Merry Christmas!

Real Sweet Birthday!

We started celebrating Katelyn's birthday by taking the girls to Lollipop Park.  They had fun riding all the carnival rides.  She also wanted to go to Jim 'n Nick's for dinner because she loves their cheese muffins.  Katelyn got a lot of presents she loved. 

 She was too funny to watch with her mp3 player.  She sang and danced around all day and if you talked to her she would talk way too loud back.  It made Nate and I laugh.

 She loves to build with Legos and she loves this girl version of them.

I made Apple Caramel Popcorn balls (here) and she took these to school with her for her class.  We tied them up real cute with a green ribbon so they looked like an apple.

 My friend Megan had the cutest party for her daughter a few years ago and I knew I wanted to do something similar this year for Katelyn.  I had so much fun putting this together.  We sent out lollipop invitations.

 These lollipops lined our yard.

 Our sweet shop. 

We colored pictures of gumball machines when they first arrived to make name tags for there party favor bag.  Then we played pass the lifesaver which you do with chopsticks and had an obstacle course they had to go through while carrying a gumball on a spoon.  We then played Candyland and had a bean bag toss.  As we played these games they earned coins so they could buy party favors from the baskets.  They could choose from candy bracelets, cupcake charms, pop rocks, crayon pencils, lipgloss, nail polish, stickers (of coarse all candy themed).

 We had cupcakes and fruit for a snack.

We opened presents and ran out of time to play bingo.  It was fun to see her with her friends.  She invited Sadie and her cousin, three friends from church , and four friends from school.  I think the past week for her has been pretty SWEET!  Happy 7th Birthday!

Halloween

 Dorthy

 Snow White

 

Zebra

Trick or Treating

They all had a great time.  Nate took them out trick or treating.  I was home on candy duty, which was great because it gave me time to read in between the door bell rings (I highly recommend the Tiger Curse series).  Juliette really got the hang of trick or treating by the end.  She would push her way to the front and put out her bag.  She even started knocking on doors.  When we got home the first piece of candy she picked was of coarse a lollipop, her very favorite.

September of Projects

So I have this tendency of starting projects and not always finishing them right away.  I know it's very uncommon to do that sort of thing...  Anyway, I wanted to finish some of them up recently so this is what I've been up to:

Probably my largest project since we've moved in almost two years ago has been my wall in the backyard.  Before we can finish our basement, we need to have a little more storage space so I thought I would be resourceful and clear out some of our crawl space and make it a bit more usable.  In order to do that, I needed somewhere to put all the dirt.  I thought about trying to do a "The Great Escape" thing but didn't want to alter all my pants.  Instead, I took a look at our back yard.  It was big and empty and in need of some character, see:

Insert character here:

You'll notice there is a long wall there now.  We did that!  You will also notice the grass is a lot greener.  It adds to the before and after pictures.  Once the other plants grow a little, it will look even better (they're in there, it's just hard to see them).  To add some more fun to the backyard, I improved the look and attitude of the old barbecue.  Implementing a childhood favorite is sure to always bring a smile.

As for the crawl space, commonly referred to as "Dad's hole" or the "dirty place," it is much more usable now, but I am probably not finished yet so it's not counted in the September of completed projects.  I would like to say I have a lot more respect for the old time miners that had to dig in tight spaces all day long.  It's not easy and not how I like to spend my time.

I can't really take credit for the Lego head idea; it came from Pinterest.  Yes, I joined.  It's not that bad and it even has a lot of great ideas for guys; especially if you can get past all the hair styling, fashion, and make-up stuff.  I know I probably need more help there than anyone (especially with three girls), but I'll tackle that challenge later.  I found a different project on there that was more appealing to me.  I  saw this wall mounted art desk thing and thought it looked like the perfect idea for Katelyn and Sadie's room.  It doesn't take up much space when folded up and encourages that wonderful creative side.  I think it turned out pretty well.

I took some liberties and changed the style a little to fit more what I wanted it to be.  I didn't want chains or anything hanging on the sides to encumber whatever artsy projects develop so hopefully it will still be strong enough.  I'm actually taking bets on how long it will last before it breaks and I have to put a new, heavy duty shelf on there.  I'm guessing it will happen when Juliette tries to climb up on it some day.  For now, the girls are happy with it and I generally am too.  I did learn a lot about how to do it differently in the future though in case anyone else needs some advice on making their own.

This last one doesn't look like it would be that difficult, but the logistics made me think a little.  We wanted to replace the towel bar in the kid’s bathroom so when we came across two white shelves for the amazing price of free, we thought we could make something work.  Anjanette picked up some hooks and I set about trying to figure the rest out.  The shelves are really easy to use when you use them the way they were intended, but I wanted to cut them apart and put them back together in a different, unintended fashion.  I wanted something a little fancier.  More importantly, I wanted to make sure it didn't look like a hack-and-slash job.  I wanted uniformity, no gaps or cracks, and no visible mounting holes.  It was a bit trickier than I originally expected because of the “wood.”  It’s that pressed stuff that splits and falls apart easily.  The final product turned out pretty well, mainly because I had a couple of spare supports.

Now that I've wrapped up some of the loose ends, I've been thinking of new things to work on.  I love home ownership!

Look who started preschool...

 Sadie is loving it.  She started a week ago and has nothing but good things to say.  Boy has she been waiting for this day.  It is hard to see your big sister go to school and you have to stay home with mom.  When she gets home she is such a chatterbox.  She has so much to say about everything that happened.

It wasn't so Gory

A week ago I got back from my first backpacking trip in more than 15 years.  My brother-in-law asked me if I wanted to go along with him on one and I figured it would be a lot of fun.  I know some of you think walking around in the middle of nowhere with everything you need strapped to your back would not be much fun, but you would be wrong.  The only thing that worried me a little was that any gear I had was stowed away at my dad's house 500 miles away.  Luckily, I have some good friends and a very loving wife so I was able to get pretty much everything I needed (and probably a little more).

We hiked around the Gore Mountain Range for four days just before Labor Day.  We wanted to beat the long weekend rush and it worked out pretty well.  We didn't see many other people until the last day on our way out.  It may have been because we only spent half the time on the trail or because we weren't hiking the 14ers or it may have been some other reason.  Whatever it was, we were happy.

I know this looks professional, but it really is from the trip.  That's Scott in front (pretty typical), me in back (also pretty typical) and Bryan taking the picture.  He had some amazing shots.

We camped at a different lake each night.  This was the first night and it was called Mirror Lake, though most would qualify for that name.  The last day, we tried to count up all the different lakes we saw and we think we came up with 18 and that doesn't count all the swampy ones or the ones we saw from a distance.  Here are some of the others:

It was an amazing trip.  These pictures are pretty nice, but they don't really compare to the real thing.

Probably the best night we camped at a lake that surrounded our campsite on three sides and gave us a nice mountain ridge view.  We had to survive a nice rain storm and hiking through a lot of bushes and rocks to get there, but it was well worth it.  The campfire that night even helped to dry my shoes and socks (maybe a bit too much).

The next morning we took our time getting going because it was so nice we really didn't need to hurry out of there.  The water was cold, but the sun was warm and the weather was perfect.  Eventually we continued on and were pretty happy with the next day's adventure.  Our GPS guide, Bryan, led us down a steep mountain side to a very beautiful area.  We took a look around and were in awe of the cliffs, mountains and trees and lake that surrounded us.  There were other campers there and we asked if there was a trail out because we didn't want to go back the way we came in.  They explained where it was, but if there was a trail, we never found it.  We did eventually find the main trail and it took us back to where we wanted to camp for the night.  We refer to that lake as "No-trail Lake."  Bryan said if anyone asked, he wouldn't tell them where it is, but he would be happy to take them there.

In the four days, we officially traveled about 36 miles.  The weather forecast showed a 30% chance of rain each day and we joked about it when we got rained on every day.  It wasn't too bad though.  The only time it really hit us was when we were above tree line.  It happened for about an hour just after the first picture at the top was taken.  We made the trip with very few complications.  The most significant injury was when Scott hit his shin into the tailgate of the car while loading our packs at the end.  As for wildlife, that is a different, but similar, story.

When traveling in the mountains, I have always heard stories about bears and other animals that try to get your food.  Each night we would bag everything and hang it in the trees to keep it away from prying hands.  We saw some brave chipmunks that came searching for seeds and other good stuff, but the only other wildlife we saw was a couple of deer as we were walking back into the parking lot.  That wasn't the end of our wildlife experience though.  Oh no, as soon as we got back to the car, we noticed a mouse had turned Bryan's car into a vacation home.  It ate some of Scott's sunflower seeds, enjoyed some uneaten doughnuts and left trails on one of Bryan's shirts that was left behind.  We cleaned out everything we saw and joked about how it was probably watching us pack up and was waiting for us to leave.  We didn't really see how busy it was until Scott went to get his wallet out of the glove box.  This is what we found there: 

It was quite impressive.  That little mouse turned the glove box into a mouse house.  I'm hoping it wasn't still in the car as we went home because if Bryan found it, it would not be a pretty sight.  Scott and I laughed about how funny it would be if we got pulled over and had to show the officer the chewed on registration.  It was funny because it wasn't our car.  It just goes to show you, you don't have to worry about the bears as much as you do the little mice.  I'd still do it all again and look forward to the next adventure.

First day of school

Our First Grader

 Katelyn's first day was yesterday.  She loved being there all day and especially eating there.  She said the lunch room was hard to talk in because it was so loud.  Her teacher this year is Mrs. Goodman.  Her best friend, Emily is in her class again this year.  She is so excited to go to school.  I love that.  I didn't mind school, but there were certain years that were really hard to go.  I'm sure we will get to that when girls start being mean and catty.  If you want to see how much she has grown from last year on the first day, you can find that here.

 Juliette has been a real stinker lately.  She loves to sit on our kitchen table so we have to keep the chair backward.  If we forget, this is what we find.

Our garden has done really well this year.  We planted pumpkins, green onions, cucumber, zucchini, chives, thyme, basil, oregano, anaheim, pablano, tomatoes, and cantaloupe.

In our very own pumpkin patch.

Picking and eating cherry tomatoes!

Look Dad, No Wheels!

This last weekend we took Katelyn's training wheels off her bike, which she has been dreading.  She picked it up the first day.  The next day she was super excited to go out and try again and by the end of practicing she could even start by herself.  She kept saying "It's so much fun!"  We told her it would be, but what does Nate and I know.  I am so proud of her.

Cousin Camp 2012: Yellowstone

If you have noticed my parents put on a cousin camp every year to try and get the cousins together.  This year we had it in Yellowstone.  We left Sunday, June 24 and drove to Park City Utah to stay at Nate's dad's house for the night.

On Monday we drove up through Idaho stopping to see my grandma in Preston and made it to where we were staying in Island Park.  My parents rented a vacation home and it was perfect.  The kids had there own bunk room and each of us had our own rooms.  Everyone was nice enough to let Nate and I have the master bedroom because it had a walk in closet perfect for Juliette's own little room.

 After dinner we made bubble wands to make giant bubbles with.  Sarah was the only one who could get them to release from the string and float away.  They really were giant.

On Tuesday we drove into the park.  Our first wildlife sightings were deer and bison in the same meadow area,

Everyone was pointing so Juliette figured she needed to also.

We stopped in Madison so the kids could get there Junior Ranger worksheets and listened to the ranger give a presentation on scat.  He actually had Tupperware full of it.

 We then drove on to Old Faithful and had lunch there.  I was surprised when we saw some friends from Lehi while we were there.

West Thumb Geyser Basin

On the drive back out of the park we stopped at the Kepler Cascades,

Midway Geyser Basin, and took the Firehole Lake drive.

That night after dinner we played Minute 2 Win It.

 Face the Cookie

Caddy Stack

On Wednesday we headed back into the park and our first stop was the Artists Paintpots.

We had lunch, saw elk hanging out, and the Upper and Lower Falls in Canyon Village.  That night after dinner we made our own coat of arms that represented us.  Tara painted nails and put coloring in the kids hair which they thought was awesome.

Our shields

On Thursday we saw a moose and a muskrat.  We also fed the fish at Big Springs and wadded at the boat dock.

For the rest of the day we did some shopping, had a camp fire, and sat in the hot tub. 

We also gave the kids a break from being in the car all day and they enjoyed playing at the cousin camp house.

On Friday we left and headed towards home.  We went through Yellowstone and down through the Grand Teton National Park to make our way to Casper Wyoming where we were going to spend the night.

We stopped at a ranger station on our way through Yellowstone so the kids could turn in their worksheets to get their Junior Ranger badge.  Katelyn as worn it every day since and Sadie lost hers the second we got home.

Grand Tetons

We saw and heard a lot of this that day.  She was so tired of being in the car (I was so tired of being in the car).  We went home this way because we wanted to stop at Martin's Cove and pull handcarts with the kids.

 We didn't stop at Martin's Cove but at the Sixth Crossing visitor center.

Sweet Water river

The kids were very excited to stay in a hotel that night.  They wanted a swimming pool and they used it.

On Saturday we headed to see the Guernsey Ruts.

They are very impressive.  It is amazing how rock can wear away with so many wagons and handcarts that crossed through here.

Right out of Loveland we came to a stand still on the freeway.  We were going really slow and I told Nate that if we were stopped because of a herd of Bison I was going to be really mad (that is usually why traffic is backed up in Yellowstone) and Nate pointed out the window at the semi next to us.

We had a good laugh and eventually did get home.  Everyone was very happy not to be in the car anymore.