Emily's 14th Birthday

About a week an a half ago, Emily turned 14!  All she has been talking about for months is that all she wants for her Birthday is a new room.  So a few days before her Birthday we went shopping at IKEA.  She had done all her pre-shopping online and knew exactly what she wanted.  When we got to the store, she told me the approximate price tag of her pre-selected items.  It was pretty laughable.  I suggested we forgo all pre selected notions and go for a stroll through the bedroom displays, find something she liked, and try our best to reproduce it within our modest budget.  She found the above room and fell in love.  Her room is pretty darn close to this.  Steve still has to make her headboard, and we haven't hung anything on the wall, but the bed is an exact replica (even down to the throw pillows that my mom made for her).  She selected different night stands which I actually like better than the ones in the room above.  Once we have it all finished we will post pictures.  I thought we could walk in IKEA, spend a few hours shopping, walk out and drive home.  Oh, was I wrong!  We were there forever!  Steve met us there after work.  By the time we left we were all famished so we took Emily out to Cafe Rio for dinner.  

On her actual Birthday my mom made her the dinner of her choosing.  She chose fettuccine alfredo with shrimp.  Can I just say- best shrimp alfredo I have ever had!  My mom made it with fresh shrimp (and she did not skimp on the shrimp).  It was so delicious.

 Instead of cake Em requested banana cream pie.

The day after her Birthday she had a party with some friends.  They went to see her friend Kelsey in the production of the Little Mermaid.

Then they came back to our house for pizza and a movie.

Kelsey, still in character.

They had cake and watched Catching Fire.

 Instead of blowing out her candles, Emily put them each out individually with her fingers.

The next morning, our family was cleaning the church when the Mia Maids came to kidnap her and take her out to breakfast and welcome her to their class.

Family Home Evening Hike

We live in a beautiful place.  We moved here 5 1/2 years ago, and we are still finding more and more things to love about it.  In our small little town, there is 128 miles of trails.  We have been on a lot of different trails, but we still have a lot more exploring to do.  The weather was spectacular yesterday and we decided to go hiking for Family Home Evening.  We found a new fun trail to hike that was only 5 minutes away from our house.

Zac being the good big brother making sure Addy didn't get left behind.

 Emily found the perfect place to sit and just enjoy nature.  

And by enjoying nature, I mean playing on her ipod.

Troll Bridge

By the time we headed back down the mountain, we were all starving.  We stopped by the grocery store to buy hot dogs to grill.  Steve was going to run in and grab those.  Somehow or another we all ended up in the store and everyone wanted something other than hot dogs.  So everyone ended up with their own dinner stuffs in the cart and by the time we checked out, we had spent enough we could have just gone out for dinner.  Lesson learned.  Don't take 6 starving people grocery shopping.  It was a fun night!

Blogger Ketchup - January 2014

Our January must not have been very exciting.  I don't have many pictures.  We did travel home from Missouri the first few days of the month.  There were some parts of the ride home when we thought we were going to be blown over by the wind.  We saw semi's flipped.  We were able to stay just in front of the storm enough that we avoided closed highways.  Once, when Steve and I were first married and were on our way home from St. Louis one October, we got stuck in a bad storm and had to spend the night in an elementary school in Wyoming.  Ahhh...the memories.  Fortunately we didn't make any memories like that this time around.  And we made it home safe and sound.  I think I spent most of January putting things back together.  We literally up and left in the middle of Christmas Day.  Imagine stopping Christmas day with gifts and toys and boxes and wrapping everywhere, packing 6 people for a cross country trip-in the winter where you have to take big warm stuff- and then coming home more than a week later and depositing all your trip mess in the middle of your Christmas mess.  That's what January was like for me.  I hardly remember it.  It went by so fast.  I do remember the joy and jubilation the day that the daytime temperature dropped enough to unfreeze our driveway, which up to that point had been a solid sheet of ice.  Before the sun went down and it froze again I sent the kids out to shovel it.  Zac and Aubrey spent hours chopping away at the slushy icy mess.  Also in January Zac went on the Scout Klondike camp out.  

We went to see Saving Mr. Banks and Addy, who has become the expert at the claw machine, was able to snag this flower.  Unfortunately the gold string got stuck on the claw and would not release.  That was a pretty fun melt down.  Good thing it was after the movie.  We have so many (TOO MANY) stuffed animals, so I can't say I was too terribly disappointed to not be bringing this home with us.

Face Timing their cousin Alaina in Ohio.

Aubrey became a master lock pick, as demonstrated in this video below.  For about a month, everywhere she went, she had a lock and a bobby pin with her.

If You Could Hie To Kolob

 Before February was even over Steve was freaking out that we hadn't been camping  or riding wheelers yet.  (We were having an unusually lovely winter weather wise).  I reminded him that it was still FEBRUARY and promised him the first free weekend we had (that was his problem - every nice weekend in February was booked) we would go camping.  That weekend finally came just a few days ago.  Our original plan was to camp in Moab.  Then we checked the weather.  25 degrees at night.  Uhhh, no thank you!  Long story short-we finally made up our minds (the night before we left) and ended up camping at the Marriott in Cedar City.  An ATV trip just wouldn't be an ATV trip without a flat trailer tire.  This happened outside of Payson (same place as last time). 

 Once we got to our hotel that night we donned our swimsuits and enjoyed the indoor pool.  The next morning we drove to St. George and went to the temple and visitors center there.

See Zac pointing and Emily with a shocked hand over her mouth?  That is because right at that moment, we witnessed a bird spiraling downward and landing in the bush right in front of us.  And, it wasn't alive.

See the wing sticking up out of the top of the bush?  We had fun guessing all the things that would cause a bird to perish in such a place in such a manner.

After leaving the visitors center, Steve had to make a quick stop at a job he will be staring sometime next month.

At last it was time to hit the trail!  Addy insisted on driving me around.

Snack break!

We were exhausted by the time we made it back to the hotel that night.  The hot tub welcomed us with open arms.  OK, see the picture of Aubrey below?  There is no one around her in the pool.  Notice anything???Addy is behind the green pool toy in the background and Zac, Steve and Emily are in the hot tub in the background.  I'm taking the picture.  I don't want to be blasphemous and I don't believe in those kinds of things, but if I did-  I'm thinkin' I could rake in the dough by proclaiming to see an image in this photograph. 

We found some petroglyphs the next day.  On the side of Steve's truck.  Hmmm...I wonder how those got there?

That day we decided to Hie to Kolob.  Canyons.  On the drive there we read in Abraham Ch. 3 to find out where the canyon got it's name.  Then I proceeded to sing that song the entire time we were hiking.  Too bad I only knew a few of the lyrics.  When we first arrived at the place  we were going to hike, we saw this lady on the side of the road painting.

It was an absolutely beautiful hike.

Zac was a great big brother.  He stayed back with Addy and made sure she didn't get left behind or eaten by a mountain lion.  He also carried her pack for her a lot of the time.  Last time we went on a hike and he carried her pack, she would be walking next to him drinking from the straw attached to the pack.  We thought that was funny and named Zac the "Momma Cow".  He played the role of momma cow again.  He is also a very handy person to have around if you ever had to survive in the wilderness.  He worked at a Boy Scout camp a few years ago and taught the merit badge on edible plants.  In the picture on the right he is pointing out the edible Oregon grapes.

At the end of the hike we ended up at the Double Alcove Arch.

 Then we took a much needed lunch break.

And it was time to head back.

 This is Zac, scientifically answering Addy's question of why the mountain next to us was leaning.

 He really was a good brother to her the whole time.

Emily starting wearing her pack in the front for easier food access.  So of course Addy had to do the same.

All of a sudden it was time to head home.

And, just to make the trip home even with the trip there....you guess it!  Flat trailer tire.  At 10:30 PM.  Just after we passed Payson.  There is a tire supplier in Payson (we know this from experience)....I'm beginning to wonder if that is a coincidence or not....Oh, and if you are driving on the freeway and there are no cars on the other side of you- please move over, away from the people risking their very lives to change a tire.

I am so grateful we had this chance to get away and have fun and make new memories together as a family!