Grotto Falls

We've been getting sporadic awesome weather lately, and a few Saturdays ago I just got it in my head that we should try to go on a short hike.  A quick google search and the shortest hike I could find that we hadn't done before was Grotto Falls - .25 miles each way.  

That's what I'm talkinbout.

So we headed off to Payson with packed PBJs and apples.  

 Though the weather was perfect, I hadn't anticipated the trail being covered in either snow or mud.  It was SO muddy!! Luckily, there was a big mound of snow near where we parked and we could kinda get most of it off our shoes before getting in the car.  (Our pants, however...)

 We got to cross over this creek many times over these nice log bridges.  At first The Frog was really scared, but as you can see, after a few of them, he eventually did it alone, no problem.

 We made it without any crying or complaints from anyone, and I'm glad it was so short, given all the mud.  Hazel was very content in the carrier too - that had stopped us from hiking when The Frog was young because he was not happy unless he was walking himself.

It looked like it would be really fun to splash around in when the weather is hot, but for now, we would have frozen our buns off if we got in the water.

 Peach was perched on a log to eat our sandwiches, and she got all spazy and posed many ways.  It was hard to narrow it down, but these are my two favs.

I love this shot so much, I've changed her picture on the side (finally!)  She has appeared 2 for two long there...

This was so successful, I think we might just brave another, longer hike! :)  Any suggestions, locals?

Happy Birthday Gampie!

Today is Jay's dad's birthday and so the kids and I made him a movie full of "cool tricks!"

Brace yourself.  It's longer than 10 minutes, but it gives you a nice taste of life around here.

(ok ok. I admit. I cut out a lot of.... naughtiness :D)

Happy Birthday Jim!  The kids are so lucky to have such a fun grandpa!

Easter

Easter was really fun this year!  The kids are finally old enough to enjoy the egg dyeing (as opposed to The Frog's first Easter, when I ended up sitting alone, dyeing all the eggs myself.  fun.)  I tried to show the kids the trick where you color on the egg in white crayon and then when you dye the egg, the crayon part stays white.  They all took it a step further and colored with all kinds of colors before dying them, which turned out to be a great way for Hazel to be able to participate too.

 Since we have 9am church this year, I made everyone get dressed for church before opening their baskets and searching for eggs.  Here they are waiting for daddy to come down (and I'm sad to say, they didn't actually wait for him all the way.  We didn't realize he had hopped into the shower).

 This is just a funny shot.

 Our kids get super spoiled because they get a basket from the Massachusetts easter bunny and the Utah one :)  Because I know this, I always try to go low-key, but I think I got a bit carried away this year.  on accident.

 The bunny ears and tail were in the dollar section at Target.  I couldn't resist!

 I at the last minute, decided to host Easter for whatever local family didn't already have plans and so my little sister's family and parents came down.

 We took many many photos of all the kids together, and believe it or not, this was the best one.  (If I got a nickel for every photo of my kids with thumbs in their mouths...)

 These little dolls are something I started last year intending to be for easter, but as usual, I had too much going on and I had to bag them for later.  I thought about trying to finish them for Christmas, but all my spare time went to the quilt for my mother-in-law, so I finally got them done in time for Easter this year.  They are topsy-turvy dolls!  One side they look like they're ready for a fancy event, and if you pull their skirt over their head...

 they're dressed in their everyday wear.  I think they turned out so cute!

 The hair is probably my least favorite part... it was annoying to sew and I'm worried it's not going to stay in.  Only time will tell...

Peach wanted to be in the photo once she saw what I was doing.  However, the dolls went into quarantine right after I took these photos because we had just discovered that Peach had LICE.

EW.

It was super disturbing to see those little bugs crawling in her hair, and even MORE disturbing to see how many eggs were in there.  We are so lucky that nobody else seems to have gotten it.  (where SHE got it, I have no idea...)  Needless to say, my spring cleaning got a huge jump-start that day, since I had to wash pretty much everything in the house that could be thrown in the washing machine and vacuumed everything else.

We're still on red-alert around here, but so far so good :)

Sorry to end on such a yucky note.

McCarthy Visit!

I wish I would get back on the picture bandwagon...  I'm now remembering how if I want to get one good picture, I need to take 50.  (or maybe just get some skills...) and that completely didn't happen while Jay's family was in town.  

When you're holding a baby with grabby-hands, taking pictures is rather difficult.

Jay's little sister K did a report in school about the Anasazi, and she knew there were some in Utah (I didn't...) and wanted us to make a special trip to see where they lived.  My mother-in-law found a couple of places in Utah we could go- the Anasazi State Park Museum and the Fremont Indian State Park.  I called a guy at the latter to ask about each of them and he said the former was a small outdoor exhibit and the latter was a large indoor museum with a kids' area and a nearby short "hike" with a view of petroglyphs.  

We opted for the second, because it sounded better for our young kids and it was only 2 hours away, vs. almost 4 hours.

It ended up being really cool, and a totally doable day-trip for the kids (surprisingly... I'm not usually so brave to travel that far with them) BUT I somehow didn't realize, until I got there, that the Fremont Indians are NOT Anasazi.  (duh) However, a lot of commentary throughout the museum would compare the Fremont to the Anasazi, so I guess we did learn a bit about both afterall.

 In the kids section, they had a hut mimicking the kind of huts they lived in for kids to play in, with some activities much like their daily activities - weaving for one.  They also had microscopes set up with a lot of pottery, arrowhead, and other samples to look at.

 There was a huge window with a beautiful view of some rocks with petroglyphs on them, but you could also just walk outside and look at them fairly close-up.  The desk had a free guide you could take that would give you more information based on some numbers they had on the (.25 mile) trail.

 I didn't check my camera settings on this next one, so it's way over exposed, but you can kind of see people crawling down into a replica of what their underground huts looked like.  There was also a granary.

 All in all, it was very cool, and worth the $6 per car and 2 hour drive each way.  It also helped that the place was completely empty, until we were about to leave, and so I wasn't worried about my kids disturbing other people.

We ate lots of good food - including convincing the McCarthy's to deviate from their usual Chinese-food-on-New-Years' tradition by introducing K to the wonders of sushi.  (turns out, she's not a fan)  It's funny, they were surprised that we didn't have to order our food in the afternoon.  Apparently, Chinese food on New Years' Eve is a "thing" back East, so you have to plan ahead, or get your food closer to midnight.

 We celebrated the "New Year" at about 6:30 so our kids could go to bed on time. :)  K helped me get the supplies and she thought Silly String was an essential part of the holiday, much to my chagrin and the kids' delight.  ;)

K and I got to spend that entire day shopping together.  It was very fun and made me realize how long it's been since I've been shopping, girls only, without the kids.

K also was begging to go try out the ropes course at Provo Beach Resort, and so I said I'd go with her.

 It's hard to get a sense of what it's like, but you're either 2 or 3 stories up, trying to balance across various obstacles- the whole time being harnased.

 It was pretty fun and not really that scary, except when I tried to walk across things without using my hands-  then, all of a sudden my heart would race and I'd realize how high up I was.

 The kids had to, of course, ride the $1 carousel.  This was Hazel's first time on one.  I couldn't really see her face to tell if she enjoyed it, but she wasn't crying so....

 Peach, on the other hand, LOVED IT and begged for more.

We went swimming a couple of times and not pictured here is our second swimming session cut short because Jay was showing me his "dolphin" and swam across the entire pool underwater, with his eyes closed.  (that last part I didn't know until...)  And he swam straight into the cement side of the pool.  Despite urging from myself and his mom, Jay sided with his dad (also a doctor-phobe) and opted to not get stitches because the idea of spending 8 hours in an emergency room on a Saturday didn't sound fun.  I secured it pretty well with 2 butterfly bandages and he didn't touch it for the whole week he was out of town.  Now there is just a mark... we shall see if it scars or not.

Peach jumping in!

mmmm. chlorine...

As I briefly mentioned a couple of posts ago, we got to spend a couple of extra days with his family because their flight was cancelled due to a major snowstorm in Boston.  As annoying as it is to have a change of plans like that, we were all glad, especially the kids, for a bit more time with Nanie and Gampie :)

Will someone please please remind me to get a group shot of everyone next time we're together?!!

thanks :)

Phone Pics...

I'm not sure what happened... last week just came and went!  I had some posts I was meaning put up, but I still haven't uploaded my camera photos and it's late (I'm scheduling this post for tomorrow morning), and I'd like to go to bed, but I was talking on the phone late to Jay (who is in Boston now, and was gone all last week) and my battery was dying, so I plugged my phone into my computer and it uploaded photos from my phone.  

I thought I'd do a quick recap...

 a cute shot of The Frog who fell asleep with his legs hanging off the sofa while reading this book.  Must have been a real page-turner...

 I made these stickers for these flashlights that we gave to our YW for girls' camp.  The theme was "Stand".

 I don't remember where this was...  probably just out for one of our walks in the neighborhood, but I thought Hazel looked so cute and relaxed, lounging all skeewampus with her leg hanging over the edge like that.  Maybe you had to be there...

 This was me trying to capture our fun Family Home Evening lesson where we had a pizza dinner on the Provo Temple grounds and talked about temples.  (which our kids, and we, really loved!)  I have a feeling the kodak moment was gone by the time I pulled out my phone.  (the older kids loved running to the fountain and back while they ate)

 Went for another one of our neighborhood walks one day and this was going on.  Apparently, there are some places that don't have sprinklers and they get irrigation water or something.  I can't believe that this happens once a week only a couple of blocks from our house and I had no idea after living here for 5 years!!

 A bunch of neighborhood kids were already there playing in it.  This is Peach trying to hide the fact that she wet her pants...

I'm starting to notice a pattern... perhaps The Frog's feet enjoy the freeing sensation of falling while he sleeps?

 One day, Hazel just woke up from her nap really early and we were having leftovers for dinner that night, so I thought it would be fun to just spontaneously go on a quick "hike" (this is paved and very short) to Bridal Veil Falls, which is super close to our house and stroller (and bike) friendly.

 It ended up being such a fun little excursion!

 Peach likes to make sure her baby is strapped into her carseat properly.  She will not allow us to leave unless the arms and legs are coming out in the right places.

 This is the kids playing on the playground at The Frog's new preschool (at BYU) on "getting-to-know-you" day where he met his teacher, class pets, and familiarized himself with the classroom.  They have tons of these awesome tricycles there!

We were invited to go have dinner at one of Jay's colleague's homes after The Frog's birthday party, when we were completely DRENCHED in rain!  This is me trying to take a picture in the Costco parking lot (after getting gas) of the people sloshing through water almost to their KNEES!  Thank goodness this didn't happen during his party!

 This was a random silly pic I took on my phone to text Jay and make him wish he was home with cute us, instead of at a boring CS conference in St. Louis. ;)

 I actually tried combing The Frog's hair before church, just for fun (I usually just try to keep it so short I don't have to bother with it...) and I thought he'd make a super-cute Dennis the Mennace :)  His hair doesn't enjoy being parted, though, and it went back to scraggly and moppish soon thereafter.

 Peach wanted me to take a picture of her too, after taking one of The Frog

But everyone kept moving and I couldn't get a good one.

And that's it!  The spur-of-the-moment events that have happened since I last uploaded photos from my phone (July).