Memorial Weekend

We drove to Koosharem and stayed at my Grandma Hatch's little cabin. It rained a lot on the way down and we woke up with some snow on the hills. All four of us slept in the back of the truck. Which was good because it was pretty cold. Toby had to sleep in the cab of the truck. Then we woke on Sat and drove to Capital Reef. You cant have dogs on any trails so we didn't do much hiking.


Tyler, Darren and Toby spent the other nights in the tent (Toby outside the tent) and Mom and Ella slept in the truck, That way mom didnt' wake anyone up in the night to feed Ella and Ella could cry all she wanted too and didn't bother anyone but me!!!

Ella spent alot of time in the front back strapped to mom. Wrapped up warm.. dont worry!
We went on a hike up a canyon called Little Wild Horse Canyon. Interputation= Little means long, Wild means Crazy to try it with two kids and a dog, Horse means we needed a horse to carry us all out and Canyon, well, that just means a really long hike that you cant get out of. This is what we learned on this adventure. You can look at the map, see it is "only" a nine mile hike and think, that is easy, no problem. But this was a slot canyon, with water to wade through, boulders to climb over and lift toby over, and hot sun to walk through. The nine miles took us just over 6 hours. Pathetic. So next time, we will scale our hiking ambitions down.
TYler was happy to get out of the pack the last mile and hike, and Darren was happy to have that 28 pounds off his back.

We also went to Goblin Valley and talked around exploring all the fun things. We had a great time, and hope that Darren will be less stressed now that his audit is over.

the scary museum

Tyler was so excited to see the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving point. But when we got there, he couldn't understand we weren't going to see real dinosaurs. So he was a bit nervous going in. They have a great place for kids to play in sand and water. Kids could splash around with their hands, build islands/mountains, put trees and play dinos all over. We had a great time.



Tyler did NOT want to sit on this dinosaur, I had to go up and pet it and sit on it, then he relaxed and posed for this great picture.

my "green" day

I just wanted to share how good I feel today. I rode my bike with the chariot stroller hooked behind to the library today, I had to take back roads - so it was about 3 miles one way- then we stopped at the grocery store got some veggies (and a fresh roll) and rode home 3 miles. It felt great to exercise and take the time. I even remembered to take in bags to the store and reused my grocery sacks!!

no rain here..yet

I dressed Ella this morning in a shirt her Uncle Rob and Aunt Rachel gave her. It is of kid walking in Seattle getting rained on- It is supposed to rain for Memorial Weekend and we were hoping to go out camping and enjoy the great outdoors after Darren will finally be finished with his audit this Friday- lets hope we see him more often now.

We also set up the little kid pool in the backyard- when tyler wakes up from his nap, he gets to swim- thank goodness for no rain-

also on a rainy note- We have been trying to redeem our United frequently flyer miles for MONTHS!!!- Needless to say, I am finished with united- BUT - we will not be going to Costa Rica like we really wanted too. We will be going to Kauai - Hawaii for 10 days in October- it is a rainy time there in Oct but we will still love it- Especially considering we only had to pay 10 bucks for each ticket- Finally our miles have been redeemed!!!

Spring time

We have been keeping busy, even if it consists of feeding two kids and myself. Candace came down and went to the zoo for a day. We enjoyed the time together- Sad thinking they will be leaving soon for Michigan.(?) Tyler loves playing with his cousins - and thanks to Grandma Balls- they had superman capes to run around with- just at our house - not at the zoo:)

Ben and Renee have been helping us with a fun project of building a larger garden box, we hope to have lots of delicious veggies to eat soon- even some zucchini
But our best news is that Ella has started to do more sleeping at night then screaming. We have been keeping her up the last three hours of the day, instead of letting her sleep - I know it might sound cruel- but then she goes to sleep with out screaming for hours- We are all happier! She is just starting to smile- So attached I put an adorable picture of her- SLEEPING!!!