::if we only had a real pool...::

...we could be floatin' in the water, playing water games, sliding down a slide, jumping off a diving board, having sno-cones...

But we don't. So here I sit, in Matt's (way comfy) chair, watching the kids play in the blow-up pools...

But they don't seem to mind. They LOVE it! They ask just about every day if they can play in the water, and this was the day for the pool! Cooper wasn't quite ready to get IN the water, but he touched it, put one foot in the pool, and laid on the slide. Baby steps.

It was fun, even though it was just blow up pools :) The kids had a great time...

BUT I do still want a real pool...some day.

:)

::can you stand it??::

Just about every time we're at the store (which is pretty often), Chloe begs me for some fake nails. They have all kinds, and she just gets, well, giddy over them- all the sparkles, flowers, etc. I've never wanted to buy them, because, really? Are we at the I want fake nails stage already??

I guess we are.

But they are princess ones, so that makes me a little less sad about it.

I think I better note that she wore them for all of 1 hour. She quickly realized that she couldn't do much with those things on-other than hold her hands out very daintily :)

I can't get over how much she's grown up in the last few months. She's into nails, hair, taking pictures, jewelry (well, she's always been into jewelry), pink Nintendo DS (she desperately wants one for her birthday), bigger-kid TV shows (iCarly & Fresh Beat Band to be exact).

AND...

Yesterday she told me she wants her own iPod. A pink one.

In other news...

Yesterday morning after I took Chloe to cheer, I came home to wax the car (because apparantly I scratched it at the carwash last week). We left the car battery on so Portie could listen to Imma Be (4 times in a row!), and my neighbor walked over to talk for a bit. We talked for close to an hour-cheer, swimming, piano lessons, going to seeing a movie after lunch, etc--the car battery on the whole time! When it was time to pick up Chloe and drop off Porter, the poor battery was dead! So I walked back over to her house and asked if she could jump us. I parked in the middle of the garage (so she couldn't pull in), and I had to push the Tahoe out and hurry and jump in and push the brakes before it ran away down our driveway. Anyway...we got it jumped, we were a little late for gym and picking up Chloe, and I felt really dumb. Go me!!

::rain::

We got a little sprinkle tonight.

We had to get under the front porch.

We all sat & watched, hoping for a good show.

(but that's kinda rare here-this ain't Texas ;) )

umberellas.

running up and down the sidewalk.

hiding.

Mary Poppins envy.

(I love this one, only Bubb's big toe is touching the ground)

::8 years::

Here's to 8 years, Love!


We celebrated our anniversary over the weekend with a trip to Park City...

...and a stay-over at a lodge in Heber, and it was lovely.

I can't believe we've been married for 8 years! I remember our wedding so well, it doesn't seem like it was that long ago! We talked about it a lot over the weekend and today during his sweet phone call to me to tell me happy anniversary. I love him more everyday, and I am thankful everyday for him and for our life together.

::Arr, ye'll ne'er get me buried booty::

We had kind of a boring day (I was trying to get my photos from Yellowstone all finished up), and the kids were getting restless. I told them if they'll let me finish, we'll do something really fun. When I got done, the little boys were sleeping, and we had to wait 'til they woke up. By then, it was almost time for Da-da to get home, so we just waited for him.

I drew up some maps...


(I even burned the edges to make them more pirate-ish)

...and hid them around the yard (one map led to another which led to another, and so on)...


Bubb helped look too...




...the second to last map led us to the car, where we found the last map which led us to the sno-cone shack!!


...we all got some...


...and they were gooooood!!


I hope it was worth the wait. They seemed to really love it. Chloe even told me that when she's a mom, she's going to do this same thing with her little kids :)

::yellowstone::

Yellowstone 2010

(our whole group minus Jennie)

We headed to Yellowstone/Jackson Hole last Wednesday.
The kids (and the adults) were WAAY excited!

The kids did awesome in the car (it was about a 3 1/2 hour drive). Our first day there it was raining and freeeeeezing cold! We went out to dinner (all 17 of us) and then just came back to the cabins for some poker (for the guys) and some chattin'.

Jackson Hole

The next day we headed into Jackson. It was a little warmer than the day before...

...but not much. We didn't do what we'd planned for that day, so we kind of had to find something to keep us entertained. We hit the visitor center first...

We saw some animals, looked at a few ducks, read about the bears, squared off with an elk, crawled through the tunnel, and looked around in the gift shop. Then we headed over to a pioneer museum...

...we looked at lots of old stuff. The kids had a paper from the museum that had them spot certain things in there and draw some things, and when it was finished, they got some sheriff's badges.
After that, Uncle J and the kids thought they'd better do some handstands in the park before lunch...

(Porter, Chloe, & Uncle Jared)

We played in the park for a while while we waited for the rest of our group to come do the maze with us. It was pretty fun, and so was the maze. If you get through in in less than 10 minutes, you get a prize. Matt and the big kids did it in 7, Coopie and I got a little nervous in there after about 8 minutes and had to get out (well, I guess it was mostly me who was nervous).

A bit later, we split from the group (they were all headed to see the Bar J Wranglers), so we could be sure not to miss the Lakers game. To kill some time, we checked out...


It was pretty neat. We saw some crazy 2 headed animals, some pretty awesome belt buckles, a plane wreck, an upside down room, this bridge where everything around it moves in a circle, and lots of other weird things. The kids (and Matt) shot at some animals on a game too.

Oh, and the Lakers won...

(Uncle J, Cooper, Matt, & Porter)

Yellowstone Nat'l Park
Friday morning (bright & early), we headed up to Yellowstone. It was kinda cold in the morning-there was a bit of snow on the ground...


We saw lots of animals...


...actually we saw elk ("eck" like Coopie says) & buffalo, lots of times. We saw some buffalo mamas and babies, and we saw some really close to the road. We came up on a traffic jam because there was a buffalo standing right in the middle of the road! It wasn't movin' either. We had to go around it. We saw one off to the side and he pooped right in front of all of us, and Portie was mad at him 'cause he thought he pooped on our "cah." We didn't see any bears-we almost did, but we were about 2 minutes too late. It was such a bummer 'cause we'd been talking about seeing a bear all day! Jared was even talking about it in his sleep!! haha

We went on a couple of hikes. One of them took us down some switchback trails to the very top of the waterfall. It was beautiful! I've never seen a waterfall from that angle before. The second hike took us to a platform that let us see the falls from about the middle. It was some 300+ stairs down and back up, so it was quite a hike! But the view was worth all the stairs.

We went over to see Old Faithful too. It was pretty neat-the kids liked it too. Bubb mostly wanted to push his stroller around. I think he was just SO glad to be out of his seat. We spent a lot of time in the car that day.


Jackson Hole (again)
Because of the weather on Thursday, we thought we oughtta try Jackson again. The weather on Saturday was much better.

We took the scenic chairlift ride to the top of the mountain...

beautiful view.beautiful Chloe

Matt rode with Coopie, Chloe rode with Sarah, & I rode with Portie. It made me nervous--we were pretty high up! But we all made it, and it was a pretty fun ride!


We rode the alpine slide too. None of our little family has ever ridden one of these, so we were way excited. It was SO fun! Matt tried to race us, and ended up catching up with this old guy that went before him. He was kinda mad. He got some secret info from the guy that works there about how to go really fast. I tried to race him another time down, and couldn't keep up! Chloe rode by herself a couple of times and loved it. She squealed every time she'd make a turn. Port-Port loved it too! He rode with da-da one time, and Jordan another. Then he wanted to golf, so he had no interest in the slide anymore. Coope was just too "liddow." We probably could've lied and said he was 2, but I was a little scared to take him on it.


Grandma even rode the slide!


That night, after a SO good BBQ dinner, we went back to our cabins for a campfire, games, and some "delicious hot sh'moes."

The campfire time was so fun. It was fun to watch the fire, the games, and just talk. We got some hot tub time in too.

Bear World
The next morning (Sunday) we were headed home. But on our way, we stopped off at Bear World-mostly because we missed the bear in Yellowstone...



We saw lots of bears, an albino elk, a big ol' moose, and went in the petting zoo. Portie told us he wanted to shoot the animals-where does he get that from???



And that was our trip!!
It was so so fun! We appreciate Richard and Susan so much for putting it all together for us. We appreciate all the help with the kids during the hikes. Jordan was Porter's buddy the whole time, and we sure appreciate him being so good with him. We're so glad J & Sae rode with us on our 15 hour trip through Yellowstone-they made it so much fun! We love you all, and are so glad to have gotten to have a vacation with everyone!