4th of July

This home is actually in my parents neighborhood. They're always decorated so cute for every holiday. I just love the red, white and blue flowers, so good for the 4th.
2 Aspens in 1 house at the same party. This is Ryan's Wife's niece, not sure how else to word that.

Very eventful day the 4th is. 1st Colt's baby blessing, then fireworks and top the day off with FINALLY LOSING THAT 2ND FRONT TOOTH!!! Yeah for Aspen. She was getting a drink of water and the cup knocked her tooth out. "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth."

Gotta have those Sparklers. We had some good ones and some bad ones. These were the bad ones. So we used our true Pyro techniques and just burned them in bunches and tried not to burn ourselves in the process.

They never had these kind of "Flowers" when I was a kid.

These fireworks are called snakes. We had about 100. So we put them together in groups of 20 or so and burnt them as a pack. They start out the size of a vitamin C pill then turn into this. I'd really like to meet the guy who invented these, they've always been a favorite of mine.

Blessing Little Colt

This cute little bugger is currently the youngest member of the Walker Family. He's such a cutie, and such a little sweetheart. Colt was lucky enough to be blessed on the 4th of July! So happy for him and for his family, and so happy we could be there for it.

Grandpas and Adopted Grandpas that were invited to stand in the circle.

West Bountiful Park

My Dad helped design this park. My family helped plant that big ol' tree. This park has so many memories for me, from playing baseball when I was 10 to late night dates in High School. So fun to add more memories to this park.

My Aspen the dare devil. I think she was trying to go over the top.
Last but not least, the West Bountiful Park Hill. This Hill is famous! It's been here for over 30 years! That's an awfully long time. Things to do on this hill: Roll down (of course), snow sled, snowboard, ski, ice blocking, Easter egg races (which usually end in seagulls having a feast), and more and more. This is the best part of the park. Forget the swings and slides, it's all about the hill.

Water Wheels

Back to Aunt Amy's house. She took us down the road to see the Water Wheels. When she explained them I thought they'd be kind of cheesy. But these things are set along the creak every 50 ft or so, they're an irrigation system. They require no power and helps the farmers to irrigate their land. Pretty inventive if you ask me.

On the Road Again

While the older kids watched DVD's and played video games, Sicily munched her way through those Goldfish. She never ate meals, due to the fact that the only way we could keep her happy was to give her snacks.

And if you've ever been in a gas station bathroom you'll know they're none too clean. So, Sicily typically got her bum changed in the car. She is definitely the most flexible kid I know.

Time for a Picnic

After riding the Ferry back from Jetty Island, where we played on the beach, we had a lovely picnic by the Marina. No playground equipment meant Dad had to get inventive. We also fed a few seagull (15 or so at one point), and just enjoyed the weather.
Coolest boat on the water today. I wonder if I'd get sick on a sail boat, they seem to just glide through the water.

Beach Time

Just a regular day at the beach, though Washington beaches are a bit colder than most. I've said it before, kids just don't feel temperature. London like usual, looking for animals and enjoying a swim. Aspen, also like usual, dove straight in before the rest of us had our sandals off.

Sicily was none too happy with that cold water. Jared tried and tried to help her get her feet wet. It's amazing how babies can just turn into tiny little balls when they want too.

Also, as usual, Phoenix. Zoom in on that face. He was NOT happy about all that slimy seaweed. The tide was VERY low today.
But Sarah sure enjoyed it. The girls all made a mountain of seaweed then Sarah decided to wear it all in to show Mom. Apparently it's as warm as a coat, or so she said. Yuck!

Day at the Dock

We've lived close to and visited many beaches and marinas but that Mountainous background is just astoundingly beautiful. So lucky to have family that lives in such gorgeous places.
While on the dock we watched fisherman and Lobster fishers. There was this cute little leopard seal watching the fisherman too. I didn't see them catch much, but I'm guessing that little seal did.

As many as I could catch in one frame. Too many to count. :)

Benefits of a Forest

Guys landlord built the coolest tree house. So big in fact, they set up a tent for the kids to sleep in last night. Phoenix was completely put out because I wouldn't let him sleep out there. Mostly because he gets up every night to use the bathroom and I had NO desire to climb 12 ft in the air in my PJ's to get him down. But the older ones had fun. All except Sarah that is, she's the oldest (12) and got stuck "babysitting" all the boys. :)
I always enjoy walking to the park to play. But the walk to Guy's park is actually a 1/4 mile hike through the most beautiful, sweet smelling forest. Then there's the park itself, excellent. I even tried out this swing, super fun!

More and More Cousins

I'm not sure my kids could keep them all straight. This is my brother Guys family. He lives in Washington just North of Seattle. It was such a short visit with him but so much fun.

Aspen and Hannah, we LOVE having cousins close to our same age.

Grandma James & Aunt Sherri

I had the pleasure of meeting Jared's Mom's Mom in Washington this vacation. She's a wonderful lady. And after 10 years of marriage, it's about time I got to meet her.

We also got to spend the night at Uncle Dan and Aunt Sherrie's home (she's Jared's Mom's sister). They have a beautiful view from their front porch of both Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. Cute little carved black bears all over their house and excellent Burgers made by Uncle Dan (he's a chief). All in all another wonderful visit with family.

Mt. St. Helens

So sad we didn't make it all the way to the peak. The kids had fun at the Visitor Center watching the video of it blowing up. People actually had over a months warning that it was going to happen, I'd always been under the impression that it just exploded. Dumb idiots they still had to rescue, you'd think they'd have realized they were on a VOLCANO, I mean, come on!

When I was a kid we went to visit my Uncle Cordell. On their mantle they had a vase marked, "Aunt Helen." I said, "I never knew we had an Aunt Helen." They proceeded to make me feel all guilty that I didn't know my ancestors. Long story short, it was actually ashes from Mt. St. Helen. Dang them! I super wanted some ashes though so I could pull the same joke, but alas, kids have little legs and the hike would have been just a bit too much. There's still plenty up there though apparently, so I'll get some next time.

They say volcanic ash makes things really grow. Check out those clover. We really searched for a 4 leaf, that BIG would've been EXTRA lucky!

Mt. Rainier

So Beautiful! This is the tallest point in Washington, and I think the most gorgeous. Mt. Rainier is actually a volcano, could blow anytime just like Mt. St. Helens.

Vineyard?

This is the most crazy Vineyard I've ever seen. They had normal vines growing right next door, but I've never seen them up like this. Those vines are about 10 feet in the air. I wonder if it's easier to harvest this way?

Small Town Resturants

Not even sure what city were were in at this point. We were on our way to Washington and were starving to death. This cute little place did the job. Real home cooked food tastes so good when you're on the road.

Sicily had a hard time finding her straw today. At one point it went up her nose. I think she might have done it on purpose to get a laugh out of us.

Messes

This is what happens when you stick 6 kids in one bedroom. They have loads of fun, YES, but man can they make a mess.

This is Tuff

Tuff is my sister Amy's, cute little Boston Terrier. He has got to be the funniest looking dog I have ever seen, but he sure is a sweetie. So friendly and good with the kids. I was shocked that my Dad let Amy bring him down to hang out at their house. But the kids all love him.
Amy and I drove up to her house together with the 2 babies and Tuff. Cy is just in a diaper because, if you've ever had kids, you'll know that sometimes diapers just don't do their job. So we had a quick rest stop recovery and Tuff got a walk. Everyone was much happier when we got back in the car.

Gossner Cheese

What good is a trip through Logan, UT if you don't stop at Gossner Cheese. Best Squeaky Cheese in the world!

And flavored milks...YUMMMMY! Root beer, strawberry, orange, vanilla, chocolate, and good ol' whole milk. WE LOVE GOSSNER'S!!!

College Friends

Utah State University ROCKS!!! So nice to have so many good friends. Left to right: Jared, Suzy, Mike, Rachel, Debbie, Kamaile, Janet, Amelia and Jeremy.

And the one that kept us all in line, April with her hubby Chris. She was the best RA ever. And never evicted me when I totally got caught burning candles in my room. Thanks April! :)

And since we're mostly all married now we're no longer small in numbers. This is what happens when you're from Utah and love kids so much. Not exactly sure how many kids, give em a count. 15 kids, I think, from only 6 girls. Not bad odds.

We missed a few of our friends. Hopefully Stacey is feeling better. We missed you JaNick, Brittany, Paul, Brian, Jacob, Matt and Emily. Hopefully next time around we'll have bigger #'s.

At the Park

My kids were so excited to see Seagulls. Seagulls are the State bird of Utah, because they ate all the crickets that were eating the Pioneers fields. Personally I think these Seagulls have eaten more donuts than crickets. They were the fattest Seagulls I've ever seen. :)

The kids just couldn't push each other fast enough. I volunteered to help out. London got sick after about the 5th time I pushed them. But still got on later when some random Dad gave them a push.

I just love her little face!

More Cousins

When you have 13 kids and 8 adults in one house, eating accommodations run rather slim. So we kicked the big kids outside, which they didn't mind in the least. Plus, if they spilt their food it was ok, they were outside.

Sleeping with that many kids can be a bit of a joke. They split up the floor, you know Boys side, Girls side. We literally had 11 kids all in a row, sleeping bags and pillows. They loved it! Good times!

Family

Evan, Suzy, Marlene and Amy. 4 of the 6, only missing Guy and Mark. It was so nice to see my siblings this vacation. It's been a long time since we've all been together. Soon, soon.

The Best Trampoline

Nephews and Uncles

Spencer's Baptism

What a wonderful day for my little nephew Spencer! He was so brave in front of all this family. He's normally so shy so all this support was probably a bit overwhelming. But we love Spencer SOOOO much and are so proud of him for getting baptised. CONGRATULATIONS!

Fun At Grandma Kenisons

Now Utah is not as warm as this picture makes it out to be. I think it was almost 80 today. But we had to jump in the Freezing water anyway. It took Sicily about 10 mins to get to where she'd actually sit down. But once she was in she would not get out.

Cousins, cousins everywhere. Aspen, Jennie and Preston had hours of fun in Grandmas basement. I think they tore up 3-5 pieces of paper in order to make it "snow." Aspen tried with all her might to get us to hike up the Mountains to where the snow was so we could go sledding. My persistence that that would take hours did not really matter to her. So instead they made it "snow" in the basement.

Sicily and Cyrus shared their "phones" for quite some time. They were both TV remotes, so when one wouldn't "work," (aka beep) they'd switch to try the other one. In the end they held them up to their ears, stared at each other and talked on the phone. So cute!

We're Home!!

We drove from Houston, TX - Seattle, WA and back, over 5,000 miles in 4 weeks. NEVER AGAIN!!

We absolutely loved seeing all our family, only missed 1 brother and that's because he's in the Navoo Pagent. We love you all, we'll FLY back for Thanksgiving. Hopefully then we'll be able to see those we missed.

The rest of the vacation posts are forthcoming, gotta unpack first.

High School Friends of Old

A fun part of coming home is catching up with old friends. Now I don't say old meaning OLD, I just mean they're friends of old. So confusing I know. :)
These are some of my awesome friends: Tori, Eva and Jeremiah. There would have been more but the Swine Flu took out a few, not literally though. We meant to stay just a while but ended up being there quite some time. It's so fun to catch up with everyone.
Tori lives way far from my parents and told me to take the Redwood Road exit off of I-215. I took the first one I saw then had to follow that dumb road clear past 5400 S. exit. I didn't know Redwood Rd had an exit that far. So combine that with rush hour we were 30 mins later than we could have been. So annoying.

So since I found the longest way I could to get to Tori's house, Jeremiah offered to have me follow him to get back to my parents more easily. So sweet! As I followed him I noticed his awesome license plate. Took me a bit to figure out why it said Bullfrog, but then it clicked, "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog." Had to take a picture.

Elephant Rock

Well, we didn't make it quite that far.
While Phoenix and Sicily took naps today, London, Aspen and I went for a hike up Mueller Park Canyon. If you've ever been on this hike you know it's a good 2-3 hours, one way, to Elephant Rock. We hiked 40 mins up and 40 mins back. It was so much fun to do this with my kiddos. They've NEVER been in the mountains and definitely never hiked like this.

We did do Timpanogas Cave 2 summers back which was a fiasco, to say the least. Lesson to the wise, NEVER do that hike till your kids are ALL teenagers at least.

This hike was much more fun. Beautiful day! And the forest has grown SO much since I was up there last, which only made the hike better, almost all shade, so nice. I am really looking forward to all my kids being grown enough that we can do this on a regular basis and all really enjoy it.

Hill Air Force Base

Every time we come home we go to this museum. It's the best, the kids love it and they never remember it from the time before so it's always new to them. :) You start out outside looking at all the bombers and carrier planes. They are MASSIVE and I'm always impressed by their size.
The first interior building has all the OLD airplanes. Starting with the Wright Brothers air crafts. Then moving through to WWI, WWII and the Vietnam fighters. There's also an off room with all the uniforms from the different areas in the world where the air force is stationed.

The last building is the coolest. All the modern air crafts, fighter jets down to the Stealth Bomber. Quite a few Black Hawks and other helicopters in here too.

All in all it's a supper cool museum and best of all it's FREE!! So go visit with your kids, boys and girls, they will all love it. Plus, you can teach them to respect our Soldiers and all they do for us.

Assembly Hall

On Temple Square there is this beautiful Chapel. I'm pretty sure it was eventually used as their Tabernacle. Originally it was used at the Conference Center. If anyone can correct me on this please do, it's not too easy to take a tour with little ones. I love this building all the same. If you look close, Phoenix is in there running to catch up with all of us.