Animals, bubbles and birthdays

Almost every year we get to feed the burros, and feed the ducks at a nearby pond. This year was no exception.

I finally got the kids to come out and watch Scott feed the burros some leftover corn husks and potato skins.

Mmmmm. Doesn't that look yummy? LOL The burros liked it.

Here's Maddie with my grandma feeding the ducks at the pond. There were some seagulls there too, which I thought was weird, since there's not an ocean anywhere near there.

Here's Aubyn feeding the ducks.

Aubyn took this picture of Scott and I. I think he did a wonderful job. I may have to get him into photography. LOL

Here are the kids with my grandma. I figured it was about time I got a photo of them together.

Aubyn took this group photo.

My Aunt Susan bought the kids some bubbles one day at the store. Aubyn didn't seem interested in going outside to blow them with us, so we only have pictures of Maddie. I was amazed at how clear the bubbles looked in the pictures.

Maddie's having a blast!

My grandma has a picture of my sister when she was around Maddie's age blowing bubbles with her eyes crossed. It's a really cute picture, and I was trying to get a similar shot of Maddie, but she never did look up enough to catch her eyes.

Our last day in Utah was my cousin, Megan's 22nd birthday. We all went out to eat at a restaurant called the Brick Oven, and then came back to the house to have ice cream cake and cookies. Yummy!

Okay, that's the end of the trip. We took over 300 photos in all, but there were a few things we didn't get pictures of. We went up to the cemetery to visit my grandpa's grave one day, and we also went to visit some family and friends of the family one day. The trip was a lot of fun, and the perfect way to end the summer. Aubyn will be starting school Monday. :-)

Day Three-Going to The Gateway

On Sunday we drove up to Sandy, Utah and took the UTA Trax train into Salt Lake to go to the huge outdoor Gateway mall. In addition to having over 140 shops, it also housed the Clark Planetarium. Although it was hot, everybody had a good time, and the Aubyn and Maddie loved the planetarium exhibits and the Build-A-Bear store. :-)

As we rode the Trax train we passed a lot of cool buildings. This building is Energy Solutions Arena, which is where the Utah Jazz play.

While we didn't end up seeing one of the planetarium shows, the exhibits were pretty cool. We even found out how much we weighed on several different planets.

Here is a family photo in front of the Earth.

Here are Aubyn and Maddie on the train back to Sandy with their new stuffed animals from Build-A-Bear. Aubyn made a monkey that he named Jake, and Maddie made a pink leopard (which she calls a cat) that she named Chloe. I didn't help her name it, Sarah. I promise she thought of it all by herself! LOL

After we got back from the mall all the women were in the kitchen fixing dinner and I realized I hadn't seen Maddie in awhile. So I looked out the window and this is what I saw. Aren't they cute? I call it: "Maddie with her new best friend; my Uncle Russ."

Tired of the Utah trip yet? Well we only have one more day...I promise!

Day Two-Four Wheeling

On Saturday we went up into the mountains to go four-wheeling. It was soooo pretty up there, and everybody had a wonderful time.





We've packed up the quads and we're ready to roll!





On the way up the mountain we were stopped due to a car accident up ahead. We were the first cars in line, and we saw the helicopter land and take off. My cousin, Megan took this photo for me. It appeared that one car was either trying to pass another going around a curve and lost control, or one car was just going too fast and lost control. Either way, two cars ended up rolling off the road. Amazingly, we couldn't find even a tiny mention of the accident in the newspaper the next day.





This is the little creek that was running through our campsite. The kids had fun throwing rocks and sticks into it.





Here, my Uncle Russ is showing Aubyn how to aim the gun to shoot at a can. Don't worry, this isn't a real rifle, it's a pellet gun. And we only shot at plastic cups and cans. And we cleaned them all up when we were done. :-) Everybody got a turn to shoot, but for some reason when my turn came, I managed to push my stomach out to make myself look pregnant, so you won't be seeing those photos.



This year Maddie decided she wanted to ride on one of the quads. She had so much fun! She went once with my uncle and once with Scott and she didn't want to get off.
Look how much fun she's having! :-)

We had to drag her away. LOL

Here's my cousin, Megan. Doesn't she look relaxed?

Having fun yet?

My hubby and I.

Here's Aubyn and Scott. Don't worry, Aubyn had a helmet on while the quad was moving. He whined and whined the whole time we were there that he didn't want to ride this year, and then once we got him on, he didn't want to get off. That's a 7 year old for you.


Wanna go again?

Here's Megan with the kids. I loved this little creek. It seemed so perfect with the log right in front of it. I had to take some photos. Aubyn whined that he got mud on his shoes. LOL

Here we all are on the log. All in all it was a great day. We took at least 100 photos of this day alone!

Stay tuned for tomorrow for some more fun!

Aunt Susan's house

While we were in Utah we stayed in my Grandma's apartment off the back of my Aunt Susan and Uncle Russ' house. I have always loved their house! They have a lot of land, and they have three burros in a pen in the backyard. The views from their house are amazing!

This is the front yard of my Aunt's house. The kids had a lot of fun running in the grass.

If you stand in the front yard and look across the street, this is what you see. I don't know if you can tell, but there's actually someone in that tractor working his field.

My aunt and uncle have a couple of benches in their yard, and every year I have to take pictures of everyone on them. LOL

Aubyn actually took this one of Scott and I. He did a good job, huh?

Here's my uncle's tractor. I'm not sure what he does with it, but it looks important!

Here are my aunt and uncle's burros. Last year the kids loved feeding them sour apples, but this year they didn't want to have anything to do with them! I kept asking if they wanted to feed them, and they kept saying no. Oh well!

Utah-Day One

It takes about 12 hours to drive from our house to my Aunt Susan's in Mapleton, Utah. We make this drive almost every year, and I love all the scenery between here and there. The mountains are beautiful, and the small towns have such charm.


I took this picture in Kanab, Utah. Kanab is a little more than halfway into the drive and I took this picture when we stopped for gas.

Here's another view from the gas station in Kanab.

We've finally made it to my aunt and uncle's house, and Maddie is so happy to be out of the car! LOL I took this picture in their yard.

My grandma surprised the kids with a small bucket of toys for each of them. They each had sidewalk chalk in their buckets, and Maddie also received a little tea set, while Aubyn got this light up top in his. He played with it for several hours that night!

Here is my cousin, Megan playing with Aubyn and Maddie. They drew chalk pictures on all available cement around the house. Unfortunately, I neglected to take pictures of their drawings, but they were pretty cute.

That's all for today's post! Tomorrow's will have pictures from our four-wheeling trip in the mountains.

Vacation

My hubby, kids and I went to Utah for our family vacation to visit my grandma, aunt, uncle and cousin. We left last Friday, and just got back tonight. We had a TON of fun! We went four-wheeling up in the mountains, we went to a big outdoor mall in Salt Lake City, we visited the Planetarium in Salt Lake City, we lit off a few fireworks, and we celebrated my cousin's birthday. All in 4 days! I thought it would be fun to post photos a day at a time, so tomorrow we'll start with day 1. See you then!

Babysitting...

As you may have read in an earlier post, my sister fell and hurt her knee. X-rays had shown that nothing was broken, but after a couple of weeks it wasn't getting any better, so an MRI was done. It turns out that she has tore something with a technical name that I do not remember, and she'll be having surgery on the 14th. So anyway, she had another appointment with her doctor today to see if the swelling had gone down enough to go ahead with the surgery, so I had the pleasure of watching my neices and nephews. Needless to say, with 6 children in my house there was tons of fun and craziness!




Austin and Aubyn played a little bit of Guitar Hero. It's quite an addicting game, and at the ages of 13 and 7 they are both better at it than I'll ever be!

Tatum, Paris and Maddie had fun destroying Maddie's room, and playing a game called Elefun, where you catch pretend butterflies that shoot out of an elephants trunk. Where do they think up these games?

Sawyer played with some toys on the floor in the living room until he decided he was hungry and had a bottle. Poor boy didn't have anything manly to play with, since all the blankets and younger toys we have are Maddie's and therefore pink. :-)

From left to right: Maddie, Paris, Tatum, Aubyn, Austin and Sawyer. This was the best group shot I could get. I had to shoot down all the bunny ears and make sure Aubyn kept his action figure away from his face to get this shot, so I'd say I am pretty lucky they were looking anywhere near the camera.

All in all, it was a fun day. I hadn't seen Austin in what seems like forever, and he had to have grown at least a foot. I can hardly believe he's a teenager now! They grow up so fast!

Utah

In just a few weeks my husband, kids and I are going to Utah for a family vacation, so I thought I'd post some pictures of last years trip. We are staying with my Grandma, my Aunt Susan and my Uncle Russ. I love going to Utah! For one, my dad's family is there, but the mountains are so beautiful and while it does get hot in the summer, it's not quite the heat that we have here in Arizona.

This is the view from my Aunt Susan's front yard. Isn't it beautiful? I could take pictures of the mountains all day!

My aunt and uncle have several burros, and Maddie had so much fun feeding them sour apples. Everytime they saw her come out into the yard they would come to the fence hoping she'd give them more.


One day we went a few miles down the road to this pond and fed the ducks. I really love black and white photos and I love catching Aubyn and Scott from behind. Classic father and son shot.


For as long as I can remember my family has taken us to the duck pond to feed these ducks. I love the trees and mountain in the background, and the reflection they create on the water.


My Uncle Russ is an outdoorsman, and he took the whole family up into the mountains to go four-wheeling. We had a picnic right by this little creek, and Maddie and Aubyn had so much fun throwing sticks into the water to see how fast they would float downstream.


Scott and Aubyn went four-wheeling with my uncle and my cousin, Megan while we were up in the mountains. Aubyn LOVED it, and we are going again this year. Don't worry, he wasn't actually driving! We had someone else with him whenever the quad was moving. :-)

On our last night before we came home we bought some fireworks and lit them off. In Utah you can buy fireworks on almost every corner for most of the summer. July 24th is a state holiday, so you are allowed to shoot them off until then. The kids liked the sparklers the best. We had a lot of fun!

This year we are planning on taking the kids to the Planetarium in Salt Lake City, as well as a trip up the mountain to go four-wheeling. Also, my cousin Megan will be celebrating her 22nd birthday while we are there, so we are definitely going to take her out to dinner! I think it will be a fun way to end the summer. Aubyn has his meet-the-teacher night the evening after we get back, and then school starts the next week! The summer is going by so fast!