Nathan's observances.

I have a few funny stories about what Nathan has said recently. The other day in the car he asked:
"Mom, do ladies play with balls?"
"Yes, they do"
"What kinds?"
"Well, any kind, really. They could play soccer or basketball or anything."
"But only mans play baseball right?"
"Well, I guess so. Women play softball which is like baseball. And it's men who play baseball."
"Oh, mans..."

Today, just a few minutes ago, Nathan asked, "Mom are you tough?"
"Yeah, I'm tough."
"No, I think you're not because you're a lady." (Where does he learn this? I almost got defensive and then he said:
"You're a lady and you like beautiful things."

I think it's so funny that he's starting to notice some difference between men and women. I'm sure there will be more questions ahead...things could get interesting.

Anniversary

We celebrated our 5 year anniversary this weekend! I can't believe it's been five years. It's gone so fast. It has been a very good 5 years, at times wonderful beyond belief, at times challenging, eventful, and surprising! We still agree that marrying each other was the best thing we ever did! Jason is a great husband, and I'm very thankful for him. Here's to 60 more years together!

Hawaii

Who has been to Hawaii? We need some opinions!
Jason and I are going to Hawaii November 10th-18th. We're so excited! We're flying into Oahu. We're using our Marriot points and frequent flier miles, though I'm sure we'll still spend a pretty penny.
We're trying to decide--stay on Oahu the whole time in a really nice hotel, or split the time up between Maui and Oahu, with the hotel on Maui being not quite as luxurious. It will probably still be nice, but it's not directly on a beach and they are doing construction on it. We don't have enough points to stay at the highest catergory hotel on both Maui and Oahu.
I'd love input from anyone whose been to the islands!

OK....just a few more pics

Since people seemed to enjoy the pictures, I'll post a few more. ALSO, you can make comments on my blog. Just click on the comments icon. I think you need to sign in to make a comment, which is annoying, but I'd love it if you made comments!


My brother John with Hailey, Katie, and Hannah.

Jason and I at Mt. Timponogos temple
Isn't it a beautiful temple?
Jason and the boys at the top of Hidden Peak.
Holly, hannah, and Ben enjoying some laughs
Jason opening his white elephant gift from Marie: toilet paper! There was also a model airplane in the bag. The toilet paper was kind of funny because the two condos we rented a few near emtpy rolls between them when we got there! That was really annoying. That's one of the most basic things of service! We had to actually go out and buy our own toilet paper!

Nathan, Hailey, and James
Lindsey playing with some of the shells at my grandma's house.
Jason and James inside the conference center
James on a pony ride at the pioneer village.

Ben and James building blocks at the chruch museum, in the children's section.
The kids getting some relief in the streams on top of the conference center, where it was over a hundred degrees.

Liz and Jared in the pool.
John enjoying an icrecream cone.

Vacation Pictures 2

Here's the second bunch of pictures from the trip. Again, they were narrowed down from several hundred. It's just so easy to take a ton of pictures with a digital camera. Lauren, thoroughly enjoying her "worms and dirt".
The kids all got a kick out of the dessert of worms and dessert. The adults did too. Here's Lindsey contemplating her worm.
My boys and Hannah.
Cute Nathan
Darling Katie

Some of us went to the Timponogos temple one morning. We had a wonderful time.
Thursday night I threw an "Unbirthday Party" since we never get to be together on our birthdays. It ended up being a lot of fun. The boys were most enthralled with the balloons (fighting with them of course).
Kristi, Katie, and Lindsey around the table decorating cupcakes . The kids got to decorate cupcakes while the adults just concentrated on eating the chocolate ones. A few kids decided they needed chocolate ones too!
Lauren and her cupcake.

Jason with James in the background.
Jason, James, Leo, Holly, and Hannah.

Richard and Jared. Jared is the cutest boy when he's happy, but he also has an incredibly cute upset face. His lower lips comes out and his eyes well up--it's enough to melt your heart! Here he was upset at Richard for trying to take a bit of his cupcake.

Leo on the Mechanical bull at Snowbird ski resort. This was our last day all together, and we had a lot of fun. The mechanical bull was a riot and we all took turns flying off.
Sequence #2 --Leo
Rich going down
My parents coming down the zip line at Snowbird.

We took a tram up to the top of snowbird, where we reached over 11,000 feet elevation. Here's me at the top.
Up in the mountains!
Little mountain men.
The whole group at Snowbird. I must say, it's so fun having a big family. I wish we all lived closer together though.
Jason and I

A smaller group of us were able to go up to Idaho and Yellowstone for a few days. Yellowstone is the neatest place. Here's a boiling spring coming out of the ground. It's like another world there.
Hanah, 8 years old
The Lake at Island park, where my relatives have a cabin. It was so incredibly beautiful there the night we went up, especially after coming from a very hot and smoggy Utah earlier that day.
Visiting my Grandpa Lee. It was really great to see him. He was so sweet and happy to have some of his family visit. It was a little sad though, knowing Grandma's gone now and Grandpa will follow someday. I was happy though that both my boys gave Grandpa a hug. They are not very free with their hugs, so they must have known that it was pretty special to see him.

I know this picture if out of focus, but I wanted to post it because there was a moose in the front yard of the cabin. We were a little disappointed that we didn't see a moose at Yellowstone that day, but during dinner mom looked up and said "There's a moose out there!" I ran out with my camera but he didn't stay for too long. Still, it was thrilling to see such a huge, wild creature.
Mom and Hannah at the falls in Yellowstone
My little guys.
Buffalo crossing! That day we saw Buffalo, Elk, a moose at the cabin and a bald eagle. I also heard the wolves howling the night before as I was lying in my bed at the cabin. It is so thrilling to see wildlife--even if they are a bit used to humans.

The boys and I near old faithful. There's a wooden walk way the meanders through several little geysers. At one point, a small geyser went off right by us and completely enveloped us in warm steam and some spray. We couldn't see a thing, and it was a bit scary with it being so warm. The boys freaked out and tried to go running, but I held on tight, not wanting them to run off the path into a boiling geyser! Thankfully it only lasted a few seconds.

Well, those are all the pictures I will post. I have lots more, but those are the best! It was such a fun vacation. I loved seeing my family, both the kids and my siblings and parents. I'm so glad we made the effort to all get together. When we all live so far apart, we have to do this. I still wish we lived closer, but it's sort of fun to have family in lots of different places. Then we get to have great adventures together on our reunions and visits!

Some pictures from vacation.

Here's a start to the vacation pics. I took several hundred, but have narrowed it down to a few dozen of my favorites. To see them in the proper order, start from the bottom! OR just go backwards in time. I'm not taking a lot of time to go through our travel log, but a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Mt. Timpanogos! I missed my beautiful mountain, and was very happy to see it again.
James and Nathan before our hike. We went for a hike along the side of the mountain--maybe a mile total. It wasn't too strenuous, but there were steep drop offs to one side of the very narrow dusty path, and the boys wanted to be very independent. I was nervous the whole time. We survived though!
After our hike--a bit tired and sweaty.
James loves to take pictures. He wanted to take a picture of the blue sky. And here it is. Definitely blue.
My cute husband and Nathan on the chairlift up at Sundance resort.

My dad and his four sons
Jason and Nathan playing in my Grandma's pool. We went there during a hot afternoon (they all were hot) and it was so fun! It brought back some memories of when we were kids and would play at the pool. I specifically remember on time Marie was struggling in the deep section so Ben jumped in to save her but instead they kept taking turns pulling each other under. I was freaking out on the side. Well, the must have survived because here we kids were all adults this time at the pool, some of us with our own kids.
James was so excited to be "swimming" on his own. He just held on to the noodle but didn't want us to touch him. It was his first time kicking alone and I was really proud! He was even more proud I think!
Lauren enjoying an ice cream cone after our swim. Ahh! Look at those gorgeous eyes!
Nathan enjoying the fine life of being a kid in summer with an ice cream cone.

I love this picture! We went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving point one afternoon. James is gazing in awe at the huge dinosaur. The boys are now starting to get more into dinosaurs. As I read to them from their dinosaur books it is quite awesome to think about these huge creatures roaming the earth--and for so long too!
My mom at This is the Place monument.
Me and my darling niece Lauren.
The whole group! My 93 year old grandma with her posterity at this is the place monument. Pioneer John Brown, who is my dad's Great Grandfather, is on the monument for being one of the first to see the valley a few days before the rest of the group came.
My sweet James.

James, Hailey, Lindsey, Nathan Sunday after church.
Sunday afternoon we went to temple square with my brother Ben's family. We toured the conference center while we were there--mainly to get in the air conditioning. Hailey was having a lot of fun with her boy cousins. They were spinning round and round in the big halls of the conference center.
Here they are on the roof of the conference center. I should point out it 103 degrees on the roof at 5 pm while we were there.
Sunday night the other girl cousins came--and boy were they all excited. It is sooooo fun to see them play together. Hannah and Lindsey were best buds, and so were Hailey and Katie, pictured here.
James, my little sweetheart, and I Sunday morning.