Miner Family Reunion

 Last week, we were able to spend a week with my side of the family up at a YMCA Camp in Estes Park, Colorado. My parents found a huge cabin that was big enough for the 37 of us to stay, up on the mountainside above the camp. The view was amazing.

My parents arrange for us to get together every other year durning the month of July and we always have so much fun. Here are some of the highlights from this year's reunion. Minute to Win It Challanges...

Grandma's Bingo(this is done 2-3 times at every reunion). Here is the loot that Grandma hauled across the desert. Grandpa calls the numbers while Grandma supervises the picking of prizes(I think Grandma really enjoys finding new and interesting things to put in her prize suitcase. This year she found a bug encyclopedia for Ashley).

 Ashley enjoying the first prize that she picked out-whoppers.

 The girls loved having so many cousins around to play with. The older cousins in the family do so well with the littler ones. The parents of the little ones love having such great nieces and nephews. They are the best!  Alyssa's cousin, Caden, was nice enough to give her a turn shooting his bow and arrow that he picked out as a prize after Bingo.

 Here is Ashley showing off her pillow pet to Brigitte. We really miss having her here at the house since we got to have her here for over three weeks before the reunion.

 On the last full day at the YMCA camp, we had a huge family kick ball game. Danny was the star with his super-powerful kick that cleared the full bases. Alyssa was able to score a couple of times too, especially since the above mentioned cousins were nice enough to let her run the bases.

 After the kickball game Danny and Alyssa had a two-man race with Alyssa's older cousins, Cody and Nick.

 We also participated in river rafting, rock wall climbing, zip lining, tennis, miniature golf, frisbee golf, horseshoes, swimming, and a lot of card playing. Did I mention that it was beautiful there. The animals had no fear. We saw a lot of deer, a huge elk, and we even had a bear wander pretty close to the cabin. Ashley was in grasshopper heaven, too.

 This is a partial view of our cabin from higher up on the mountain. Danny and I spent a lot of time out on that balcony. My dad pulled out his telescope and hosted a star gazing party on that balcony one night, too.

On the final day of the reunion, we had to be out of our cabin by 10 am, so we decided to extend the family time a little longer and spend the day at a water park in Denver. The park was pretty crowded, but the girls had a blast. We stayed from almost opening until the park closed and then we all headed over to an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet for a last horrah. It was such a fun week and we already miss everyone. We are so grateful to my parents for all of the work they put into finding such great places and for all of the planning they do to make these reunions so much fun. This last picture didn't really fit in anywhere, but it was so cute so I had to include it.



 All of these photos were provided by my brother in law. Thanks for being such a great photographer, Dave!

Independence Day

We had a fun 4th of July this year. Danny managed to get out of another parade by getting a tennis invite from his grandfather. I promised Alyssa that I would take them to the parade down in Provo that morning. I had never been before, so I didn't know quite what to expect. We found an open spot not too far away from where we joined up with the parade route, so we grabbed it. We soon discovered why the spot was open still. For one, it was so HOT!!! As you can see in the picture below, Ashley is sitting with her back to the street because that kept her face out of the sun. I ended up having to take turns standing in front of the girls to block the sun from them. Had I been thinking, I would have brought hats, sunglasses and an umbrella with us.

Another problem with the spot was that it took a good 45 minutes for the parade to get to us from the starting time. Which meant that we were sitting there for a good hour waiting to see something.

 Another problem with the spot I chose was that we were sitting next to someone with really bad BO and a lady who chose to sit on the ground and expose her plumbers crack to us. The girls didn't notice it, but I certainly did. The parade did finally get to us. These state troopers were one of the first people to pass us.

We ended up leaving after about 30 minutes of parade when the girls realized that no one was going to throw candy to them and without the candy a parade is very boring. Me, my niece, and my nephew were all more than willing to leave when the girls requested it. We picked up my nieces roomate on the way home and brought her back to our house to enjoy the day with us. We played some games and BBQ'd. Danny and I got to go to Stadium of Fire for the second year in a row that night while my niece and nephew watched the girls and took them to our neighborhood block party/fireworks show. Stadium of Fire was awesome. The Beach Boys performed which is one of our favorite bands. We lost our voices from all of the singing and sat close enough to the fireworks to have ashes rain down on us. We even managed to get home over an hour earlier than we did last year. It was a fun day.

Living Planet Aquarium

For our educational outing last week, I took the girls to the Living Planet Aquarium. We haven't been to an aquarium since Alyssa was 1, so I wasn't sure if they would like it or not. I had planned on just buying day passes, but after arriving there, I noticed that their memberships were only twice as much as the cost of a 1 day ticket. So we got memberships instead and I'm looking forward to taking them back many times over the next year. They actually enjoyed the aquarium more than I expected them too. The only problem we encountered was that Ashley's arms were too short to touch the sting rays. She did enjoy touching these anemones instead.

Alyssa fell down near the sting rays because the floor was wet and slippery. One of the workers saw her fall and came over to check on her. Alyssa didn't seem to be hurting too badly from the fall, but since the worker asked her if she wanted some ice for it, she said yes. In order to get the ice, we had to fill out an incident report. She was excited about the little stuffed turtle that they let her take home. Here she is posing in front of the penguins.

This otter was really playful when we were walking by, so we stopped to watch it for a little while.

 Ashley wanted to pose with pretty much everything that we passed. This is not a real crab, but it obviously seemed picture worthy to her.

 After we finished looking at all of the creatures, we looked around the gift shop. Ashley loved the animal masks that they sold there.

It was a fun afternoon and it will be fun to go and visit it during the winter months.

Lehi Round Up

Every year around this time, Lehi has Round-up. It's called Round-up because they have a rodeo during some of the days. However, they also have a lot of other fun activities that interest us a little more. We have a museum in downtown Lehi that I have wanted to take the girls to for a long time now. On one of the Round-up days, the museum had free admission, so we went. Another added bonus was that they had a bunch of free things for the kids like face painting, balloons, and a room where they could write a letter to the military. Alyssa wanted a spider and Ashley chose a unicorn for the face painting(totally opposite of their personalities).

 Later that night, we went to the all-horse parade. There weren't any floats, only horses. I was amazed at how young some of the kids riding in the parade were(like 3 and 4 year olds).

 This was our favorite group of horses-a little hawaii theme. The middle sized one is even wearing sunglasses. I didn't get the camera turned on fast enough to get a shot of it from the front. (and no, I don't know the girls even though she seems to be posing for the picture).

 There were 3 different parades during round up, but we only went to the horse one. On Saturday after the morning parade, they had some fun things for families in the park. There were inflatables...

 a train ride...

 some smaller carnival type rides...

 balloon animals(Alyssa chose a hat)...

 (and Ashley chose a ladybug)...

face painting(which both girls declined because they said the face paint was too itchy when they had it done a couple of days earlier), entertainment, food, a petting zoo, and pony rides(which cost extra so we didn't let them do that). It was just under 100 degrees, but fortunately there were a lot of trees in the park and we brought water and a personal mister with us, so we managed to stay cool enough. It was a fun week. Now we are looking forward to the 4th of July fun.

Battle Creek Falls

Last week we had a 1-day break in our heat wave(the high that day was like 91 instead of 98), so we headed off for a last minute decision hike. I had looked online to find the easier hikes in the area for kids. This one was perfect for us. The hike was up to Battle Creek Falls in Pleasant Grove. We brought Ashley's bug net and bug jar along so that the girls could catch some bugs. The first bug they caught was a white moth that was sitting on this big rock. Here they are showing off their catch.

 The moth got away a little while later, but I was able to snag a little white butterfly for the girls as a replacement. That butterfly went home with us and eventually got smashed under the piece of banana that we put in the jar with it. The hike was pretty hot and boring until we got up to the first little falls. This bridge was kind of fun to walk across.

 We almost turned around and went back after we got up to the first waterfall, but after dipping their toes in the water and sitting to eat our lunch, the girls were re-energized. We continued on up the trail and were pleased when we got to the real waterfall.

 I love how dirty the girls got. Can you tell we haven't have rain in like a month? It was so dusty on the trail and nearly impossible to not get covered in dirt.

 This next picture is at the top of a little hill to the right of the falls, almost visible in the picture above. They were so proud to have climbed all the way up there.

We could have continued on the trail up to the top of the falls, but the little legs were tired by this point and ready to head back to our car. I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but my niece, Brigitte, is staying with us for a few weeks and it was very nice to have her along on this hike. I don't know if I would have attempted it without her or Danny along.

Tracy Aviary and Liberty Park

 Last Monday, after the girls had finished with their morning routine, we headed off too Salt Lake City. There is this huge park close to the down town area and part of the park is an aviary. We went to check it out. The weather was perfect that day and the girls had a lot of fun exploring the aviary. They got to feed some ducks...

chase a peacock(I really felt bad for the peacocks that got chased around by every kid that saw them)...

and they posed in this bird picture for every combination possible("this time I will be the little bird and you be the owl" -Alyssa).

 After we had seen all there was to see in the Aviary, we enjoyed some of the activities of the park. They had these carnival-type rides right outside the entrance to the aviary. I bought 8 ride tickets and let them choose which ones they wanted to do. There was a carousel, a Ferris wheel, a couple of baby rides, and these swings. When I first saw the swings going, I thought "there is no way Ashley will be tall enough to go on those." They just seemed so high and fast and unsafe. However, when we measured her, she just barely touched the line. They loved the ride so much that they chose to ride it 3 times. The other ride they went on was the carousel. They probably would have gone on the Ferris wheel, but they needed me to go with them and we didn't have enough ride tickets for that.

 After the rides, we passed this big, grassy hill. They saw some other kids rolling down it so they had to give it a try.

The park also had a pond with paddle boats on it that you could rent for 20 minutes. We didn't have time to try that out, but we may try it next time we go. It was a fun afternoon and I'm glad that we went.

Seven Peaks Waterpark

We enjoyed our first day of the Seven Peaks summer season on Thursday. Since we have season passes, I hadn't planned on staying all day. It was a little bit cold at the beginning of the day(out of the heated water), which made it so the girls wanted to stay in the lazy river or wavepool rather than try the bigger slides. We packed a lunch which we enjoyed in our car around 1pm, and then went back into the park. Since we were dry and it was warmer, we were all willing to wait in line for the slides. After the first time down, the girls both wanted to go again. So we waited in the line again, shivering as we waited in the shade. We stayed and enjoyed the park until about 5:30, which I realized later that night was probably way too long. All three of us were exhausted and sunburned. Next time I will not let us stay that long. That's the whole point of having the season pass - so we don't have to do it all in one day.

I snapped this picture of the girls as we were heading out the door that morning. They were so excited about those swimming goggles, but then didn't really use them once we got to the water. After I ended up wearing both pairs for awhile, I finally tucked them away in our backpack.

We are looking forward to a fun summer at the waterpark and will hopefully be more prepared next time to make the day even more fun(like wearing aqua shoes to prevent our feet from getting torn and bloody and reapplying sunscreen multiple times throughout the day).

A Soccer Game

One of the perks of our Seven Peaks Season Pass is that we get to go to 4 of the Real Salt Lake Soccer games. We missed the first two because they were on school nights, but made it to the 3rd one this past week. We got there a little late because there was a ton of traffic, but once we got in our seats, we had a lot of fun. Our team wasn't so good that night, but the experience was new and fun for us all.

We love free tickets to events because we are willing to spend more on the treats. The girls loved their cotton candy. 

 And we all enjoyed the huge bag of kettle corn.

The only downside to the game was the tribal-sounding drums that continued on throughout the entire game. We were hearing drums in our heads for days. We are looking forward to the next game.