Vacation - Part 1

I am trying a new format on how I put my pictures on here.  I decided to start putting on the pages that I put together for the days I take pictures.  Because I had over 500 pictures from our vacation it has been quite the task.  I hope you enjoy them.  I will add commentary after the pictures if needed.

We started our vacation on Friday by getting to the airport around 11:30 am and finding out that our plane was going to be delayed an hour.  Ugh!  An hour with 3 kids.  Thank goodness the skycap told us about the play area.  We went to the play area and played for a little bit and then found food to eat and then waited at the gate for our plane to arrive so we could get on and go.  That made us get to Utah around 5 pm.  We drove down to Matt's house and had dinner.  Then the Anderson clan arrived one by one.  It was mass chaos.  Kirsten and Peter were a bit out of their element and so they held back a little bit.  Peter was a bit more daring then Kirsten but by the end of the night they were getting to know all of their cousins.  We had a great time enjoying the cool evening weather and catching up with some of our family.  By the end of the evening I was exhausted and knew that we needed to leave.  I had been up since 4 am when Esther woke me up.  I was tired and wanted to go to bed.

The next day was Saturday and Dave went to help his brother wire his house.  I took the kids up to my parents house and we sat around the house for awhile.  Kirsten started to get restless and wanted to go back down to the Andersons.  We decided to go up the canyon and the kids thought that was great.  Although they had no idea what I meant when I said canyon.  I had to explain to them that it was up the mountain.  We drove up to Donut Falls Trailhead.  We played around there a little bit and enjoyed the trees and rocks.  The rivers in Utah were really high and so we had to warn the kids to not go near them.  The forest service had put "Do Not Enter" signs near the rivers which made it easy to say – don't go past the signs.  The kids really thought it was soooo cool to go up in the mountains.  They talked and talked about how there were so many mountains.

Sunday we decided to go to my parents ward for church and then stay for Sunday dinner.  It was fun to see people in that ward.  It was reminiscent of years gone by.  I didn't remember specific things about the building but I felt the sense of – I went to class in one of these rooms, I remember going to RS in this room.  It was pretty neat.  Kirsten was willing to go to primary but Peter did not.  He went home with Dave.  I think after he got there that he wanted to go to Primary.  Oh well they didn't come back. 

Monday was the fourth of July.  We spent the morning dragging ourselves out of bed.  The time change plus staying out late was catching up with us.  We decided to go up the Alpine Loop to get to James and Tracy's house.  It was just beautiful and the kids loved it.  We stopped at Silver Lake and took pictures and the kids climbed up on the rocks.  The drive was nice and the kids were okay.  Finally Kirsten was wondering when we were going to get to her cousins house.  I explained to her that her dad loves to go driving up in the mountains or to different places, and if she would just be patient that when we were done letting dad have his fun that she would get to have her fun.

When we got to James and Tracy's house there were kids and fun things to do.  The kids ran around after we had some lunch.  Soon James or Tracy decided to put up their blow up water slide.  After that we watched Kirsten and Peter go up and down the slide so many times I can't even count.  They loved that thing.  Peter was very disappointed when they took it down for good.  Thank goodness there were other things to do like bikes, skateboards and the GRAM bag.  Gram opened up her Mary Poppins like bag and the kids could pick out something fun to get.  The kids had a riot playing with those balloons you blow up and then let go.  They chased the balloons for a good hour or so.  There were other things to do like paint birdhouses and picture frames.  There was so much to do.  Later we had dinner and then we played Minute to Win it games.  Those were so much fun and really brought everyone together.  We were all laughing so hard at the last game where you had to get the balls out of a small tissue box.  We watched as a few adults tried it and made fools out of themselves.  Then some of the kids did it and they were doing it in small amounts of time.  Kirsten decided she wanted to do it and so she got up after her cousin Dallin had done it in 17 seconds.  He felt pretty good until Kirsten bounced up and down and got all the balls out in 12 seconds flat.  I was pretty surprised but she was so excited that she had won the game.  She was a pretty proud girl.  She kept watching as other did it but no one was able to beat her time.  I was pretty excited that my cute little girl had beat everyone.

Our night ended with Fireworks show put on by Dave and Grandpa Hall.  Utah had changed their restrictions and now people were able to send fireworks up in the air.  They had bought a couple of really cool ones and we had a nice time watching them all.  By the end the rain began to fall and we were all in the garage watching the last of the fireworks.  The kids got to play with sparklers and they thought they were pretty cool.

Here is Kirsten's video doing her minute to win it game.

Phew!  We were going and going and going.  And this is only a couple days in.  Stay tuned for more fun!!

Esther Eight Months

 

 I know it has been over 3 weeks since I have posted.  LIFE IS BUSY.  Just tonight I have been sorting through the over 500 pictures from our Trip to Utah (thank goodness Dave already put them into folders by date.  Because of the daunting task of putting them together with words I will try and get that together this week.  It seems we have been in recovery mode at our house from visiting family and playing for the first week of July.

I will leave you with a couple of things that have been happening in our home. 

Right now we are living in the land of "Why and What If?"  Peter has begun the "wonderful" age of why.  He will be 4 in 2 weeks and it shows.  Here are a couple of funny things he said.

"What if we had the ice cream in the sand box?"

"Why are you stopping at the green light?"

"Why do we have to wipe our bums?"

"What if the tornado blew the power out?"

And on and on like that for hours at a time.  It is a fun inquisitive age, but it begins to wear on a momma.

Kirsten gave a wonderful talk today at primary.  She read the whole thing herself with no help from mom and dad.  It was great!!  Love that girl!!