OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2013

 

So many fun things to catch up on, but here's our highlights....

 

 

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY BRAXTON!! Braxton's friend Thomas came bowling with us.  The people at the bowling alley gave him a bowling pin for all of us to sign which was pretty cool.  We ate pizza and played the arcades.

 

I spent the day in Vegas at the SDMS Ultrasound conference and came home late to find the cutest sign on the front door!

 

After watching General Conference, we drove out to Anazazi Valley to see the Shivwitts band ( of the Piute Indian tribe) learning center.  They have a bunch of teepees, wigwams, and other structures to look in and see how their tribe lives.  One of their tribal elders was a home health patient of Troy's and they invited us out.

Troy made the front page of the 'Living' section of the Spectrum newspaper.  One of Troy's home health patients was featured in a story about his heath problems so they interviewed the patient while Troy was there giving antibiotics. We had at least a dozen articles that people had saved for us.  Pretty awesome!

 

Poor Tanner fell on the blacktop at school during recess and was quite banged up...fat lip, black eye, and lots of scrapes.  When the school called to tell me what had happened and how he looked, I didn't imagine it being this bad! It took a couple days to carefully wash all the tar out of his chin and lips.

Fun Sunday hike

Camrie's Butterfly daycare class held their Thanksgiving feast on our day off, so we went in for it and her teachers were so nice to let Kason join in on the celebration.  They ate popcorn, beef jerky, craisins, and drank applejuice and sang some Thanksgiving songs.

We took our fun neighbors to the opening of the St. George Children's museum and had a blast! So many fun things to see and do.  Braxton, Connar, and Kylee are participating in the magnet demonstration.  Last spring we went to the new children's museam in Vegas and loved it so we were excited for our to open since everything came from the old Vegas museaum 

Camrie and the garden

Kason loves the grocery store and could spend the entire time there filling up the basket and restocking the shelves.

We milked 'Maggie' the cow

Tanner and Cordin dressed up in colonial outfits and signed the Declaration of Independance

Thanksgiving was in Beaver at Aunt Valerie's house.  Troy worked and Braxton was with his Dad, so it was just me and the little ones.  We had fun playing with cousins, petting Aunt Valerie's horses, and building gingerbread houses.  Tanner was so excited to be big enough to have a real gingerbread house to decorate all by himself, and Camrie and Kason did great with their graham cracker houses.  We are so thankful for our fun Grandma who makes all the houses for us to decorate every year!

Happy Halloween 2013

Another successful Halloween under our belts....enough candy to last through January for sure.....

Tanner playing musical chairs at the DRMC Child Development Center carnival

Braxton the clown



Whose crazy kids are these anyway?



Camrie and Ms. Michelle

carving the pumpkin

Bats for Halloween breakfast



Trick or Treating at Aunt Caroline's house

 

Tanner's cute Halloween drawings

September 2013

First and foremost....WE FINALLY HAVE NEW FAMILY PICTURES!!!!  they all turned out so cute. This is the only one on my phone, so I will have to add more later!



Sept 6th was my parents 50th wedding anniversary.  We met in the middle for dinner at Sizzler in Cedar for a great dinner and fun night together telling stories and just plain being together.




Kason playing 'I Spy' with his ckicken nugget rings




Couldn't have asked for better parents! Love you both!




Troy and the kids being wild



Mine and Troy's 6th Anniversary was Sept 9, and just like last year, we spent it with our kids up on the hill at our timeshare.  We all had so much fun! We swam, played games, went hiking out to Leeds, watched movies and loved every minute being together....totally uninterrupted!

We decided to extend our weekend one more night, and splurged a bit and got stayed Sunday night in of the penthouses.  The patio hot tub was a major perk for the kids! The next morning we took the kids to school and daycare, and went to Breakfast at Tifiny's for some delicious Creme Brulee french toast.

We went to the DSU football game on IHC Coporate night.  They had a big tailgate party for all employees with prizes, and a few rides, bounce houses, and climbing wall for the kids.  Troy also won a $50.00 gift card.  The black clouds rolled in and lightening show was pretty awesome and very close, so they called the game before the lightening got any closer and the rains came down.   Fun while it lasted. 

The end of September, I was able to go back to Milwaukee, WI for some Ultrasound training on our GE machines.  It was a fun trip and I learned a lot.  As I boarded the plane to fly out of Vegas I realized I'd lost my ID, so I am frantically texting Troy, and I hear my name and all my info from my DL being read by the flight attendent overhead.  I seriously did the happy dance in my seat when she brought it to me! When we landed in WI, I hear Chelsey, my co-worker who got off the plane before me, laughing so hard and yelling for me.  I walked up to see an airport worker waiting for me with my name on a tablet, and a wheelchair.  I thanked her, and told her I was fine and very capable of walking through the airport.  When we checked in to fly out of WI, I asked if there was any kind of flags on my ticket, the guy explained my boarding pass said I was hearing impaired! So that explained why when we checked in he, was asking Chelsey all the questions about me and where I was going and talking very slowly to me. We had a good laugh over it, but still not sure how that classified me for a wheelchair? There wasn't one waiting for me in Vegas when we landed,  but if there was, I was totally going to take advantage of it!

September brought on flag football for Braxton and Tanner.  Here is Braxton playing quarterback.  He was no doubt the best on his team this year.  He had some great passes, catches, touchdowns, and interceptions.

This was Tanner's first year playing and he was so excited and had a lot of fun.  He thought having to wear a mouth guard was pretty awesome.  The next play after I took this picture, Tanner totally lined up to run the opposite way behind his team and behind the ref, and just about missed the play.  Seriously so funny.

Braxton was awarded the Reading Excellance award for September from his teacher Mr. Griffiths.  Way to go Braxton!

I had to add this picture just to show how tall Braxton is compared to other 4th graders.  I know he's tall, but don't realize it, until he stands next to someone his own age.  He's gonna be a big kid! 

Camping at Tushar

It was camping time last weekend for our family up to Tushar and we all couldn't get there fast enough! It may be a bit comical looking back, but if it could go wrong for us, it did! We started out with blowing a tire on the trailer just north of Paragonah, and didn't have the right wrench to get the lugs off, so our good family friend who owns a station in town sent my mom out with what we needed.  Got that changed and a new tire put on when Troy got into town, and then headed up the mountain.  We discovered that the kitchen faucet in our trailer had been broken somehow, and it popped right off in Troy's hand.  Saturday morning we woke up to a flat tire on the truck.  We pumped it up and drove down to have it repaired and find a new faucet fitting.  We've had a little leak in the trailer roof in one corner and have tried to repair it, but when the dark rain clouds rolled in we hurried to put a tarp over that corner in the roof, and then discovered that when Troy parked the trailer next to our house under the big tree to get it ready to go, the branches peeled back the broken rubber part and the tar paper. So that's next on the list to get fixed before the winter rains set in. Then I discovered a leaky fixture under the bathroom sink, which Eric quickly and easily fixed (maybe one day none of us will have any issues with our trailers and Eric may actually get to 'camp'.  But that's what he gets for being so dang handy with everything)

But we didn't let any of that spoil our fun! Which we had plenty of as usual! Valerie brought up a huge pinata for the kids, and Grandma had some fun games for the kids. My Mom always celebrates her birthday by throwing a party for her grandkids and gives them each presents instead.  Her birthday is in July, but this year decided to have it while we camped.  She rented the movie theater in town so we drove down on Saturday for pizza and a movie.



We always have amazing food, and plenty of it! Everything tastes better in the mountains

 

Kason loved digging in the dirt and was covered head to toe the whole time! 

 There is always lots of fishing and canoeing, the kids like to canoe over to see the little families of ducks that hang out there every summer.

Kason kept yelling "awesome" during this ride

 

Kason and Carson have always been good little buddies.  Kason was never far from Carson except for the 3 times he ran and climbed up on the stage in front of the movie while it was playing! The first time he threw his arms up in the air and yelled "tah-dah!" He was proud!

 

We all crowded in the back except for a few of the kids were up at the front on love sacks.  Stephanie and Eric stayed on the mountain and I'm sure Mark had a good reason for skipping out on "Smurf's 2"  LOL

  

Cash was posing and patiently waiting for me to take this picture!

  

Pizza and Presents in the lobby



 Sadly, this year is probably the last for our camping fun  at Tushar.  After 23 summers of hard work, fun, and meeting so many great people, Mom and Dad are thinking this summer will be their last to be the volunteer camp hosts. It's too bad that politics have to ruin such a good thing for after so many years, for so many people besides us.  It's  been a tough decision and one that makes us all sad.  Tushar has been a family affair, whether it was replanting trees after the dam broke, fixing toilets and leaky valves (Eric!) repainting markers, cleaning restrooms, collecting and checking people in, laying sod, pouring cement, spreading gravel, helping make new campsites, last minute runs to Cedar for plumbing supplies, the list goes on....and we've all been involved right from the start. We've seen that little campground grow to be one of the most popular places on Beaver Mtn hosting many weddings and other functions besides just camping. So, no matter what happens next year, to me at least, Tushar will always be "Val and Ila's campground" and to my kids it will always be "Grandpa's lake."  So many memories!!

Happy Birthday Troy!



I was pretty impressed with my block 'U' skills




After we went out to celebrate Troy's birthday, we stopped at the park and let the kids master the climbing wall for awhile.  Camrie wasn't too sure about it at first, but then she was climbing like a wild girl! So glad that pictures are not availiable of me and Troy Climbing it! It probably wasn't a pretty sight when I got stuck trying to get over the very top ledge, but I made it!



A little 5 speed  Happy Birthday present to save on gas since our truck is such a guzzler.  It was really intended for Troy to drive back and forth to Hurricane and for when he does Home Health, but it's so much fun to drive, that I take it when I'm on call and when I work in Hurricane! Here's to over 300 miles on 11.5 gallons :)