town that had a decent motel and a Burger King! The scenery on the road was absolutely incredible and I am glad we went that way, but it is a little freaky being that far out in the middle of nowhere. I told Dave that we werent in BFE, we were in BFFE!! Sunday we made it home. We had a really fun trip and it was fun going somewhere we had never been before. It just wasn't that fun coming home to the cold!

Spring Break Vacation

Day one & two.....
We decided to go to southern Utah over spring break this year. Our trip started out on a bad note when we hadn't even gotten to Twin yet and both of the portable DVD players we had brought weren't working. Of course Brooke wasn't happy...about every thirty seconds she would let out a BIG sigh and make some comment like...."so we can't watch movies the whole time", or "I wanted to watch a movie right now". So, after about ten comments Dave said he would buy a new one when we got to Burley. We drove to Provo, spent the night and headed to St George the next morning. We plugged in Brittney's IPOD and sang and danced for quite awhile, which was fun.

When we got there we discovered that it was warm. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt and had to go change because it was too hot. We spent Wed. shopping, playing volleyball in the parking lot, playing cards, and the girls went swimming in the pool.

Thursday we went to Zion National Park, which was spectacular. What you see in a picture can't really describe how awesome and huge it was. The colors were amazing.

We decided to go on some of the hikes that they have there. This was the kids at the beginning of our first hike.

We went clear to the end of the trail, which was narrow and full of people. At the end we came to a place that was enclosed by the canyon walls and had a pond with a waterfall coming off the mountain. We had been hot while we were hiking, but here it was nice and cool and shaded. It was really neat.

Dave, Colton and Brooke decided to climb through a ton of rocks around the pond and over to where the waterfall was coming down. There was even a patch of snow left over there.

As we were coming back down the path Brooke said, "That was really cool. I hope I never will forget that." We did two other hikes, one being the Weeping Wall which was water coming down off a rock and you actually go behind it. It was kind of like being out in a sprinkle of rain. I was hoping this picture of Dave and Colton would show the water falling behind and on them, but you can't really see it.

After the hikes we drove through the park more. We got to drive through a really long tunnel that actually went through the mountain. Brooke thought it was really fun to yell in the tunnel. After we left the park we stopped at a little tourist shop that had a small museum full of animals (taxidermy) put in a realistic setting. Brooke and Lindsay thought it was really cool and they took a ton of pictures of all these stuffed animals which I thought was kind of funny. Of course Dave and Brooke had to goof off with the bear.

Brooke's Birthday

Brooke decided to go birthday shopping this year instead of having a party. We were going to be gone on her actual birthday, so we decided we would go the Sunday before we left. She was really excited and wanted to leave early Sunday so she had her purse with her birthday money in it on the couch Saturday night! We headed out Sunday morning and our first stop was at Cook's to get doughnuts and Smart water. (This is her new favorite water-I'm not sure what makes it so smart.) Our next stop was at Wal-Mart where she got a Mickey Mouse shirt that she immediately changed into once we got into the car. We went to Target and Barnes and Noble since the mall wasn't open yet. She got some bookmarks at the book store, and a new SIMS game for the computer at Target. (The SIMS game is "seasons", and after we got home she was playing it and she let her girl wander around too long out in the snow and she fell down and almost froze to death. We had to really give her a hard time about almost killing her character.) Once we got to the mall she bought (among other things) a whole new outfit..pants, sweater, scarf and bracelets.

Then it was off to Taco Bell for lunch, then we came home. Dave fixed one of her favorite meals...steak.

I can't believe my baby is twelve already. She is growing up way too fast. Some fun things to know about her right now are.....

1. She is taking track-we have an agreement that during track we will not drink pop. I'm not sure whether she is liking track yet or not. Her legs are sore, it has been really cold, and no pop!

2. She is playing spring volleyball with the sixth grade girls. This is her first time getting to play other teams and they had their first tournament on Sat. They came in second out of 16 teams and they played really well. She loves volleyball.

3. Her phone is her favorite thing ever. She just got a new phone because her other one got broken. It is hot pink and she absolutely loves it. She hugged her phone one day and told me that "this phone is my life."

4. She spends lots of time on the computer. Whether it is "My Space" or SIMS or looking up videos on utube she likes sitting in front of the computer.

5. She is my only child that occasionally cleans the kitchen without being asked. She also went out a few weeks ago and helped her dad all day while he was cleaning the yard. She even helped pick up all the dog poop. He didn't ask for her help, she just wanted to make his job easier.

6. She makes us laugh. She has always been funny, and she makes me smile pretty much every single day with something she says or does.

7. She loves her IPOD, Taco Bell Mexi-melts, Hot Cheetos, movies, Grey's Anatomy, Friday Night Lights, steak, taco dip, and lounge pants (or jam-jams as she calls them now), and her camera.

8. She still hasn't outgrown some of her clumsiness. Just today she fell out of Brittney's car and got a scrape on her elbow and a big knot on her knee. Even at twelve she still has bruises and scrapes all the time.

That's a look at my girl...we sure love her a bunch.

New family member

My sister Danelle had her baby a few weeks ago. She weighed 4lbs. 11oz. Her name is Ellie Shae (I'm not sure how they are spelling it, so I am just guessing) She is sooo tiny and so cute. We went down to Albion so the girls could see her and visit their cousins. She is so little that even the premie diapers are big on her! She is healthy and doing very well. I love holding little babies-they don't do anything but sleep, and they always smell so good. (Well, not always, she had to be changed twice while we were there!)

Valentine's Day Shirts

I never realized how handy scrapbooking supplies could be until my kids started using them for all kinds of different things. My scrap supplies have been used for school posters, election posters, school projects etc. For the Valentine's Dance Lindsay decided to use the foam stamp alphabet set to make a shirt. She drew a big Cupid on the front of the shirt and then used the stamps to write "Happy Valentines Day" on the back. She made little hearts all over it and used the period stamp to put dots all over. She spent all evening on it and it turned out so cute.

Brooke spent the night at a friends and made a shirt also, but we are having trouble getting the pictures from her camera onto the computer. Hers was really cute too. They both said they had a lot of fun at the dance and Brooke was so excited because she "almost" danced with a boy! (I hope that is the closest she gets to boys for a while.)

So Sad

This has been our latest addiction.... Tabby, the photo center manager at Walmart, has been telling me about this series for a while, so I finally got season 1 on Netflix. Dave, Lindsay, Brooke and I were totally hooked. It is a very realistic show based on football in a Texas town that has a lot of teenagers making choices and how those choices affect their lives. There are times when the daughter and parents are fighting and I swear she says the EXACT words Brittney has said to us before. It isn't as funny as Grays Anatomy, but it is really good. (Side note...this is not a show for little kids, lots of grown up stuff) We got done watching it one night and Dave seemed a little grumpy so I asked him what was wrong. He said, "I just want Tim Riggins (character in the show) to get his life in order and he just isn't doing it."! Obviously we have been really into it. Lindsay and I got Dave and Brooke Season 2 for Christmas and we have been slowly watching it because Season 3 just started and we missed getting it set up in our DVR. So we knew when Season 2 was over we would have to go without for a LONG time. We just finished it the other night and we are already having withdrawls. Brooke has decided that we need to buy Season 1 and just start watching them all over. I'm guessing Season 3 won't come out until fall, so we just might have to do that!

Christmas Spirit

Sunday we decided that we would put up our Christmas decorations. Dave concentrated on the outside and got all his lights hung. Marcy and Lindsay worked on our main tree, and they did an awesome job. Marcy thought white and red lights would be nice and it turned out really well. McKenna, Brooke and I worked on the rest of the house while they did that. We listened to Christmas music and had a table full of snacks to eat while we worked. I bought some Evergreen oil for my oil burner and it smelled soooo good, just like we had a real tree. After we were all done we relaxed and watched our new Christmas movie "Fred Clause."

Of course we had to have a silly picture!

This is the stocking holder I found at the craft fair. I have been looking for years for one but have never been able to find one with more that four pegs till now. (Now that it is Britts last year here, isn't that how it always goes.)

Our main tree in the living room.

Britt didn't help much with the house, but she did help the girls put up their tree that has their ornaments on it.

I thought it was really cute while we were pulling out all of our stuff the girls were saying where we got certain things, or asking where we got things. I kept saying, "Grandma made us that, Great-Grandma made us that, Grandma made that." Lindsay finally said, "It's a good thing we have Grandma's!" I told Lindsay that when she grew up she was probably on her own because I'm not very good at making things like that. She informed me that her Grandma would still be around and would take care of her! So thanks Grandma's for making our holidays special.