Rocky Mountain National Park

A few weeks ago my parents came to visit.  We took a nice little day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.  It made for a long day and a long drive, but it was worth it!  First we went hiking up to Nymph lake.

 Here's my handsome folks.

 And my cutsey family

 Then we continued up to Dream Lake.  Here's my Dad and Aaron.  Does that view look familiar?  Go check out the Colorado state quarter.  It's this view right here!

 Yay we made it!  Did you know we've also been married 10 years now people?  10 years!  That's a whole decade!  Happy Anniversary to us (not on that exact day, but I was just thinking of it).

 We drove up Trail Ridge Road and went to check out the Alpine Tundra hike.  As you can see, it was windy.  It was also cold, and a lot freaking longer than it said it was.

 Aaron and Sydney did this one last year (a part of it) while I watched Mady sleep in the car.

 Here we all are at a mere 12,000 feet above sea level.  I knew the landscape up there was fragile, but there were signs up there telling us that at their upper limits, trees only grow an inch in diameter ever 100 years and that if you damage the landscape it could take hundreds of years to grow back!  Let's definitely stay on the path! 

We had lots of fun!  I'd been dying to get up there, so I was so glad we did!  Hopefully we can make it again this year!

It's Your Birthday - 80's style

My good friend threw me a birthday party a few weeks back.  We partied like it was 1985.  Hilarious.  Here are the guests:

  The cake (and guest of honor back in the 80s!)  You know you're jealous of those glasses.  There's a reason my mom AND the eye doctor both tried to talk me out of them.  I stood firm.

 Some of the rockin' decor

 Even a mirror ball!  All we needed was a roller rink!

 Our lovely hostess and host and their matching baby

 The bonfire.  Know what's great about my outfit?  Most of the accessories were actually mine back in the 80s.  T-Tie?  Mine.  Sparkly ginormous headband?  Mine.  Some necklaces and the earrings and the 100 bangles?  Mine.  Yeah, I'm sort of a pack rat.

Thanks to everyone who came/put it on.  We had a blast!  Now we have to figure out our next party theme...

Yellowstone National Park

We were in Idaho on my birthday and I realized there was something I wanted to do that I hadn't for a long time - go to Yellowstone!  I grew up 2 hours from Yellowstone National Park, and my mom made sure we went there OFTEN.  We were there every Memorial Day, every Labor Day, and a lot of days in between.  It was fun, but we live sort of far from there now, so we haven't been in years, and neither of our girls had ever been.  We decided to take a VERY last minute trip up there.  We left at 1pm.  I know, we're crazy, but we had so much fun!  We ate bambinos on the way there, and saw 5 moose (including twin calves) on the way in!  Hooray!  Mady declared the moose "beautiful" and was very excited to go in.  We stopped at the Firehole River to dip our feet in.  Sydney was terrified she was going to fall in, so I held her tight.

 She ended up being fine.  It was Mady that fell in!  Oh my gosh, it was hilarious.  The water had been very high previously, so there were holes all over where the buffalo had come down to drink.  Mady (not the most graceful child anyway - you can tell she's mine) was running toward me and went straight down in one!  She sank up to one hip before Nana yanked her out and set her on solid ground.  She started cry/whining and said, "I fell in the muddy!"  She took ONE STEP toward me and fell in another hole! (like I said, not the most graceful!)  When rescued again by Nana she informed me, "I fall in the muddy again!"  Oh silly little girl.  We dipped her in the river and she cleaned off!  Good as new!

 Here we all are!  (Aaron had to work, so my mom took us up! - Thanks Mom!)

 Here's Sydney by one of the beautiful pools up there.  When we pulled into the parking lot for this place, Sydney excitedly announced, "This place is wonderful, and AMAZING!  I LOVE this place!"  I loved sharing a place with them that I had grown up with.

 In my family we generally like the northern loop of the park better (more animals and less tourists), but it's longer, and we didn't really have a lot of time.  So we did the tourist thing and went to watch Old Faithful.  The kids were not overly impressed by this.

On our way out of the park we saw a grizzly bear!  I love seeing wildlife that is still wild and it was fun to see it.  Sydney wanted someone to make it hold still so she could see it, and I had a hard time explaining that this wasn't like the zoo where they all had houses and keepers.  We were in their house and we had to be careful.  She didn't get it, but we had oodles of fun!  We'll definitely be taking them back there!

Idaho

We couldn't go to Utah without going to Idaho too!  Both of our parents live there as well as my brother and one of Aaron's.  My other sister was also coming over to see us, so on the 1st we drove up to see everyone.  We had lots more fun having cousin time, went to an impromptu family reunion when Aaron's aunt and uncle from Nauvoo, IL came to town, got to visit with Aaron's grandmother, and had way too much candy!  Here are the girls at the Rexburg parade with their cousins, 2 aunts & uncles, 2 grandpas, plus mom, dad, & nana.  We had quite the entourage!  We also got to see my SIL's family from Mexico!  We hit the family jackpot while we were there!

 The got so much candy. And then I bought them shaved ice.  And bambinos.  If you don't know what those are, we might not be able to be friends anymore.  Or we might now be best friends because once you figure out what they are you'll realize there was a void in your life you never knew about, but now it's filled.  They're that good.  Ahhh.  I love those things.  Then we went back to Aaron's parents house and tortured the cat.  Thanks Uncle Garth.  He pretty much loved it.  If not the first time, then at least by the third, right?

 We did sparklers and pops while waiting for the fireworks and my kids each had about 10 glow in the dark necklaces, bracelets, and anklets on.  We couldn't have lost those kids if we had tried.  Which is great, since we're rather fond of them.

Then we watched the bestestestest (no really - largest West of the Mississippi) fireworks show.  Oh, excuse me, Boom Boom Show. (Mady)

 We even got to hang out with one of my friends from high school.  We did musicals together and are still besties.  We went to the zoo with Alli and her adorable little guy Grant who is A-Mazing.  He was born with only half a heart and had just had his (last? - cross your fingers!) heart surgery!  He's 2 and he's had like 8 or something, so I think he's due for a hiatus.  Click here if you want to read Grant's story.  Go grab your Kleenexes first though, he'll wait.

 We played with our cousins some more.  Sydney and Kayden are 4 months apart and had such a blast together. 

 Mady found someone to play Playdough with her (her favorite activity)

 While Sydney chased Grandpa around the yard

 I got to see my brother more than I have in ages - wait, you didn't know I had a brother!!!!  Surprise!  I do, he's just a little less gregarious and social than I am.  We had a blast.  His wife just had baby #2 on Sunday, so I'm an aunt again!  Congrats to them!

See what I mean about Sydney and Kayden?  They were crazy together.  My girls decided to dog pile Kayden and they were a pretty even match (together) for him!  He's big and crazy strong so it took both of them to hold him down!

We had so much fun visiting everyone!  Thanks to everyone who traveled and for making the trip awesome!

Pre-School

I'm not actually sure what happened.  Four years ago we were trying to adopt our first child.  Now she's in pre-school!  Aack!  We're doing a mommy co-op preschool and so far, it's awesome!  Sydney is in love and has had so much fun with her (all-girl) schoolmates and her teacher this week! 

 She's such a little ham and is so sweet!  We're so glad things worked out the way they did and that she's ours.

 Our silly big girl.

 Mady was thrilled because she gets to go to playgroup with all the other little siblings during preschool.  She was having a blast on Monday when I went to pick her up and cried her eyes out yesterday when we dropped Sydney off and didn't go to playgroup because Mady now has a cold.  Sad sad day.  She's counting down the days until Monday!

We love both of our big girls so much!

Utah

A small chapter of our lives has (HOPEFULLY!) come to an end.  Aaron had to travel every week for work for the past year.  There were only 4 weeks that he didn't travel (like Christmas & Thanksgiving, etc.) and it's gotten very old.  He just got back from what is hopefully his last trip for awhile!  YAY!!!  Momma's tired of being a single mom and I know a couple kiddos who are desperate for their Daddy to be back full-time!  It's given me great respect for military families and others in this situation.  You're amazing.  Back in June/July we decided to go stay with Aaron in his hotel.  He was in glamorous.... Salt Lake City, Utah, so of course we had to tag along!

 We pack so much into our days!  We had a blast and the kids slept great at night!  We spent a lot of time at the Gateway Mall (the train went from our hotel to the mall!  Yay!), hit up the zoo, visited with our cousins (my sis and Aaron's sister and brother and their respective spouses all live there).  We went to the fountains a lot and also to the children's museum.

 I had fun spending time with friends, family, and my girls.

 Of course, it was great to see this guy a little more

 And hang out here.  The kids loved seeing the temple and recognize this one now.

 More cousin time!

 We also made a quick trip to Hogle Zoo to see their baby elephant (oh my gosh!!! - so cute!) and get scared silly by the animatronic dinos that actually move.  Some of them spit water at the crowds and on the way out of the zoo Sydney got scared spitless and ended up in the middle of one of those crowds while the rest of us went on ahead.  I thought she was with my friends, they thought she was with me, etc.  Needless to say, Mommy was pretty scared and Sydney didn't even realize she was lost!  We're working on not repeating that experience.   EVER.

We had so much fun with all our Utah pals!  Thanks for showing us the town and being so awesome!  Miss you all!

Summer 2011

I'm a LOT of posts behind, but I'm going to try to catch up a bit with some back posts and then do our current ones.  Be prepared!  We've been hitting the pool and loving it.

 Eating popsicles (and wearing our pjs all day) 

 Playing on a kickball team (undefeated!)

 Jumping in puddles

 Going down the water slide (and occassionally doing it without adult supervision resulting in kind strangers saving my youngest daredevil child)

 Snuggling with Daddy

 Enjoying the pool some more (some of us are more brave than others - Sydney spent the whole time in water 2 feet deep despite behind covered in floaties)

 Taking silly pictures

Sydney is starting preschool in 2 weeks.  I'm not sure I like the idea of my summer ending that soon!  Gosh we've had fun!!!

Hilarious

I know I haven't blogged in almost 2 months.  Two months!!!  (seriously people, what the heck is wrong with me?)  but before I get into the apologies and back posts of 4th of July, our trip to Idaho and Utah, my 80's b-day party, and a trip to Yellowstone, (see, we have been busy!), let me share something that makes me cackle EVERY SINGLE time I see it.

oh. my. gosh.

Can you actually die from laughing?  This one might do me in.  It's totally my desktop photo right now.