Park City Vaca

This vacation was all about just getting away and relaxing for a change! We wanted some place we didn't have to fly to and someplace cooler than 115 degrees. So we picked Park City Utah and we couldn't have been happier.We started off with our boys and one of Hayden's friends, H. Geoff Hilton for the first couple of days. They could only stay 2 days so they could get home and go to football bootcamp. So we packed in the action and tried to keep them busy. Christina drove up from Provo so that made it even more fun. Our first full day we visited the Olympic Park where they did the ski jumping, bobsled etc. It was amazing to see it in person. You can see the bobsled run behind Hayden. For a mere $60 you could ride down it once. It was tempting but...no. We spent enough on the ziplines and alpine slide thanks.

What a team.

The ski jumps were so high it was amazing. I can't picture jumping off those suckers for any amount of money. To the left you can see the ziplines that the 3 boys went down.

I was actually brave enough to go down the smaller zipline with the guys. It was actually quite fun after you get over the initial terror.

Then all 6 of us headed back up the mountain and rode the alpine slide. It was pretty tough talking Christina into it but she did it. In fact she had a ball. We all decided it was worth the extra $45 and we went on it a second time!
Here's all four guys in one shot heading back up to the top. Hayden looks much more relaxed than he was on his first trip up!

Ready to get sliding:
Not sure what Jeff is up to here.

Hayden is out of the chute and Jeff is waiting for his green light to blast down.

After all the fun we went back to the condo to relax and play. It was just beautiful there. To the left there are 7 hot tubs hidden amongst the trees. Hayden and Geoff tried the action there but nothing but adults the night they were there.

We fought off all the little kids and got a little ping pong and chess in. The pool tables was really stiff competition. We had played 1 game of pool and while we were deciding whose was playing next kids swooped in and stole our table so we quit for the night.

Notice the balmy weather we were having as we played around outside...perfect.

Christina and I had great fun after the boys left. We curled up and watched movies for a couple of nights. We went shopping and watched lots of HGTV. Mendis and I managed to work out pretty much everyday. I had illusions of going hiking but the altitude was too killer for me to do any of that. We found lots of great food up there too. AND...surprise surprise, Charlie, Alisha and Allie were up there for a couple of days too so we had dinner together one night at this great little BBQ place they found. Awesome!


We felt like we had a fabulous time that week. Mendis and I spent a day in the genealogy library once. We drove to Provo and watched the BYU football scrimmage. We went to Heaps and had lots of fun. Christina was able to come up every night but one so we spent lots of time with her too. We met Christina's friend Sherman and we played games and had pizza with Laura and Rachel Nettles too. Seriously I don't know how we did it all and relax too looking back but it was one of our favorite vacations ever. We even managed to turn a 6 hour drive home into about 9 by taking the back way on hwy 89. Ahhh life is good. Back to the grind!

Dinner with the Holyoaks

We had a special treat earlier this month. We have friends we have known since our BYU trailer days that were close by for a few days. Trust me this was no small feat since for the last 3 years they have been living in Hong Kong! It wasn't much better before that because they have been living in the Chicago area for years. Thanks to Christmas cards, facebook and blogging we have been able to keep in semi-contact over the years. We haven't actually had a in-person visit for years so you can imagine how fun it was to find out they were going to be in St George.
We set up a night to get together and and went on up. It was fun so fun to catch up with them and pick up where we left off years ago. Some friendships die of natural causes over the years and some seem like no matter how long its been you can jump right back in and enjoy your time together. We have that kind of of a relationship that we just enjoy each others company no matter how long it's been. We hope it doesn't take so long to get together next time. Life will start to slow down I think in the next few years so it shouldn't be so hard. We'll see huh. Maybe we will get to jet over to Hong Kong to visit before they come back!!

AAU

Well lets just say my photographic skills aren't getting any better. Help Megan!! I just can't take a good indoor action shot to save my life. But anyway this is supposed to be about Hayden.

Hayden spent almost everyday or at least 3 times a week running into Vegas to play basketball on his AAU team this summer. The gas bill was enormous. Basically it cost a fortune and a ton of time. He had a good experience but we are still trying to decide if it was really worth it. College coaches claim it breeds players who are selfish and all about offense with very little defence and I have to say I agree. Most players were great guys but a many especially on opposing teams left little to be desired.



Hayden made some great friends and learned to deal with alot of situations. He learned to play with the best of them but it was more frustration than anything at times. It's hard to take kids from different schools and different commitments to practice and have then work as a team consistently especially with college coaches looking on. We'll see if it all pays off this year on his high school team. It was awesome that Coach Larsen and Coach Bushman came out to see him play in his last tournament. It meant alot to him and us.

Mr Straight A's

So here's a big shout out to Jeff. It's always pretty exciting when you get good grades. Jeff managed to pull all A's (well one was an A minus so that's still an A) for his 1st semester at BYUI. Way to go! I hope he continues to keep those grades up and have fun doing it up there in Idaho. We are bursting our buttons and it's not all from weight gain although there's plenty of that going on too.
In all fairness here Hayden only got one B too so pretty awesome twosome. No wonder we are bursting the buttons.

Toy Story 3

My goodness I almost forgot to share this adorable picture!
I just saw it again this week and had to put it up for the kids to see. This is Mendis, Hayden and I taking Rees to see his first ever movie at a theater. We were so excited to see Toy Story 3 and take him along. I knew he would love it and I was right! He is sitting on one of those cute little booster seats so he can see and wearing his 3d glasses.It's a miracle I got the photo of him with the glasses on actually since he wouldn't wear them at all in the movie. We bought treats galore and planned to bribe him with food if necessary. He ate pretty much all the popcorn and chatted during the whole movie. It was the cutest thing. Notice the look of concern on Hayden's face...he was worried Rees would make a scene or something on the movie. He did great. What a blast!!

Sidewalk Chalk and Bubbles and Hopscotch

Not sure who more fun. Rees, Jeff, Hayden or Benjy....well maybe me!

This is pretty darn cute:

Fun with sidewalk chalk too!

Canada Part 5

Guess I better wrap this up or people are going to loose interest! While we were in Canada my boss called me and said he was going to be closing the office for a couple more days while he and his wife flew to San Francisco to surprise his son who was coming home from his mission in Taiwan. So we stayed an extra day in Canada then figured we better get going. Love this picture of the typical scenery on our way home.We thought it was pretty clever that they bail up the grass between the highway. Watching them cut it is pretty fun too. Wish we had that kinda grass between the roads down here in Nevada.

We stopped in Rexburg and visited Jeff. Believe it or not I have never been there. What a cute little college town. We toured the campus which was pretty amazing. It was huge, especially when you are walking it. Lots of up hill too. They have this amazing garden in the center of campus. It was just beautiful. Jeff showed us where they played sardines and stuff like that while trying not to destroy the garden! There are waterfalls and gazebos everywhere...very charming.
Jeff lives pretty close to the temple. My final photo of the trip:
Well we hit the rode the next day and made it to Pleasant Grove in no time. We had Laura over and went to dinner and watched movies in Christina's bedroom. It was so fun. We all stretched out on her bed and watched a chic flick. That was a tradition that we started on the trip. We started going to bed and watching a movie on her computer. Pride and Prejudice was my favorite. The next day I made the final drive home. The temps went up steadily as I motored along but it was good to be home. It was a very fun little adventure. I highly recommend packing up just one of your kids and hitting the road for your very own trip.

Canada Part 4

We spent the day going to Banff National Park since we couldn't head back home as planned. We had a lovely drive through Canonaskiss (sp) park to get there. It's only open about 6-8 weeks every summer so the timing was right. We didn't think to bring snacks so we got a little silly with the little bit we had. Here's my creation with my baby belle cheese. Sometime in the afternoon we pulled into a little store and loaded up on snacks and treats. They saved us from loosing it. Not weight but just our sanity from starvation.

We spotted these lovely animals in a couple of places. They were right up by the car which is absolutely amazing!

It cost a small fortune to get into the park of course but my theme for the trip was " who cares, let's do it"

We made a quick tour of the little town of Banff. So quaint. Loved it and we wish we had more time to stop and explore.

The scenery was amazing. The pictures don't do it justice of course. I wish I could fit more on here but this is a quick smattering of the views:

This is one of the many animal crossings in the park so they are protected from the cars. Very Banff!

We drove up to Lake Moraine. I have never been there before and it was gorgeous. There was no parking what so ever so mom and dad dropped Chris and I off to take pictures while they waited in the car.
Beautiful Lake Louise. Again no parking so we got dropped off while we ran in to get photos. We ran to the hotel so we could go to the bathroom and snuck some photos there too.

Back to Calgary that afternoon and off we went to the Stampede finally. The chuckwagon races were so much fun. We had a blast. The show after the races was super fun too. It was a great time.


This is from the show. The drummer is way, way up in the air hanging by ropes. They kept doing that all night long just to make me nervous!
Here's some of the finale!

We headed for home directly after the show and got back about 3:30 in the morning. No one was allowed to sleep we we told stories all the way back to try and stay awake. It was nice but man were we tired by the time we staggered in.

Trip to Canada Part 3

Stampede Day!!

Or so we thought.Here we are riding the train downtown for the big day at the Stampede all full of excitement. Yes it was freezing so mom outfitted Christina and I in some appropriate clothes complete with mom and dad's nice warm jackets. We were set we thought.

The rain had already started but was off and on. But we thought we would be clever and head for the buildings and do the exhibitors etc until we absolutely had to brave the weather that night. Well it was warm and dry but I kept spending money!! I bought some lovely earrings for my birthday so that was fun. We strolled around until we had seen pretty much everything there was to see inside. It's hard to see but the quilts hanging on the side were lovely.

In the above photo the cowboy on the left of us there was one of those living statues that's why he looks so bronze.
We strolled through the animal barns. It was so cold the miniature horses were covered up to keep warm. Thought about swiping one of those blankets a few times. You should not be able to see your breath in the middle of a summer day. Mendis told me I could warm up and dry out next week when I got home so yup he was right again...dang it.


So time to head for the stadium and grab dinner on the way. We headed for hot chocolate immediately and it was so great. I didn't care how much it cost I was going to have hot chocolate and lots of it. You can see by the crowds we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Well as luck would have it we got the news that for the first time in 85 years the Chuck wagon races were rained out. We were just sick. We had an itinerary to keep, schedule to maintain and this wasn't what we had in mind. Luckily after waiting for ever in a line we were able to procure tickets to the same events the next night. Again trashed the schedule but we adapted.

We decided to just head out and went to Uncle Ricky's and Aunt Jane's for the night. We were sad and still freezing so Ricky built us a lovely fire. They read us some of Tyler's letter's from his mission that night as we sat around the fireplace. Quite lovely and we were pretty dog tired by then. We had a lovely Breakfast with all the fixins and headed out for our impromptu trip to kill time before the stampede...