Lake Powell - Part 1

We left for Lake Powell at 4:30 last Wednesday. We ate in Price and arrived in Lake Powell about 9:30 Wed. night. We were to pick up the houseboat Thursday morning at 8:00. The plan was to sleep in the parking lot. We made a square with the vehicles. Jeff and I slept in the truck and the kids slept in the boat. Andrea and Jill and their families blew up mattresses and slept on the ground. Russ pitched a tent and Jay and Joyce slept in their boat. You would think in a parking lot it would be somewhat quiet. Well it wasn't. We had a couple of drunk guys that thought it would be fun to talk all night at the top of their lungs and walk right through where Andrea was sleeping, barely missing stepping on the kids. They were loud and obnoxious. Needless to say nobody slept very well that night.
We were still awake when the sun came up, so we just ate breakfast and showed up early to pick up the houseboat. Jeff, the kids, and I launched our boat and went to find a spot for the houseboat to sit. Everybody else loaded the boat and were to meet us. After hours and $140 in gas we still couldn't find anything so we parked the houseboat in a crappy spot. Russ and Jeff took our boat and looked for a different spot and found this:

Someone had just left when they found it.


View from the entrance to "our" cove. We had it all to ourselves. It was really fun.


Colton in the boat.


View of our spot from the top of the mountain that is behind Colton in the above picture.


Kinzie going off the slide.


The houseboat looking in from the back. There were 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, TV/VCR, stereo, microwave, stove, sink, and a table and couch. All the comforts of home.

Goodbye June...

We have had a busy summer so far. The first part sucked, because it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. Then it rained some more. 3 of the 5 of us have had the "influenza". Some worse than others. We have played at the pool, had gymnastics meets, and been boating once. Colton went on his first scout camp out without his dad. He went canoeing down the Green River for 4 days. He had a really good time, even though he came home with about 50 mosquito bites.

Kinzie finished her gymnastics Level 6 and is now moving on to 7. She is really excited. Jaycie is working on Level 4 and hopes to compete this fall.
This year for the Round-up Sherrie ( Victim advocate at the Police Dept. and friend), and I were in charge of the baby contest. Sherrie did the work and I just helped her. She did an amazing job. Little did we know that because we did this we were also on the parade committee. So we were quite busy during this week. We helped at the BBQ, the movie, and we had to help get floats situated Saturday morning. Sherrie and I were put in charge of the intersection at State and Center. We were put there because we are mean. (I don't know where they got this idea) I only got flipped off twice. It was a good day. Next year I hope to get flipped off at least 5 times. I don't feel I was mean enough. We then went to the rodeo with Grandpa Kerry. Thanks for the tickets and taking us every year. We love it. This is the first year Jeff didn't have to work the rodeo, so he got to sit with us. He was sooo happy about that to. The rodeo was great as always and this year, the Canadian Air Force motorcycle guys did a back-flip off the ramps. The kids loved it. We also went to the rodeo on Friday night, but about 1/2 hour into it, it started to rain. We were soaked so we went home. Hopefully next month we could have a lot less rain, and a lot more fun. Goodbye June, HELLO July.

New Background

What do you think? I was sick of choosing a background that everyone else had. Jammie helped me do this one, what do you think. In a couple of days I will change it to the other one, and you can all (meaning those 4 who read this) vote and tell me which one is better.

Happy Birthday Jeff!!!

Happy 37th Birthday Jeff. We hope you have a wonderful day.
Why we love Jeff:
He is an amazing dad.
He is an incredible husband
He cheers us up when we are sad or ornery.
He loves to make us laugh, and we love for him to make us laugh.
He excels at everything he does.
His boss thinks he is a genius.
He loves to take us camping, boating, and riding.
He loves to spend time with his family.
He makes us feel like we are the most important thing in his life.
He loves the ocean, and the outdoors.
He is a good rider, and wakeboader.
He is very handy, and can do anything. If he can't then he will research until he can.
He is an amazing man and we love him

Happy Birthday to my best friend. I love you with everything I am.

Memorial Day

I decided since we didn't get to go camping, I was not going to sit home all day. I had a bright idea to relive my past. We used to go to Cascade Springs, walk around and then we would go to the Timp Freeze in Midway for some shakes. Well, the Timp Freeze is closed, so we decided on Granny's for lunch.
We called Nat and Reed and headed up Provo canyon for some fun times. We made it up to Sundance only to find that the "Loop" was still closed. The nice ranger told us we could go the back way up from Midway. So we headed that way and decided to eat at Granny's first. It is a good thing we did.
After burgers, fries, and shakes we headed to Midway. As we traveled we hit a dirt road. We wound higher and higher up the mountain. Beautiful scenery, big pot holes, water, mud, snow. We were re-living our youth. Digging in the mountains. Fun Times. Higher we went. Big snow drifts. Bigger snow drifts. Reed got stuck. We pulled him out. Reed got stuck again. We pulled him out again. Reed got stuck again. And again, we pulled him out. Backwards. From the same snow drift. This time though he went further down the hill for a "running" start, only to be denied by his lovely daughter Torey. She feared the next Memorial day would be spent at her graveside. She didn't find the fun in "digging" like the rest of us did.
So we backed down the mountain into a nice clearing, where the kids all proceeded to use the outdoor facilities. Well, except for Taylor. She had some stage fright, but eventually she was able to go. The kids climbed up a big hill and we communed with nature. The kids decided to they had had enough and we decided we probably weren't going to make it to Cascade Springs this day. So we headed home. On our way home we saw a sign that said "Cascade Springs" 7 miles. What the !@#$. We had taken the wrong stinking road. So off we went up this new, nice, less frightening and somewhat smooth road. After 5 hours in the car, we reached our destination.

Woohoo. We finally made it.


Stinkin' cute kids.


Scenery picture by Jaycie.


Unlike, Nat and Reed we didn't have any strangers in our pictures.

The kids took a lot of scenery pictures.


Apparently Jaycie was bored in the car, because when we put the pics on the computer we found this:

And this:

And about 15 more. They were all pretty funny.
We had an amazing day. Thanks for coming with us Reed and Nat.

Eventful Weekend

We have had a very eventful weekend. Friday morning we had to be at the school for Kinzie's skit for student council at 9:30, Jaycie had a Dr. appointment at 10:10. Jeff stayed and recorded Kinz while I took Jaycie to the Dr. Jaycie has strep-throat.Yippee. It was also Colton's birthday, and Kinzie had a gymnastics meet in Salt Lake.
Jeff took Colton to lunch, or rather, he brought Colton lunch cuz Jaycie didn't feel good enough to go eat somewhere. I took Kinz to her gymnastics meet, where she received her first 9. Yeah! Her teacher also called and told me she had made student council. Yipee!
Saturday I took Colton, Cameron and the girls to Jump-on-it. They had a good time. Colton did take a header into the trampolines though. Saturday night family came over for Colton's birthday party. Fun times.
Sunday morning we went to church and Colton was ordained a teacher. Congratulations bud. He also had a really big bruise on his nose from the trampoline. He looked like an alcoholic. After he was ordained, the bishop decided I needed an additional calling. I am now helping with enrichment. I have never even been to enrichment. Oh well, we will see how it goes. That is it for our eventful weekend.

HAPPY 14TH BIRTHDAY COLTON!!!!!!

Holy cow, where does the time go. It seemed like only yesterday we brought Colton home from the hospital. He is such an amazing young man. I am so proud of the person he is. Here is why we love Coco:

He has a gorgeous smile. It lights up his whole face.
He is sweet.
Loving
Kind
Generous
He loves his sisters
He loves his Heavenly Father
He loves animals.
He loves to skateboard and wake board and has recently decided to add snowboarding into the mix.
From the age of 2 when he stood on top of Natilie's playset, took off his shirt and swung it over his head saying "I am a handsome star", he has had a lot of confidence.
Also, when he was 2 we were at my moms and he was getting ready to get into the tub, he started to poop so he was running into the bathroom and poop was falling and hitting his heels and bouncing off like balls onto the floor. He has better aim now.
When he was four we were at our friends house in their backyard. He had to pee so he just whipped it out and peed on their fence. Sorry Darren and Allison.
He is an exhibitionist. He is a little better now he is older, but not much.
He had squash as friends.
He has a really bad gag reflex and used to puke all the time. Bad smells, bad textured food, anything that grossed him out.
His voice is changing so he always makes funny noises and it cracks us up. I will miss that.
He is funny, and when someone is sad, he always tries to cheer them up.
He is very generous with hugs and kisses.
We love you handsome star-hope you have a really good day.