Pioneer Day

This Pioneer Day fell on a Friday which was really nice because Dave had a 4-day weekend. We were going to be very ambitious and were planning on going to the Days of 47 Parade. I was trying to get Dave to sleep out the night before to get us a spot, but he wasn't really into that idea (I probably would have felt too bad anyways). He thought if we left at five in the morning we could find a pretty good spot. After really thinking about it, I decided that we were crazy for thinking that our kids would do well there. We got up and went to breakfast instead. We watched the parade on tv for awhile and played. Meg and I went to Classic waterslides with our cousins and Dave and Will stayed home and took a nap. We came home and took a trip up the canyon with our cousins for a campfire and dinner. It was a great time. Will was especially good by the fire. Once I told him "No" he didn't try to touch it again. Meg LOVES playing with her cousins so she had a wonderful time. We were home and in bed in time to hear fireworks going off in our neighborhood. Gotta love the life of tired parents.

Give this guy some food and he'll be happy all night.

We had a lot of fun with this butterfly net.

Viva Las Vegas

Last weekend Dave was going to go to Las Vegas for a training seminar. The weekend before I was gone to girl's camp so I was bummed to be apart again. Plus, my parents are out of town and my sisters-in-law were having a girl's weekend so I was feeling like I was going to be super lonely. Dave came home from work on Thursday and we had dinner and I told him how lonely I was going to be. His flight was going to leave in about three hours. He checked to see if there was room on it for us and there was! So, we tagged along with him for the weekend. It was a little rough getting there, but we made it late Thursday night. Friday morning we took Dave to his seminar and then went to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was a lot of fun and they have a lot of sea life to see. I thought it would be fun to show the kids the lions at MGM so I started walking over. It didn't look too far away, but as I started going it started to seem farther and farther away. It was about 110 degrees (I really don't know how people can live there). We finally made it and checked out the lions. By that point I was exhausted so we finally went back to our hotel and relaxed until it was time to pick up Dave. We ate at the Bellagio that night. The kids loved it. We watched the fountains and then headed back to the hotel to go to bed. The next morning we took Dave back to his class and then we went over to Circus Circus. It was actually pretty fun. The kids were a little too small to ride the rides but we looked around and played some games. We watched some circus acts and then picked Dave up from his class. We had some time to kill before our flight left to go home so we found a splash park and let the kids play. All in all it was fun spending time with Dave and showing the kids around Vegas. I'm not planning on going back for a long long time though.

Will and Dave having fun at the splash park.

Meg waiting for the fountains at the Bellagio. We bought those shoes she is wearing in Vegas and she LOVED them. She kept running around saying that they made her run fast. When we were waiting in line for dinner she kept showing everyone her shoes and telling them that they were new. It was so fun.

Will loved being in our hotel room. Here he is enjoying a pancake and jumping on the bed. He was in heaven.

Thank goodness we found the splash park. Meg finally got her clothes wet after much poking and prodding. She wanted her swimming suit on but I couldn't dig it out of the suitcase. We kept telling her that it was okay, but she was really weird about it. I think she finally got too hot and just decided to do it.

In the picture, Will is getting his diaper changed on the grass at the Bellagio. He was so fun on this trip and was as happy as could be.

It's Independence Day!

I am doing this blog for journaling purposes only, seems that it is almost a month later. We have been EXTREMELY busy lately. We just got done with our Girl's Camp. It was awesome! I still haven't put all of my stuff away from that though and we have been home for almost two weeks. That's what basements are for, right? Anyway, we had a pretty low key 4th of July this year. Both of our kids were super cranky so it made for a really fun day. We went to my parent's neighborhood for their annual parade and breakfast. I had to wake the kids up to go...that's never a good sign that your day will go smoothly. My mom pulled them in the parade and then we had a little breakfast. It was my cousin Jack's birthday so we went to his house for a party and then we went home. I taught Young Womens the day after and I came up with this great idea to stitch "pray" onto a pillowcase for each girl. I really didn't think it would take me very long, but ended up taking me about 20 minutes per pillowcase and I had 27 to do. I worked on those things all day Friday, the rest of the day Saturday and then Sunday morning. They turned out really cute though. The girls really seemed to like them...some even brought them to camp with them. They in turn tiedyed them which was a little alarming, but I figured I had given them to them so they could do whatever they wanted to them. I was kind of bummed though. Oh well. We grabbed some dinner and then got a few fireworks to do at home with just us. It was actually pretty fun. Will got a little scared, but his tiredness was working against him too so he was kind of whiney. Meg really liked them though. Then, we put the kids to bed and I stayed up until one in the morning stitching. Great fun!


I am so grateful that we live in a country where we are free. I am also very grateful to all of the people who are willing to serve in the armed forces. I definitely wouldn't be able to have my husband in harm's way and I respect those families so much. God bless America!!!