Water day with cousins

After a few days at the cabin, we came back down to the valley. The kids all came to our house to play with water stuff in the back yard.

This is all the grandkids minus Ely in WA and Seth. There are two more babies on the way also. Very exciting!

These boys can sure have a LOT of fun together! Isaac (Jenny's son), Tyler, Tessa (Candace's girl), Spencer (Chads son). There are 5 boys that are all about the same age. There are 5 girls next. Then 2 small boys. Then we start over with one girl...
Grace (Jenny's daughter)


Spencer, Tyler, Michael (Candace's son)
Tessa (Candace's daughter)
Jordan (Candace's son)
Sophie (Chad's daughter)
We popped popcorn. Drew with chalk. Splashed in chalk. Had a great time.

Our first ever princess party

While all the little girl cousins were together we had a little princess party. Nothing fancy, just some fun memories.

1. Ella packed up all her dress ups, accessories, and princess shoes in her treasure box. The girls all picked what they wanted to wear.

2. We had our little tea set. They had helped set the table earlier --- they were so excited! We ate little princess food, like strawberries and grapes on toothpicks.

3. Then we decorated magic wands with ribbons.

4. Each girl decorated her own tiara with Princess stickers.

5. We took lots of pictures. (Sophie is such a jokester, she makes the cutest silliest faces for every picture)

They girls loved the "tea"- white grape juice. Bethy wanted lots of it!

Heartland with the Harston's

Family was in town so we enjoyed some time at my parents cabin. Renee and Ben had a mother and son from Russia staying with them (they are in the center). We are just missing Rachel, Rob and baby Ely. But they were having a wonderful time in Washington enjoying their first camping trip together.

These are a few of my favorite photos. Renee and Beth- Renee can do anything even though she is having a baby in 4 weeks.
My Dad bought a little sail boat. It was fun to pay around on it. And only a few lucky ones got dumped overboard.
Uncle Eric had a great wrestling match. I think it was like 9 kids against one, him! They loved it!
I am delighted Sophie Jane is the oldest girl. All the girls just love her.
We went on a flower hunt with Grandpa down to the beaver ponds.
Toby got in for a really really really gross swim!

Campfire with Dad on the guitar

...::We had a campfire with smores, minus the grahams. We used what we had....wheat thins and multigrain crackers.

..::Darren and I went for a ride in Park City

..::The family all went to the Oakley 4th of July parade

..:: We ate lots of good food which is fantastic for me

..::We played at the lake a bunch. Just relaxing with family.

Ella and her Girls

We have had one good week of cousin time. Not enough, but this will have to do. Ella has enjoyed every moment she has had playing princesses, dolls, and anything girly you can think of.

Ella and Grace wrapped up at fireworks

Water day at our house with Sophie, Tessa (and Jordan)

The princesses at their tea party- Just missing Beth

playing on the swings with Grace and Sophie

They were sitting around talking at the lake.... Tessa and Grace

Laying around at fireworks- Sophie, Ella, Tessa, Grace, and Beth is standing with her toes in.

She carried her Dora backpack around with her to every event. The pack was filled with accessories, dresses, shoes and magic wands so that every girl could have enough dress-ups to wear.

We sure wish they all lived here so we could have more girl play dates but we will be happy with what we have!

Moments I want to remember

Ella has about 5 pairs of shoes. Of course she loves the ones she can slip on real quick. Her flip flops are number one, and her boots are number two. Mid getting dressed she decided she needed to head outside to give Toby a bone. This is her look that morning.

This picture is why I love iPhones. I was mowing the lawn. The kids were having a relaxing morning. I got this picture without them noticing. Tyler is reading Ella several good books while she drinks her morning chocolate milk.

Northeast Ridge of Mount Timpanogos- 4 Peaks in One Day

Saturday I woke up at 3:15 am. I drove to American Fork Canyon. Meet my group and climbed this... the Northeast Ridge of Mount Timpanogos. We started at the left of the picture and ended almost at the right of the picture. 9.6 miles total. (It felt more like 20) 15 hours of climbing. Total elevation = 5,343 feet of climbing

5:30 am- Started hiking. 5 minutes in we had to take off our shoes, socks, and gators to ford this river. It was wide but thankfully not deep.

Phase one- Hike up three long, steep, snow fields. We put on our crampons and hiked as the sun rose.
Here is the second snow hill on the right. We had to get to the top of that mountain for our first peak of the day.
This one was very long and very steep. We were cooking hot! This is called Wolley Hole I think
Finally got to the top of the second snow field ... one more to go. Time to rope up.

We are climbing Mnt Rainer in Washington in a few weeks. So we had to practice roping up incase of an accident. You have to be about 30 feet apart and not let the rope have to much slack.

The last of the 3 snow fields to climb. We have to make it to the top of this.

8:30 am -Finally we make it here. It was pretty windy all day. Utah Lake looked great in the distance. We were in coats and gloves, the people on the lake were in swim suits.
Our Goal- Hit 4 peaks before the end of the day. We had just summited North Peak - Elevation of 11,383 feet and our end goal was way in the distance. Timpanogos at 11.749 feet. On the way passing North Timp Peak and Bomber Peak.

Buckle in for a long day. You can see some of our climbing group- little ants down in the rocks.
We got closer and closer. Timpanogos is in the distance. We hiked on loose rock all day. A few times having to cross patches of snow. I didn't look down as I hiked on those snow patches, knowing if I slipped it would be a long long long way down. (we weren't roped to each other anymore!) You cant see the trail but just imagine walking along the top of this ridge for hours.
This is a great shot of what we hiked on all day. It scares me to look at the photo. Good grief, what were we thinking!

2:00 pm- We finally made it to the top. The hut on top was a great site to see.
We started to head down. Unfortunately there had just been an avalanche in the past few days on our trail out. It was too dangerous to go that way. So we opted for the next way out... the only other way out... the FUN way out!

We had to glissade on our tail ends. You sit down, you push off, you start to slide and when you get going to fast or come to a cliff you use your ice ax to slow down/stop yourself.

We started at the top of this picture and went forEVER! down, down, down.
Our tail ends were numb by the end. See the blue ski at the top of the mountain where the saddle scoop is... start sliding there ... go until you reach the end of this picture. It was incredible!
5:30 pm- Then the painful part. We were exhausted and had three miles to hike out. Our knees, toes, bodies were TIRED! We pooled our food, ate it ALL, and headed out the last three miles. We hadn't anticipated such a long day. So we literally ate every thing we had!

7:30 pm- made it out of Dry Creek Canyon in Provo. We had to call a friends wife to come get us. She then drove us back to our cars in a totally different canyon (AF canyon). Then I had to drive back to Sandy.

9:30 pm- Pull in the driveway. Eat a bowl of cereal very slowly. No food sounds good which is very strange for me... I just wanted a shower and bed.

10:00 pm- ZZZZzzzzzz

So here's hoping I can hack it on Mnt Rainer in July. OH BOY!

Let the Summer begin

Every summer is packed with fun adventures- and this summer is no different. This is the third summer my cousin and I have hiked with our kids. We have a pretty good group this year. My sister Candace is here from Florida with her 3 kids. It is good to have her back. Of course my cousin Julie and her 4 kids. Kari has been coming now for two summers with her 3 kids. Then a new recruit, Rochelle and her 2 kids. I have 2 kids. Add it all up we are 5 moms with 14 kids.

The kids are troopers. I am impressed how much improved they have gotten over the years. They fall down, and can just jump back up and keep hiking. Today we hiked two places- Rocky Mouth Trail to this waterfall and then over to Little Willow Canyon Trail- both on Wasatch. Beautiful. Enjoyed it all.
It is going to be a great summer!

Chicago with Savage

Once a year Darren's company does a Manager Leadership Conference. This year it was in Chicago. We got spoiled as usual.

Wednesday night we went a baseball game at the Wrigleys Field. It was such a pouring mess that the game kept getting delayed.

The company rented out a whole house for us. I guess the houses are famous. All the old homes that are across the street from the stadium have been renovated. They now have bleachers on their roofs. There were 4 floors of great food. Big screen TV's everywhere... and more and more good food!
So here is the house! It was so fun. The game finally started at 9:00. We didn't' stay long since we were so exhausted.
Thursday I had the morning to myself. Darren had meetings. At the recommendation of my sister Jenny, I went running down Lake Front Drive. It was great. I ran through Navy Pier, which is so exciting with all the fun booths, food stands, and carnival attractions.
Then I just ran. I did walk a bit as I talked on the phone. But by days end I had done 15 miles! My goal was a half marathon! DONE! My legs were killing the rest of the trip. I got back to the hotel with no time to spare. Everyone (we had 500 people in our group) seemed to be trying to rush up to their rooms before we board the bus- so the lines to get on the elevators were terrible. So. ... I ran up 14 flights of stairs! I was done!
We then headed to the University of Illinois where we assembled bikes for kids in Chicago. We then went to the best museum I have ever seen. The museum of Science and Industry. The company had rented the whole museum out for us. We had dinner in three different wings of the museum. Icecream sundays in another corner. Then we had until 10:30 to roam the massive place at our leisure. We defiantly didn't see it all!

Friday- We both attended meetings in the morning. Then headed to our private showing of the Blue Man group. Darren and I rented bikes for an hour and I showed him where I had run the day before. It is a whole new sport riding a bike on an extremely crazy board walk on a Friday afternoon when all the students just got done with school for the year and head to the "beach". The night concluded with a nice formal, fancy dinner.

Saturday - fly home.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TRIP- food, food and more good food. I didn't have to prepare it, or clean it up. There was so much food, I wish I could have eaten more! Also, I could just turn my brain off for 3 days. I followed the agenda, talked to people and just did whatever they told me to do. My brain and belly loved the vacation!