CRAZY GIRLS!!!

I have some crazy girls!! The other day they asked me if they could swim in the backyard. Of course my first response was its September you don't swim in September. After a lot of asking and begging I finally gave in to letting them jump on the tramp with the sprinkler. They had a ball and kept saying to me, "see mom we aren't cold." Even though they kept going and bundling in their towels. All in all they had fun and I got the lawn mowed while they were occupied. I guess I better let them soak up as much sun as they can because winter will be here before we know it. Along with a lot of snow.

Dance!

With both girls in dance we are spending a lot our time at the Rec center. Good thing we live so close. Kaitlyn is so excited for dance this year, she can hardly wait for Monday to come each week. She is especially excited because her cousin Makayla is taking the class with her this time. My girls are at a fun age and it is really fun to watch them learn new skills.

Family Vacation 08 cont.

After the hike we headed downtown and rode the train (trax) to the Church Museum, one of our favorite things to do because it is exciting, fun and free.

Melanie and Kaitlyn on the train

Kristi, Matthew, Brad

Kaitlyn loved the nursery with all the babies and the nativity dress ups.

Melanie and Matthew really liked the stain class window they could change the colors in.


We then headed to the hotel. We stayed at the University Marriott. It was very nice. We even got upgraded to a junior suite because the U of U football team stayed there the night before and the maids hadn't gotten their rooms cleaned yet. The team had meetings all morning in the banquet room. Brad enjoyed watching all the players from the balcony getting ready for the big game that he wished he could have been at. The biggest disappointment was that he couldn't even get the game on our room TV. so he had to watch the ESPN news feed at the bottom of the screen waiting for updates on the U's game. We went swimming twice and had a slumber party on the huge King size bed and watched Superman Returns. All of us except Brad, because he was still in the other room watching football. Around 9:30 Brad came into the bedroom telling us that we could see the fireworks from our window that they were setting off at the Stadium. So little did we know we got a firework show too, that was just icing on the top of the whole hotel vacation. all in all we had a really fun time getting away even if it wasn't very far away.

Kaitlyn and Melanie, They were so excited to be at a hotel and swim. They absolutely love the movie Eloise and kept referring to her and thought it was so neat they were in a hotel just like her. Kaitlyn was convinced that we would get room service just like Eloise, we broke it to her slowly and did not get it. Maybe next time.

Excited and Ready for the PJ party

Matthew decided he would join the party

Brad frustrated that he can't find the game on TV and that he has to watch the updates through a news feed.

Family Vacation 08

Because of limited funds we decided to tour our city that we lived in for nearly 5 years, Salt Lake City, UT. We actually had a lot of fun. We started it off with hiking Ensign Peak. Now I hiked this about 9 years ago and remembered it not being a very hard or long hike. oh how I had forgotten or rather 9 years ago I didn't hike it with a 5 year old, a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Brad has lived in SLC his whole life and this was his first time hiking it. I think he is the one who enjoyed it the most, but when you have plaques every time you stop why wouldn't he love it. The kids actually did very well. Kaitlyn hiked the whole way all by herself and Melanie only had to be carried twice. Matthew on the other hand walked a for about a min and then was carried the rest of the way. We had good intentions to eat our lunch at the top, but for some reason the monument of rocks terrified Matthew and there were a ton of bees so we ate our lunch at the bottom of the hike when we got back down. We were so proud of the girls for sticking to the hike, they were very proud that they did it.

The beginning of the hike

Matthew loved climbing on all the rocks

Our first stop to rest, still smiling

Another stop to rest, smiling, but not as big

We made it to the top, Matthew is crying because I am a mean mom making him get so close that scary monument, Melanie is just exhausted and wants to go back down to get away from the bees and Kaitlyn is ok with this whole thing, it was kind of fun.

Look at this view!

Kaitlyn, Melanie, Brad and Matt

This is where we finally got to eat our lunch

Lagoon!

ICON has a company party every year at Lagoon. They rent out the whole park for the evening. There are no lines and an all you can eat dinner come and go as you please. We really enjoy going to this, especially the girls. Here are some of the highlights.

Melanie

Kaitlyn

The Carousel, a favorite

Melanie, Kaitlyn and Kristi

The Dragonfly swings

The Whale ride, I remember riding this ride when I was Kaitlyn and Melanie's age

The Ladybug drop

Kaitlyn's favorite

Kaitlyn and Melanie

Brad and Melanie on the new octopus ride, Melanie loved this ride

Brad and the girls loved this ride, I sat out on this one. We were very surprised that the girls loved this one so much

The famous boats!

Kaitlyn was too tall to go on the boats and was really bummed about it.

Melanie

Kaitlyn

The girls with their wac-a-mole prizes!

You can't go to Lagoon without riding the train!

School Fair!

We went over to Kaitlyn's School fair and enjoyed a hot dog dinner and a lot of fun activities. They had face painting, firetrucks, policemen, McGruff the Dog, snow cones and popcorn. The kids had a lot of fun. The crazy thing is that they were the most excited about the playground. Not surprised about that one, but thought it was really funny. They got to sit in the firetruck and pull the rope to sound the siren. Melanie thought that was really fun. Matthew LOVES trucks and couldn't stop smiling that he was in one.

Kaitlyn and Melanie in the firetruck

Matthew in the firetruck

Matt, Melanie and Kaitlyn

More Fun Dinosaur Park Pics!

The kids thought these were the coolest things. They even got Brad to get his head in one

.There were all sorts of dinosaurs to climb on and slide down at the many playgrounds they had there too.

A Day Of Firsts!

Today was Melanie's first day of Pre-school and her first day of Dance. She was so excited for both. She can't wait until she gets to go next week again. She came home from school and said, "Mom I got to play with pink play dough and there were babies to play with and Hannah was there. It was so much fun!" In her dance class she loved twirling and dancing and leaping I think she is going to have a fun year and I am going to have very busy Wednesdays.

Melanie's First Day, she is growing up too fast

Sisters ready for school

Ready to start pre-school!

All ready for dance!

Labor Day Fun!

For Labor day we were very spontaneous! Being the procrastinator I am, I hadn't bought Melanie any ballet slippers which she starts on Wed, we went searching for size 11 ballet slippers. Size 11 ballet slippers is a very popular size and we couldn't find a single pair in Cache county. Pay less said they would hold a pair at their Brigham City store for us. So we headed through the canyon. Changing our plans from taking our picnic to the park to eating it in the car. Which was probably better anyway since it was so rainy. Since we were already down in Brigham City we decided to head to Ogden. Wow how we have forgotten all the fun stores a city can have. We hit RC Willey, Inteli Bed (which by the way I want one of these), TGIF, Shopko (I forgot diapers and wipes and Matt messed his diaper), and Of course we had to do something fun too. So we took the girls to the Dinosaur Park , which started off a little shaky with two little girls being terrified, but soon they warmed up and had a blast. We will have to go back soon because we didn't get to go to even half of the places we would have liked to.

The girls are really scared, Kaitlyn is plugging her ears so she can't hear all the dinosaur noises

The robotic dinosaurs, there is the first smile

One of Kaitlyn's favorites

Melanie

Kaitlyn

Melanie and Kristi

It was so real life

Matt, Brad, Melanie, Kaitlyn

Brad, Kristi, and Melanie in a fossil cave

Digging for fossils

One of our favorites, the Mammoth, just like on Ice Age