Temple Square

On Saturday, Hannah, Seth, and Bugga went to Temple Square with the Young Men and Young Women.  Pyper was really curious, and wanted to go too. Then it hit me that I don't think she'd ever been to see the lights. David's nephew Boyde, his wife Trish, and their baby Suzy were staying with us for a few weeks. Trish had never been to see them either, since she's from Montana. So, we loaded up in Boyde's suburban and off we went to see the lights!  It was so cold, and very crowded, but lots of fun! Pyper loved it, and that's what counts!

Halloween 2013

I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite holidays. I love making costumes, and making dinner to gross out my kids. This year we had...

 Hannah as Belle from Beauty and the Beast

 Lyra as a 50's gal (the sad part is that she found that skirt at my mom's house. I made and wore it to my best friend's Sweet 16 party when I was 15!)

 Seth as Dr. Who (Eleventh Doctor, in case you cared)

 And Pyper went as the Lady of the Wood from Lord of the Rings. 

Dinner didn't disappoint.  I made a brain with crackers (it was just shrimp dip!), earwax q-tips (marshmallows with butterscotch then stuck on sucker sticks), Zombie hands (meatloaf in hand shapes and mashed potatoes), and Ghoul's eyes (sausage balls with olives and pepperonis), and blood punch (juice with ginger ale and pureed berries). It served it's purpose and grossed us all out! But it was actually pretty tasty also!

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Hannah's birthday (17, how did THAT happen?) started EXTREMELY early. Like 4:30 am early, did you know 4:30 happens more than once a day? She has been going to Bridgerland for Cosmetology this year in school. The only problem is that program is only offered at the Brigham campus. So she gets to drive to Brigham every day. And she doesn't have enough credit hours to take Seminary during the day, which means that she has to take early morning Seminary. That starts at 6:15 am.   Birthday breakfast in bed is a tradition at our house.  It was so early her eyes wouldn't stay open for a picture! 

We also met in Logan for lunch after school when she was on her way to Bridgerland.  She wanted sushi, which was great by me, but not so much by her dad!  We had a great time teasing her about the waiter (who would have been quite attractive had I been a 17 year old girl) and eating our sushi, that we got to enjoy a LOT of since all the rolls were half price that day!  She also got  fried ice cream for her birthday dessert.

Happy Birthday my Hannah, I love you!

Girl Power!

While David is gone, Hannah is borrowing a car from one of his workers to get her back and forth to school.  Yesterday, it wouldn't start. She left the lights on while visiting Grandma Charlene at work, and it killer her battery. I jumped it for her, but when we got it home it wouldn't start again. After a little time on the phone with David, we decided that it was probably the battery cable that was bad. He was coming home for Hannah's birthday in a couple of days. He told us we could wait for him, or try and change it ourselves. We decided to try it ourselves. AND WE DID IT! The nice guys at O'Reilly even made the right cable for us, since the original is a dealer only part. 4 hours, $30, and greasy hands later the car starts right up!

First day of school 2013

School started today. I guess I'm supposed to be happy about that. Don't get me wrong, I like the structured routine that school brings, for the most part. I like that my kids get to socialize with their friends. I love to watch them learn new things. But I love, love, love having them around. We have so much fun, and I miss them when they are gone all day!

Hannah on her first day of 11th grade. She has to be at school insanely early (6:15 am early) for early morning Seminary. She is going half a day to Bridgerland for Cosmetology...clear in Brigham. I hope she lives through this year!

Seth's first day of 8th grade. He's all geeked out...Star Trek shirt and Batman backpack (complete with cape and Batman hood, thank-you-very-much!)

Super Bug on her way to 6th grade. She'll make sure to save the school from evil in her spare time! Her shirt is so awesome, it has a cape! 

And my sparkly 3rd grader Pyper...sparkly shoes, skirt, shirt, and barrettes, what more can a gal ask for! 

Yellowstone

This past week we decided that we needed a vacation before school started. We get to travel lots of places, but most times we are too busy to actually see any of the fun things the areas have to offer. And as David said, if you work all the time and don't go on vacation, what is the point of all the work?

I haven't been to Yellowstone since I was probably in middle school, (I think my family went the year after the big fire) and none of my kids have ever been. So, we decided to go there. We were in Grace last weekend and Pyper and I had to go to Pocatello for something. Along the way, she spotted Lava Hot Springs. She told everyone that we needed to go there as well. So, Monday night we headed off to Lava and the KOA there. (My kids could just vacation at a KOA and be perfectly happy!) We played in the river, roasted some marshmallows and Starbursts, made s'mores, visited with our Canadian neighbors (which became the joke of our trip, they were EVERYWHERE!), and went swimming and sat in the hot pots. It was a beautiful RV park, close to the river and shady. We are some delicious Thai food our second night, and surprisingly everyone loved it! I have a couple of picky eaters, *cough, Seth &Lyra, cough*, so that was surprising.

Pyper was very intent on making the perfect marshmallow.

My Bug is a bit of a spaz.

Seth roasted half a bag of Starbursts I think!

Then on Wednesday, we headed off to the KOA in West Yellowstone. It was later when we got there, so the kids went swimming while I made dinner. Then we made more s'mores and called it a night. Thursday morning we headed off to see the park. Everyone felt the need to hug a tree. (No picture of my tree hugging.)

 This is probably the ONLY time I will ever see him be a "tree hugger"!

 Pyper said that this particular tree looked lonely and really needed a hug.

 Hannah tried smootching her tree. It was too bumpy she said.

 My Bug hugging her tree, we had to pry her off. I think she named it Bob.

Actually, Seth hugged two, his first one was covered with red ants, so he only hugged it for a millisecond!

Seth and the non-ant covered tree.

We decided that since we just had one day, we'd go see Old Faithful. We took the drive to see Firehole Falls along the way.

Some of us, Hannah and David, didn't like it very much. They don't do well with roads along cliffs. And Pyper was flabbergasted that the "Guardrail Safety Crew" had seemingly missed the entire Yellowstone Park! "Mom, those lava rocks are NOT going to stop us from crashing over the edge! Where are the guardrails?"

We stopped and saw some hot pots and mud pots.

Pyper needed a picture with this hot pot. Actually, she needed a picture with everything we saw!

 The mud pots are my favorite. I put on my best duck face for my picture.

Hannah was pretty impressed with the mud pot.

We got to see Old Faithful erupt.

 Pyper got her picture taken on front of it...

and so did David and I.

We had lunch in the Cafeteria, then we walked the loop of geysers behind Old Faithful. I don't know if we never did that when I was younger, or if I was just oblivious (probably the latter), but I never knew there were more geysers there! My favorite was a small one called Anemone Geyser. It only went about 6 feet, but it erupted every 7 minutes or so, and you got to seed the entire geyser process because it was so small...from the empty bowl, to eruption, to the bowl draining. I thought I had a picture of it, but I guess not. So, I scoured Google and found one for you!

(source)

We saw this little cave and waterfall made from the geyser runoff and thought it was neat.

Everyone else thought Castle Geyser was the best. We didn't get to see it erupt, we just missed it. But we were all impressed with its "cone"!  They say that it is probably the oldest geyser in Yellowstone.
I apparently didn't take a picture of it either, so I "borrowed" one from the world wide web...

(source)

After our very long walk, we were all very tired. We headed back to camp for dinner and, you guessed it, more s'mores.

This morning while David and I packed up, the kids rented the funny bikes. I think this is their favorite part of a KOA, and they'd been trying since Wednesday night to ride them with no success. They rode around the campground trying to steal each other's flags off the backs of the bikes.

 Pyper started with this bike, but switched because it "was dumb and had no brakes!"

On or way back to work, we stopped at Bear World. It was pretty cool, but a bit overpriced for me. Seriously, $75 for a 20 minute drive? Neat to see once, but not something I'll make a habit of. The baby cubs were fun to watch, and the petting zoo was fun.

The very best part was this little goat who kept hanging out by the food vending machine. We tried feeding her, but she wouldn't eat out of or hands. She was more interested in the food in the bottom of the vending machine. Hannah stuck a few pellets inside and she opened the flap and ate them! The same ones she wouldn't eat from Hannah's hand. So we made her day and put in a quarter and twisted the handle and let her eat the food...OK, we did that twice actually because we found her so funny!

I got a picture of all my cute bear cubs. (This picture was Pyper's idea as well! It HAD to happen!)

We feed the deer,

and this cute pig with a waggy tail. She was very happy to have attention!

And these ducks ate right out of your hand.

We rode a few rides... 

 Bugga and Pyper on the "Grapes"

Hannah and Seth on the Beary Go Round. They eventually all ended up in here for this ride.

and then piled back in the car and off we went!

Now I guess most of us are ready to head home reluctantly, and start school.

Cast #3

Yesterday Lyra and I went to the doctor. They took her cast off! 

 We had a great laugh at how white, tiny and hairy her arm was.

 Then the doctor took some x-rays and poked and prodded her arm a bit. He decided that it wasn't quite healed yet. Since my Bug is a weensy bit crazy, we opted for another cast instead of a splint for the next 2 weeks!

At this rate, she's going to have every color of the rainbow! She started with orange, then purple, now green! Hopefully 2 more weeks and she's all healed up!