Memorial day weekend

 For the long Memorial day weekend, we headed down to Lyman.  One might think that after 6 years of marriage I would understand my husband a little better, but on Saturday Daniel asked if I wanted to go South and have a pick nick.  I was totally imagining going somewhere down in Capitol Reef were the boys could run around and play in dirt for the majority of the day.  Sounded like fun to me!

I was sorely mistaken.  What he meant was: Do you want to go on a FOREVER long drive stopping for a few minutes to eat lunch in the terrible wind with no soft sand for kiddo and dirt blowing in our eyes? Only to get back in the truck and drive FOREVER more?!?

In all seriousness I had a fun day, but it ended up being a little much on the driving.  We stopped to look at a map and stretch Chase's legs while Brody slept and we found some tadpoles.

 Daniel caught one for Chase to hold.

 It takes Chase a lot of concentration to get his hands in the proper position for holding things.


 We did stop for a little while when Daniel saw a Geode off to the side of the road, we all piled out and went Geode hunting.  Finally some fun sand for the boys to dig in!

We found tons of geodes but these ones didn't have cool crystals in the inside.

We had to stop for a photo op when we reached big horn mountain... or something of the sort.  Our very first time on the Henrys :)

.........Boys!  Just a different breed :)

On Monday went to visit Daniel's Grandma and Grandpa Torgerson's grave.

And then we headed home.  This is Brody after we gave him a cookie in the car and didn't pay attention to him for a while.  We assumed he was eating it because he calmed down after we gave it to him.  We didn't realize he was rubbing it all over his face :)

Florida- part 3

 On Monday we drove 1.5 hours over to Crescent Beach to see the ocean on the Atlantic side.   It was a chilly windy day and the water was colder, but we swam and boogie boarded.

 It was so windy that the sand buried our stuff while we were in the water.

   We had a bit more beach to ourselves than we did in Clearwater.

Florida- part 2

We spent Saturday night- Tuesday morning at Camille's house (Daniels sister that lives in Gainesville).  Attending church in Florida was a little different than Utah.  The Sister that taught Relief Society talked a lot about how her son was made fun of for being the only Mormon on the football team, and that finally a Mormon football coach had taken over the team.  A lot of people told stories of being the lone Mormon in their different activities and jobs and it was interesting to hear a perspective so different from Utah- the only thing I have ever known.
       A couple of the girls on the trip wanted to see an alligator so we went back to the alligator park that Camille took Daniel, Chase and I 2 years ago.  Once again, it as really neat and really creepy.

 Two and a half weeks ago, I did what every good worn out mother does, left my husband and children to fend for themselves and hit the beaches of Florida.

It was a fabulous *mostly* girls trip with Daniels parents and all of his sisters.

We flew into Tampa and stayed the first couple of nights in Clearwater beach, on the beach.  The harbor view from our room (open ocean on other side):

 The crew on the pier.

 We were watching a the ocean wildlife.

A pirate ship- some sort of entertainment for the kids.

The dark blob in the water is one of a group of sting ray we saw on the pier about 100 yards or so from where we were swimming. Yikes!  We know it was a sting ray because the college kids swimming right on top of them went under with goggles and came back up screaming.

The first full day of being there we rented chairs and set up a spot on the beach and we would go from the water to the warmth for a snack  and back to the water.  I was sitting on the beach with Alynn and heard, "Oh my gosh!  I just saw something.... like... a fish!".  I was thinking ok, we've been seeing little fish all day when I looked up and saw where she was pointing and saw the fin out of water just behind where the rest of our group was swimming.  We both kinda freaked out not knowing whether it was a shark or dolphin or what?!?!
My body wanted to start screaming, "shark! shark!" but I kept control and we realized with was a dolphin by the way he was swimming and what others were saying :)
Every time I tried to take a picture of it, he would go under and not come back up.  The closest I got was a splash.

We got a little adventurous and went para sailing.  Because we had such a large group they gave us a discount of the longest length of rope so we went all out.

Teresa and I up in the air.

A Clearwater beach sunset.

Here I am the morning we left Clearwater.  It was a pretty cold day and we didn't do a whole lot of swimming.

 Hanging out at Miller Sports park watching the motorcycles and karts racing proved to be an entertaining way to enjoy a Saturday.

We had a visitor...

 Uncle Brennan came and stayed with us for a couple days and Chase loved every minute of it.  Besides following Brennan EVERYWHERE, he talked Brennan into fixing his toy drill with his "sire iron" (Soldering iron).

He also took over Brennan's Computer to watch "Tom and Jerry" and I could hear him randomly telling Brennan every couple of minutes "Brennan I can do it all by myself right?  I can find Tom and Jerry by myself!"

Chase was sad to see him go, but I was even more sad because I rarely get some free time in the middle of the day.

Brody turns 1 (with a whole lotta' pictures)

 I'm definitely not a cake decorator, but I spent a lot of time on Chase's first cake so I wanted to do the same for Brody.  I found the idea for a candyland cake in Parents magazine and decided to make my own.

 Complete with Lollipop land

Ice cream cones

Gingerbread men and the candy path the follow.


I really didn't think it would take all that much to make this cake, but it ended up taking me all day.  And when all was finished I set the cake out of the way to wait for Daniel to get home.  Turns out the ice cream cones were too heavy for the cake to hold up that long and a couple hours of sitting on the table I noticed this:


 A hole in the cake that took me ALL DAY to make :(  I decided to just shove the ice cream cone back in the cake more towards the middle and a couple hours later....

a BIGGER hole in my cake :(


Oh well, I just turned that around to the back.  See can't even tell there is a complete disaster in the back.

The birthday boy checking out the cake

 The many expressive faces that came from the next twenty minutes.

 This was the only handful that made it in his mouth and it came right back out.  He thought it was lots of fun to pound and smoosh with his hands, but not good for eating!


A birthday kiss from Chase

My boys

A quick family shot with the remote (seriously the greatest invention for the camera!)

And here's my big boy.

I took him to the doctor today and he weights 23.5 lbs.  He is catching up to Chase pretty fast.  Despite the chunky legs and cheeks this kid is only 50% for weight and a bit higher for height.