Moab

On Saturday, we went down to Moab for the day. We started the day at Arches National Park. We were pretty excited when the Park Ranger let us in for free while everyone else had to pay. We still aren't sure why, but we weren't going to ask questions, just in case he was going to change his mind. Our destination was Delicate Arch. We went to Arches a couple of years ago, but our kids were too small for us to want to attempt a 3 mile hike up to the arch. Now, our kids are good hikers, and they all did really well. Camden probably walked the first mile on his own, drawing out all kinds of comments from other hikers about how cute he was. This first picture was taken on the hike up.

The wind was blowing pretty hard that day, especially at the top. The kids were a little scared they were going to blow off the mountain. We kept Camden in the hiking backpack to give us one less kid to worry about. Here are the pictures with the arch.

Me waiting to take a picture of the others right under the arch.

After the hike, we were all worn out. We drove to a part of the park that we hadn't seen before and found a picnic area so we could eat. However, it didn't last long because of the wind. We ended up finishing lunch inside the truck. We found a really short hike to another arch after we ate. We had fun climbing up to this cave and then sliding down the rock.

 And Danny went up to the top of this big rock with the girls.

Here is the arch we hiked to. I don't even remember the name of it. It was way up there, so we couldn't actually stand under it, but we got as close as we could.

 The kids especially liked this narrow passageway between two big rocks.

After Arches, we attempted to find a good bike path to do a family bike ride. However, after unloading the bikes, we discovered that Alyssa's bike had a flat tire. So Danny took Alyssa with him in his truck about a mile up the road from us and they played Frisbee while they waited for us to ride there. Right about the time we were passing them, Ashley also got a flat tire on her bike. That was the end of the bike ride. We loaded the bikes up again and found a pizza place for dinner. The wait was much longer than we expected, so that was the end of our Moab day. We did enjoy the rest of our smore's that night with a short campfire(the wind was blowing too much to make it last longer.)
On Sunday morning, we loaded up and headed back home. It was a really fun trip. We just wish the wind wasn't blowing so much.

Spring Break, Part 1

Most of the girls friends left for spring break, so we came up with some plans of our own. We've had a camping trip to Southern Utah planned for months, but we didn't leave for that until Thursday, so we had three days of fun before leaving.
On Monday, we had fun at Thanksgiving Point.

I didn't take pictures from the other days, but on Tuesday we met Danny at the Rec Center to go swimming together. On Wednesday, I got someone to watch the boys for me so I could take the girls to a movie. We saw "A Dogs Purpose." It was the perfect movie for Ashley. Alyssa and I enjoyed it, too. That afternoon, after we were all packed for our camping trip, we went for a bike ride that turned into geocaching. We also stopped at a couple of parks along with way, for the boys. I'll tell about our camping trip in another post.

The Lion King

As a final Hoorah to my birthday present from last year, Danny and I went to see the Broadway production of "The Lion King." I had seen it shortly after it came to Broadway many years ago and it was just as good as I remembered it being. They changed a few things in it to keep it more modern. Mostly, it was nice to have a night out with Danny doing something I love.

Our seats were pretty good, too.

I did not wear the animal print on purpose. I didn't realize what it probably looked like to others until just before the show when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. Danny and I had a good laugh about it.

Silly Sock Day and The Dance Festival

The girls had silly sock day at school in honor of April Fools Day. They decided to each pick a pair of silly socks and then each trade one of their socks with each other. Alyssa chose long dog socks and Ashley chose short cat socks.

The next day was the school dance festival. Ashley got to do the May Pole Dance, which she loved doing.

Alyssa did a French dance. Camden was sleeping on my lap by the time her dance came and I didn't get any pictures of her, just a video that is too long to post. She didn't like her dance so much because she had to "wear smelly costumes and dance with boys." It was a nice way to end school right before spring break.

Creative Pancakes

We had fun with our breakfast for dinner and made some creative pancakes. Alyssa got this idea from one of the You tube channels that she follows and really wanted to try it. We did 5 different colors and had a lot of fun with it.

I think that Danny and I had just as much fun creating fun pancake designs as the girls did. The boys had fun eating them.

Daddy/Daughter Hoe Down

Our Stake had an Activity Days Daddy/Daughter Dance on Saturday night. The girls were so excited to dance the night away with their Daddy. It was a hoe down, so we had fun finding cowboy/cowgirl clothing. They went to dinner in their costumes before the dance and they got a lot of comments about it. We took these pictures right before they left.

 

They came back tired, saying they had a lot of fun. While they were at their dance, I had a little outing with the boys, as well. We took a picnic dinner to one of their favorite parks.

The weather has been so nice lately and we had a lot of fun, as well.

Salt Lake City Field Trip

I got to go with Alyssa on a field trip to Salt Lake City last week. We had 5 students in our group, 2 boys and 3 girls. We started the day off at the newly remodeled Church History Museum. We watched a short video about the Restoration of the Church and then we did a scavenger hunt while looking through the museum. We only got to stay there about an hour.
Our next step was the Utah State Capitol building. We had a tour set up that took us to the most prominent points in the building including the Governors Office, the rooms for the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. After the tour, we took a picture(the only one I remembered to take all day) and then headed to the bottom floor to eat lunch. 

After lunch, we headed back to Temple Square to the Visitors Center so that we could watch an hour long movie about Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. Then we headed back to the school.
I know Alyssa was glad that I got to go and I had fun spending the day with her. We had a boy in our group that had trouble staying with us(he was either running way ahead or lagging way behind) which made this field trip much more difficult then any other I have ever been on.
I was glad that Gawbie was willing to spend the day with the boys so that I could go with Alyssa.

Our Week

We had a busy week. On Tuesday, Tyler started swimming lessons. I would love to get him somewhat swimming on his own before summer. He seems to like his teacher and looks like he is having fun.

On Wednesday, Tyler had a field trip with his preschool class to the fire station. The firemen talked about fire safety and what to do when they hear the smoke alarm. Then they took them out to see the fire trucks.

They each got a fireman hat and a sticker at the end. He seemed to have a lot of fun.

Thursday was my birthday. It was a good birthday. Danny and the kids got me a new crock pot and a bike with a pull trailer for the boys, as well as some other things. I went out on a bike ride with all of the kids to test it out yesterday and loved it. Thursday night, the girls have piano lessons, so I requested that we go out to dinner on Saturday to celebrate, instead. On Thursday night, we had ice cream sundaes instead of cake(since none of us really like cake that much).
On Friday, Alyssa had a program at the school that is kind of the highlight of the 5th grade. She had the part of Lucy Knox, on of the founding mothers. The program highlights the great people in the history of the United States, including Columbus, the pilgrims, and the founding fathers and mothers. It also talked about some of those who fought for the religious freedoms we enjoy such as Gutenberg, Martin Luther, and Joseph Smith. The worst part about it for Alyssa was having to wear stage make up. However, she said it was a lot of fun being a part of it and she was a little sad when it was over. They got to do the play 2 times that day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I think she looks so grown up in these pictures and she did a great job with her lines.

We started the process of remodeling our kitchen this week. Our first step was to replace our oven and microwave. Our oven worked just fine, I've just always wanted a double oven in our kitchen. We were going to buy two full ovens and completely redo all of the cabinets and rewire to move the stove top, but then stumbled across a double oven that would fit in the same space as our single oven. We decided that going that route would be considerably cheaper and a lot less work so we were sold. Her are the old ones.

 And the new set up.

I was trying out both ovens with in minutes of them being installed. Next step is to put in granite counter tops and replace the sink.
On Saturday evening, we went to the Cheesecake Factory(my request) for my birthday dinner and dessert. Dinner was really good and we got 3 different kinds of cheesecake to try, one to share in the restaurant and 2 to take home. They were all delicious.
I took this picture of the boys at Target this week and thought it was cute so I had to include it. Camden is getting so big and looks less like a baby and more like a little boy each day. These two boys are really starting to play well together.