Bear Lake Weekend

We had a beautiful time this weekend enjoying Bear Lake.

There were rain storms, lots of wind blowing, some sunshine, and a beautiful rainbow.

There was lots of family there, which means good food, cousins, and family time.

After three days in Bear Lake we had to head back to reality.

We stopped in at Tony Grove. The kids hiked around the lake.

(Then slept the two hour drive home!)

Ella liked to lay down on every bench we saw.

She said she had to take a nap.

We sure LOVE the Cache Valley area!

Darren and his Half Iron Man

Darren trained hard and has now successfully completed a Half Ironman Triathlon.

Saturday morning he woke up at 5:00 AM in Bear Lake, Utah.

The race started with everyone up to their thighs in water since Bear Lake is shallow for quite a ways out. Wetsuits are pretty nice in the cold water!

After swimming over a mile, he ran to the transition area...
Where he put on his biking gear.
Then he rode for 56 miles. He had to turn around after 28 miles and ride back into a terrible head wind. (That means the wind pushed him back for 28 miles!)
Then he pulled in with his kids cheering him on! (and Nellie, Seth, and Pat) Here he goes off to run 13 miles (which turned out to 14.1 miles since the route wasn't measured right!) He had to run with a head wind here too.
The wind was so bad the finish line banner thing blew over. So this is him 5 hours and something minutes later... crossing the yellow line to finish.
We are proud of him and glad he never wants to do a full iron man!

Cousins minus four

My sister had a huge party at her house to celebrate Ben (her husband) finishing is Bachelors.

It was so much fun--- family, food, and relaxed!

These are all the cousins minus 4.

There are 6 boys first, then five girls next.

Then we are starting over with 1 more boy two months ago.

Now to make you laugh- well it make me laugh!

Sophie is the oldest girl.

(She is in the middle.)

I am so glad she was the first girl so she can be our roll model for cuteness.

I can't even figure out how to do Ella's hair!

So I took about 10 photos of the three older girl cousins.

Sophie was always picture perfect.

(notice photo below)

Grace held herself quite well too.

Then notice Ella- trying to be cute like Sophie...

What do you think Sophie is thinking right now about Ella??

And here- wow- I have the cutest daughter EVER!

Luckily we got one good one, Grace is even blowing us a kiss!

If only Ella would leave her hair in! and not pull it out EVERY SINGLE DAY!

Palisades State Park

All our weekends have been to busy so we planned a get away during the week.

This was an awesome place to go.

It was only 2 hours away right outside Manti, in Sterling Utah.

You can rent paddleboats or canoes.

You can bring your own non motorized boats.

If you like golf your in luck- cheap golfing.

But for us we just relaxed. We didn't even take one photo with our own cameras. We slept in a tent- all four of us. My favorite thing was the floating dock out in the middle of the water.

You could swim out to it and jump off and play. Ella liked to jump off more than Tyler.

We swam during the day, played soccer, caught baseballs, played battleship, road our bikes around, ate good food, and took naps.

I even got to go to the Manti Temple on the way home. That was amazing!

Train Muesum

We went to the Train Museum

Tyler has been excited for this for along time

They got to climb on all the big trains

I think they would/could have stayed for another hour or two

Check out the size of those wheels

Chad... we sure are enjoying your kids while your away!

First Ever Tea Party

Ella went to her first ever tea party.

It was quite a fancy deal.

There was dancing and twirling of dresses.

They all drank tea (apple juice) out of their tea cups.

(Notice all the jewelry Ella has on. She picked it all out herself.)

There was princess food to eat. What you cant see her her purse she brought with her.

It had her cell phone and high heels in it.

This was the group- Lots of little princesses.

cleaning my washing machine

Yesterday I cleaned my washing machine.

why??

I just paid to have it fixed and when the man took it apart it was beyond gross to see how dirty the inside part of the machine was. Oh my- I tried scrubbing and only made a dent in the process before he had to put it back together.

He told me to do a little cleaning thing every 6 months and my clothes will get a whole lot cleaner.

He said-

1. Turn the water to as hot as it can go. Fill up the machine.

2. Add in 1 Galloon of vinegar.

3. Fill up the machine more by hand with hot hot water. Until you get to the top, but not to high or it will over flow!!! (like mine did--- when I started to spin it the water went sloshing out the inside)

4. Let it go through the wash cycle. Then stop it before it drains. Let it sit for 30-60 minutes. Then put it to the spin cycle to turn some more.

5. After all the water has spun out. Whip down the inside of machine

My machine was gross, and I am sure only loosened the grim!

Here is a website I found about it

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/397607/how_to_clean_your_toploading_washing.html?cat=6