Conference Weekend

I did a terrible job at taking pictures of our weekend!  I only remembered a couple of times, but at least I have something to show.

My brother Jared and his wife Casi invited us up to Casi's parent's cabin in the Uintah Mountains over General Conference weekend.  They have satellite up there so they go up every conference weekend to  watch it and get away.  This year Casi's parents were called to serve as ushers at the Conference Center during General Conference, so Jared invited us to come in their place.

We had a great time!  We saw more of Conference then we normally get to because the kids were outside entertaining each other exploring in the woods!  Between sessions on Saturday Bump took the kids out for a boat ride on a nearby reservoir.  I remembered to take a picture of that.

After the second session on Saturday Bump and Jared took all of the kids on short 4 wheeler rides.  Here is Lewis, Quincy and Ed ready to go in their helmets.  Corb liked tapping on them.

 I did capture Jared and Bump listening to one of the Sunday sessions too.

But no pictures of Casi or baby Brig.  Oh well.  

We had a relaxing and nice weekend hanging out with some of our favorite people.  Thanks for the invite guys!

First Tooth

Corban is 7 years old and he finally just lost his very first tooth!  It's been loose for a little while and being the mean mom that I am I made him pull it.  :)  Here is the before picture.  Doesn't he look thrilled that I am putting my foot down and "helping" him to get that tooth out?

After he was all smiles and glad to have it DONE!

City of Rocks

For UEA weekend we decided to head up north and go see the City of Rocks in Idaho.  Bump and I had never been there before and thought it would be fun to go explore a new place with the kids.  At first we had talked about camping, but after checking out the temperatures we decided to find a hotel instead.  We ended up finding a Super 8 in Burley that had a swimming pool.  The kids were thrilled!

Some friends of ours (Curtis and Lyndsay Hancock) were going to be there for the weekend anyway because of an 80th birthday party, so we decided to go up together.  They spent the first night in the hotel so all the kids could play and swim together and then spent the next night with family in the area.

We got to Burley on Thursday night and immediately hit the swimming pool.  We played and swam until we were all wrinkled and water logged.  Then headed to Jack in the Box for a very healthy dinner. :)

The next morning we got up and headed out to the City of Rocks National Reserve.  We stopped at the Visitor Center and watched a short video about the park and the pioneers that stopped here on their way to California along the California trail.  We got a map of the best hike to take with the kids and then went exploring.

 We stopped to take a picture with all of us at the entrance.

Curtis, Lyndsay, Levi, Katelynn, Quincy, Ema, Gabby, Me, Luke, Corban and Bump

We love these guys!  Our kids each have a best friend in their family. 

 Corb and his buddy Luke.  

They were very busy collecting all kinds of pretty amazing rocks!

 Katelynn and Quincy (it was a bit windy)

 Ema and Gabby

 Some of the large rocks in the park have immigrant signatures.  They signed their names with axel grease.  The names have faded quite a bit and are mostly gone, but it's still neat to see the ones still there.

 We went on a really great hike!  We took our time and stopped to take lots of pictures.  The hike was not long (only about a mile) and we only made one wrong turn that took us off into a valley where there really wasn't a trail.  We finally turned around and found the trail again.  It was a fun adventure for the kids.  The weather was perfect!  It wasn't hot and it only got chilly a few times and sweatshirts were perfect.

 Curtis' sister, Sundi, came with them (on the right).  She just moved back to Utah from Virginia. 

She was nice.

 At the end of the trail the path went up and someone had built stone steps along the trail.  We had to stop a take a picture of all the kids from youngest to oldest.

 We love these guys!  We were so happy to have them with us on this trip!

Me and Lyndsay.  

She is fabulous!  We watch each others kids, carpool together, workout together, split boxes of chicken when they are on sale and much more!  She is an amazing mother, a good example for me and a great friend! 

 I didn't take pictures the first night when everyone was swimming, but I snapped a few on the second night before I got into the pool.  We had it to ourselves both nights and the water was nice and warm.

On Saturday morning we got up and headed to Bump's parents house to watch BYU play Notre Dame in football.  It was a good game.  Nice and close, but we should have won!!  

Overall it was a great weekend!  We had fun and will definitely go back to the City of Rocks again!

Right before our trip. . . Wicked!

I have wanted to see the musical "Wicked" for years and have never had the chance.  I heard that it was coming to Utah and had looked at getting tickets, but we just couldn't afford it and so I gave up.  Well, Bump got a message from his brother, Darin, saying that he had 2 extra tickets that he would sell for a lot less than we could find them for online.  Bump jumped on the tickets and gave me a call with the news.  Of course, I was super excited!  We ended up having a good time with Darin's family.  But you know what the really great part was?  I finally got to see "Wicked"!

Last Day in Washington and the trip home

Saturday morning we got the car all packed up early for our trip back to Utah.  We made one really great stop before we really got on the road though.  My cousin Dode works as a surveyor for the local Tulalip indian tribe by my parents house.  They had their yearly Tulalip Days parade and party and Dode and his family invited us to attend.  I had heard about the parade last year from Dode's wife's blog and I was so excited that we could go.  Her description, found here, didn't prepare me for what we experienced with this fun parade.  First, hardly anyone was watching it.  We had a nice sized group with us (Dode, Stephanie and their kids, my parents, my Uncle Lynn and Aunt Sharon, my cousin Sherri and her family, my parent's friend Meledie and my cousin Janice), but then there wasn't anyone else around us at all.  And this parade is basically like Halloween that comes to you while you sit and watch.  My mom gave each of the kids a bag that she got from the republican convention and the kids absolutely filled them with candy and toys.  I didn't take any pictures of their hauls, but needless to say, the kids were in heaven with all the fun things that they got. Everyone that went past put handfulls of candy in each person's bag. Most of the "floats" were dressed up golf carts, but then there were all the different businesses and organizations that are on the reservation.  We loved the casino float with all the sparkle and cute girls - ha ha!

 This was our favorite part of the parade.  I think it was the group from the local childcare.  The little girl on the front of this boat was keeping a pretty good beat with her drum and singing a loud indian chant.  It was so awesome!  She had quite the talent!

After the parade there were hotdogs, chips and sodas at the park.  We headed over there and grabbed some lunch before getting on the road and making the long drive back to Utah.  I would have loved to have stayed.  I guess there was face painting, bounce houses, crafts and more food that we didn't even see before we left. Check out Stephanie's post from this year here. She blogged about it much better than I did and took better pictures!  It was definitely a fun thing to experience and if you are ever around the Tulalip Tribe in August you should plan on going.  It's way too fun to miss!

We took our time heading home and ended up staying the night at the border of Oregon and Idaho and arrived home early Sunday evening.  It was a fabulous trip and we loved every second of it!  It was the perfect mix of relaxation and fun and it was hard to come back to reality and the start of a new school year.