Happy Pioneer Day!

While in Utah the kids and I went to Cove Fort one afternoon and had a great time. I thought today was a great day to post these since it is Pioneer Day, one of my favorite holidays! :) Then the sister missionary was kind enough to take our picture all together!
After hearing some fun stories in the bunk house the Sister Missionary there taught us how to play a pioneer game, this is how Jake and Fern played it! :)

Riley did pretty good with it!

I, for some un-known reason was pretty good at this, Riley did not get the whole thing, but here is the end. The sandals worked against me but I was able to keep it going for a good while!

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We have had to postpone our pioneer dinner, tonight is family night at camp. But we are planning on having Veggie and dumpling soup (think chicken and dumplings with no chicken), cold slaw, rice pudding, whole wheat applesauce spice cake, & lemonade! YUMMMM!! So hopefully we will have this tomorrow, but it is looking like we will have to cook inside vs. the fire outside as it has been raining to 2 days and it is looking like it is staying around. And now all of our fire wood is wet! :) Saturday is the Pioneer Day Primary activity for the stake, I hope to have some cute pictures of that for you!! :)

Happy Pioneer Day!

Yea for Camp!!

Well I just picked up a very happy camper from his first day of Cub Scout day camp. The first thing he said to me was, "I wish I could sleep here"! I thought maybe it would take him a little longer to get into the groove, but alas my baby did not need me! :) Here's his toothless grin in front of the sign, he said, "mom make sure you get the flowers in the picture"! Funny kid!
When I asked him what he did he told me about making a bug box, leather punching, scoring a bag of chips at lunch, among other things. And then oh yea and I shot a be be gun and arrows!! Oh my, and he got a bulls eye with the be be gun, and "in the blue" with the arrow! Here is his target from the be be guns which I did not know he got to keep until he pulled it out to show dad at home! Boys!! :)

Riley is very excited to go back tomorrow and I am excited that I now know where it is and will not get lost tomorrow morning (for 2 hours, thanks mom for helping your silly daughter)! Thursday night we got to all go to the camp, I think that will be a big hit with Jake! Hopefully we will get a few more pictures! :)

Today!

So I took a picture of our garden literally as Dan was pulling the van out of the garage as we left for the road trip.
Here's what I came home to! We are not even sure what they all are as alot of them have sprung up from last year's garden!
And yea welcome home to New England! The outdoor temp. is 94, with 64% humidity makes is a real feel of 102!! About a hour before I took this picture it was 96 degrees with a real feel of 105!!! I thought I left the hot weather!!

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Also today I got to pick up my new glasses that have been waiting since the day after we left!! No pictures today but I am sure you will see them, or not! :)

Have a great day!!

ROAD TRIP!

Yes I know it has been a LONG time!! Well we went on a little trip! Here we all are as we left our house on Monday June 23! Utah or BUST!
When we got to Nebraska we stoped in Omaha where Winter Quarters is. Fern got to dress up as a pioneer and we saw some neat thins and chatted with the Sister Missionaries!
Across the street from the Visitor's Center is the pioneer cemetery, and this famous statue. Sorry it is tilty, pre-tripod!
Here is my cowboy at the Buffalo Bill museum and grave, isn't he too cute!!
And he's a paleontologist! We went to a great dinosaur museum in Fruita, Col!

We took a great photo on the Colorado river during a bit of leg stretching!

We arrived in Utah on Friday, and then Dan had to fly out on Sunday (that is why he is MIA in the rest of the photos!
While in Utah we got to take Novella to her first library story time... Celebrate the 4th of July (and a nice strait picture post-tripod a pre-birthday gift from mom!! Thanks mom!).
Look what I found at the resale shop! Too cute red cowboy boots, perfect of the 4th!
My friend and best Visiting Teacher ever, Cherish came all the way to Richfield to see me!!

Riley was wrestling with Jake, got kicked in the mouth, and lost his very loose front tooth...

And then a couple hours later he lost the other one while eating a carrot!!!
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Of course I have a MILLION more photo's of Utah but this is just the brief highlights!
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I finally got the gumption to drive home by my self, with 3 kids and left Richfield last Saturday.

We went to Arvada, Col. where my Grandpa grew up.
And to Wheat Ridge, Col. and found my Great-grandpa! This is a man I have done a ton of research on, and I am still looking for more.
We finally arrived home yesterday afternoon, and yes officer in Illinois, I gave my kids the clickers! :) I got pulled over in Illinois a few days ago because the officer said it looked like the kids were not buckled up, since they were he gave them clickers but advised me not to give them to them until we got home! :) This was the first time I have ever been pulled over, I almost had a heart attack!

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There is the short of our trip, you'll get more sprinkled in with the day to day around here!

June 23-July 17, I am not leaving my house for a while so if you want to see me you'll have to come here!!

PARTY!

Well, Dan and I were invited to his bosses 60th birthday party. So we got all gussied up and went to New York last night!!

Here we are leaving our house, yes Dan is wearing a tux, last time he wore one was for our wedding!! We rode a shuttle bus that was chartered for the party, it took us from the corporate office to downtown. The party was on the top floor of the St. Regis Hotel!

Here we are on the top floor "mingling" before dinner, if you look to the far right of the picture, all those trees are central park!

Here is the other pilot that Dan works with, Torrey and his wife Barbara. They flew in from Canada to party with us!

And Rob, the mechanic on the airplane, and his wife Laurie! They braved the shuttle bus with us!

We were all siting together at table eight, we ate in the ball room and there was dancing in between our 4 course meal (I counted dessert as one course even though there were 5 desserts)!!!
Here is our table marker and our menu for the evening!!
Here is a shot of the ballroom, it was beautifully decorated in blue, my favorite!
Here was one of my desserts, VERY yummy! It is "Almond Tuile Filled with Fresh Berries and Miniature Fruit Sorbets", the sorbet was frozen in shapes of fruit with little plastic leaves and stems! Too cute!

We sang happy birthday and danced a bit and then said farewell and jumped on the shuttle bus as it began to rain! The whole ride home (3 hours instead of 1.5) we watched the lightning crashing, and dropped into bed at 4am!!

We also got a little goody bag on our way out, I love the flower arrangement they tied to the bag, it was a little bag that looks like a Dr.'s bag with some of his products and one of his books, so I guess I'll see what he has to say, and maybe I will look fabulously younger too!

* I purposely did not mention Dan's bosses name as I do not think it is appropriate on the Internet, so those of you who know please do not post it! :) Thanks!

Monday, our last full day!

Not too many pictures today, I took a million on this day but they are all the beach, my kids on the beach, and the sunset... so I'll just show you a couple! :)

Beautiful Fern!!

Curious Riley!
Sweet Jake!
Here was our view from dinner Monday night, right on the beach!!
I took a million shots of the sunset trying to get a great one, these couple came out well!

This is what I will watch everyday I am snowed in this winter, I love the sound. Now if I could only import the smell! :)

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I am going to load the fun pictures from Dan's and my night out last night so come back later!! :)

Sunday!

Unfortunately there is no ward or branch on the island, so we could not go to church. Weird to be in a place without the church! :) So we had a relaxing day by the beach! Riley was interested when we told him Dan and I had gone kayaking, so we got a kayak again, here is Dan and Riley out having fun!
Aren't they cute!!
Jake had to be coaxed a little but he had a great time, I think he enjoyed it even more than Riley!
Fern was super grumpy, but I tried to get a shot of her on it anyway! :)
Here is Dan and I recreating our trip, don't worry we did not leave the kids and paddle away!
Look how clear the water is! That shell was probably in 6 inches of water!
Then the three of them went out for a while!
After the beach we had to stall a bit as the maid was still trying to get all the sand out of our room! There was always tons, now I know why my Grandma was so insistent on hosing us off before we came into the house! :)
So Riley discovered he could get himself into the tree, he was very proud!


When Fern wanted to get up Riley was super big brother and lifted her up there!!
Then I helped Jake and I got a too cute picture of my monkeys!!
I just thought this was too sweet of Fern!
Like the cool lizard we found on the way to dinner!!
Before dinner we got all gussied up and had family pictures taken on the beach by one of the photographers at the resort! It was our big splurge!

On our way to dinner we decided to watch the Sesame Street stage show, Fern really likes them. Here is Fern waving bye to Zoey at the end. This is as close as she willingly gets! :)

Two more days to show you, Plus a couple extras! Then we will be back to regular life, kind of! :)