And She's Off!!!

Mackenzie just learned to ride her bicycle without training wheels the other day and she's a super-pro now.  They wanted to go ride bikes one evening, and out-of-the-blue I suggested to take the training wheels off.  She didn't even know what I was talking about.  But we did it, gave it a try for 10 minutes and she couldn't quite get it. 

That night I noticed the Ensign for August sitting on the counter (it has a picture of a dad teaching his little girl to ride a bicycle) and realized that's where I'd got my sporatic idea, without even realizing I'd noticed the Ensign at all earlier. 

Anyways, Tyson thought it was just too early.  But the next day he went to work and the first thing on Mackenzie's agenda was to get outside and practice riding her bike.  She had it down in less than 5 minutes!  I couldn't believe it!  She couldn't wait for her Daddy to get home!  Now she's been cruising the neighborhood and demanding nightly walks so that she can ride her bike.  I really love it because it's helping me get some much needed exercise!

Ready to give it a try!

Turn, turn, turn!

She's got it down!

A Visit to Grandpa's!

Finally, we made it over to my Dad's house in the Uinta Basic.  We'd actually never been there before and he's lived there for a few years.  That's terrible!!!  So its been a much anticipated trip for all of us.  Let's just say my kids were in HEAVEN!!!  They didn't want to go home and all week Mackenzie has been telling me that Grandpas is the coolest house EVER!  Why, you ask?  Well because there are horses, tons of raspberries, blackberries, every type of berry imaginable, and chickens galore (well actually 110 hens exactly) in which you get to go collect eggs every day.  Oh, and lots of other cool stuff like an enormous garden, trees to climb, and a fire pit where we made smores right out the back door. 

I know Mackenzie wishes she lived on a farm!  Collin is kind of a clean freak and didn't like the dirt in his toes and the chickens kicking up the dust, but he still thought it was cool there. 

Lots of Firsts:

First time on a horse!

First time on a boat!  She loved it!

He was a little scared when we went fast.  And notice the huge life vest?  We lost his on the ride over.  But we didn't lose his fishing pole!  So we were anchor-fishing off the boat, and next thing we know Collin drops his Lightning McQueen fishing pole in.  I saw it about 4 feet under headed straight for the bottom, when my Dad dives to retrieve the precious thing before any of us could even blink!  He got it all right, and came back up with his sunglasses still on his head, hat still in tact, wallet still in his pants, and swimming with his steel-toed boots!  Good thing we saved that darn pole!!!  He said he had to give the kids a good memory...I honestly don't think he even took second thought, its just the die-hard fisherman in him!

And we did catch a few fish!

Our Backyard Pond and more

Sometime in mid-April Tyson decided to re-do the pond.  It turned out to be a WAY bigger project than anticipated.  He and his brother took it apart and re-did it once but I wasn't so fond of it, so we took it apart again and spent until mid-June trying to make it what we wanted it to be.  And of course it led into many other projects along the way.  At this point, we are done for the summer, although we aren't "Done", but we are exhausted!  Here's some before and after of it all:

The Pond Before:

 pretty much a big heaping pile of rock, and an itsy bitsy pond.

The Destruction - Round 1:

Never got a final picture of Round 1 - lets just say I did not like it, although it was better. 

So Round 2 - After:

Froggy has shown up and provided many many hours of catching entertainment for the kids.

And the Rest  - Before:

This is last year, late spring.  We had a lot of rock, and plenty of dead shrubs, and the worst part was NO stairs to get down off the deck!!!

During: Tyson and his brother actually built just a month after we moved in, but getting the whole deck restained and fixing all the curbing and landing at the bottom didn't happen until this year.

After...a year later:

Finally got the deck stained and everything else in place!

We dug a trench through our entire backyard and up this side of the house to help with the drainage off our house.  Replaced the drain pipe, covered it back up and rebuilt the rock pathway up the side of the house...all while we were rebuilding the pond and the garden planter boxes!  One project after another!

As part of the pond re-do project, Tyson also built these two garden boxes next to the pond, so we have some fresh tomatoes!

We never ever would have imagined how much work all that was going to be.  So much is not seen...moving sprinklers, moving curbing, digging out grass and trees stumps and bushes, moving pile after pile of rocks, redoing drip systems, handpicking each stone for the pond and cementing them in place, planting flowers and moss and trees and shrubs and the list goes on.  We are so glad it is done and we are finally enjoying our backyard!

A Vacation at Home

What better way to celebrate the 4th of July than to have our friends over so the kids can entertain each other and we can sit around and stuff ourselves with some good food?  Well that's exactly what we did. 

The Nielsens' came over for nearly a week and we had a good time just sitting around mostly, playing games, watching movies, and watching the kids play together.  We were successful at getting a babysitter for 2 days so we could actually go out without the 4 little hooligans and it was heavenly.  Brent and Tyson of course went fishing for a couple of days, and Julie and I had our Girls Day with pedicures, lunch and some shopping. 

I thought I did better at taking pics this time...but no!  Only lots of the kids....

This is how the kids spent quite a bit of time...between the slide and kiddie pool, the hottub, the sprinkler under the trampoline, the slip-and-slide, and then back to the kiddie pool.

Sweet Lily enjoying the water!

Off To Bowling!

One of the first nights together we HAD to go bowling, since we'd been promising Collin we would go when the Nielsen's came.  Collin was as happy as could be!

Mackenzie with her sour face - she's soooo competitive with herself and she couldn't get a strike!

Oh yeah!

Miss Clementine with some help from Momma Julie.  Lovin' those sweet bowling shoes! :)

Miss Lily getting in on some bowling too!

Tyson got this fabulous picture of me! :)

Oh yeah, he thinks he's cool!

Girls Day at the House

One of the days the guys went fishing and we decided to let the girls make sugar cookies while Miss Lily was napping.  They had a good time and they were some of the best sugar cookies that I've ever made!

Oh yes, we had an Easter theme going on because Mackenzie requested to make animals.

Fishing on the 4th!

On the actual 4th of July, we all went for the day up to a place called Enoch Lake so the kids could do some real fishing. 

Lily doing a great job at fishing!

Collin's first fish.  He was ecstatic!  He ended up catching two fish which made Mackenzie upset since she only caught one. 

Happy Mackenzie when she caught her first fish (it's in her little net).

Collin loved to play with the worms and show them very up-close to me.

Miss Clementine with her fish!  She was the best fisherman of the day, constantly catching fish and not even knowing they were on her line.

Just a posin'

The real fly fisherman.

...and see below for the rest of the day...



Continued...On the Fourth!

The night of the 4th, we just lit off some fireworks out front and watched all the fireworks around the neighborhood.

Lily getting ready to watch the fireworks!

And here they are - quite impressive huh? :)

Enjoying the show

Collin was a little worried about them -

the noise, the smoke, the light.

And last picture of the trip...

Mackenzie loves to draw.  She drew this picture of all of us while they stayed at our house. 

I bet you can't guess which one is supposed to be me!  From left to right (according to Mackenzie)...Tyson, Brent, Mackenzie (notice the long hair she drew herself), Collin, Clementine, Julie, Me (yep, love those curls), and Lily.  Awesome picture!

Thanks for coming guys! We had a blast!