Parade of homes

 I am so behind with my pictures that I decided I better just start with today and go forward and try and catch up later (so I don't get even more behind).

I went to the Parade of Homes with my aunt Ellen when I was 12 and staying with her for a week of the summer.  I thought it was so much fun and I still remember this incredible bedroom in one of the homes that had a huge mural of Noah's ark on the wall.  I have wanted to do it again ever since and the opportunity presented itself this year, so we took it.

I was pretty nervous buying tickets and wondering if the boys were actually going to let us do this or not, and we had our ups and downs by they enjoyed a lot of it as well. 

 We saw some pretty plain houses and some EXTREMELY fancy ones.  This one was so fancy they had a video camera before the drive up gate.





The windows were incredible and took up the whole wall with the view.

The boys showing that they could relax and get used to a house like this!  These windows were in the bedroom.

The funnest part was getting to see the "UP" house.  They built an exact replica of the house in the movie and it was so cute.  

A real live Carl and Russell.

They even gave the boys balloons as we left.  Chase thought it was pretty neat to walk through the house.  He really like "UP" (called "the balloon show" at our house) and enjoyed the house, until we got downstairs.  They sponsored a make a wish for a little boy that loved Toy story and so they decorated one of the rooms in honor of that kid and included tons of "Andy's toys".  They had a slinky dog and that was too much for Chase, (if you know his obsession with hoses, or slinky hoses, or slinky dog, then you will understand.)  We had to leave after seeing that room.

The rest of the Colorado trip

You know... the one that happened like two months ago? (nice...)

I like to try things once to say I have and that is the reason I decided to Bungee Jump.  That and Daniel really wanted to do it and I know that I would never live it down if I chickened out.  It turned out about as bad as I imagined it, .... actually worse.  I imagined that once I "took the leap" that everything would be fine.  I climbed to the top of the tower and I could hardly breathe, partially because it was like a million flights of stairs up, but mostly from the anxiety that was increasingly constricting my air way the higher up I saw how far down I would be falling.  Once at the top I said a quick good bye as I watched Daniel dive off the tower with no problems.  I was thinking maybe it was one of those things that seems harder than it is.
      The guy at the top asked me how I wanted to go and at first it seemed like a good idea to go like Daniel did, just diving, but when I got my leg wrapped around the big padded pole that would fall with me I quickly realized that just wasn't going to happen.  I asked if I could just go off normally.  This is where I didn't know enough.  I didn't know what was normal or what the options even were, so he told me to just let myself fall.  Yeah, I don't know about anyone else, but my body has a problem with just letting me fall off of a 75 foot edge.  I couldn't do it.  I stood on the platform for what seemed like forever.  I kept telling the guy up there with me to tell me exactly what would happen and when, when would the bungee cord catch me, when would I land, etc.  After what felt like an hour and probably realistically was a couple full minutes of standing on the ledge (might not sound long, but it felt long!) I heard Daniel yelling words of encouragement.  For the first time I noticed him down there watching me and to my horror there was a gathering of people taking bets on whether I would chicken out or not.  Ok, not really, but there really was a group of passerby's that stopped on their way to another ride to see if I would be able to do it.  At that point I knew I HAD to do it, so I sat there for a little while longer and finally just let myself go.
      I did just what I was told, just let myself start falling.  When my body was parallel to the ground I panicked.  I did NOT want to end up falling on my head so I freaked.  At some point I flipped over with my back towards the ground and ended up with the bungee cord catching me in a back flop.  My whole body was jerked and a terrible sound of pain and humiliation escaped my mouth.  It was finally over and I have sworn over and over that I will never do that again!  Daniels thinking skydiving would be fun now.....



Sunday was time to head back to Moab.  Daniel loves to take the scenic route and see new things.  I like to see new things, but I don't like to drive.  I drive to get the a destination so I wasn't thrilled when Daniel suggested we take a back route that would take 2 extra hours to get home ( on top of the 4 hours we already had to go to get to Moab and then 4.5 hours on top of that to get back home late that day) BUT, being his birthday I had no choice but to happily oblige. It turned out to be a pretty neat drive.

We came around a sharp corner on a curvy mountain road and saw these funny little things so we had to pull over.

They are "coke ovens" from the late 1880's where coal was heated in the oven to produce coke, a combustible material that burns practically smoke free.  I still don't really understand why, but they were pretty cool.  They were being rebuilt as you can see from the ones in the center.

.... and more...

... and more....

We went off course for an hour drive up to Marble Colorado.   Here they mine giant slabs of marble that are used all over for marble statues.  They just had these huge marble slabs sitting all over the place, but we didn't really have time to stop and check things out much.

And the waterfalls.  The were all over lining the highway and they were gorgeous I was really surprised when we passed the first one that we just had to stop, but they became a pretty common sight and unfortunately we didn't have time to explore each one.

 

I saw this idea on the internet (where all my good ideas come from  :) and knew I had to copy it.  It was so much fun to see into a three year old's mind on some of these matters and I plan on doing this at least once a year to create a little book for him.   My personal favorites are that his favorite food is fish.  I think he has only had fish once in his life and it was several months ago, and that he is going to be a dragon when he grows up.  At least I can be prepared for that!  I was surprised that his favorite color is brown because he loves orange and always picks orange when there is a choice.  On the food that he dislikes, he have to know that food with spideys can be anything from hot dogs with black cooked spot on it  to the strings on bananas.  He is extremely picky and anything that he doesn't want to eat (just about everything I cook) he will find some sort of "spidey" on it.

On an evening walk/ bike ride a couple nights ago, Chase was getting tired and ornery and we were trying to just get home so we could get the boys to bed.  Chase was stalling and whining a lot and our patience started to grown thin.  We both finally said "Chase!  Come on.  Let's keep going and just get home."  When suddenly he turned around and said "Dad, you're my hero."  Talk about guilt.  About five minutes later he jumps off his bike and comes running back to me and says, "mom, I just wanted to give you a hug."  Just when you think you might have some control in your house...

Chase also likes to play store.  He brings random toys and things to me and will aks me if I will pay him it (meaning if I will be the cashier at the store).  So I usually make up some random amount of money it's going to cost him, he will pretend to pay me and I will pretend to give him some change.  This morning as we played I didn't give him any change so he says to me, " you forgot to give me my mind!"

Glenwood Springs

As mentioned before, June is a pretty packed month for us.  When trying to figure something out for our anniversary we didn't really have much to spend so we knew we had to hang pretty close, but we did manage to get an awesome babysitter (Grandma) for the weekend so we went to Colorado.  And found Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. 

It sounded right up our alley.  Right in Glenwood Springs there is a tram you can hop on and it takes you to the top of a mountain (Daniels says hill, but in my eyes it was a mountain!) where they have a little amusement park and a cave.  It was so much fun.  This was the giant swing.  Much scarier than it looks because it is sitting right on the edge of a huge cliff off of the mountain so as you are swinging downward at really high speeds you are plunging down a huge cliff!  Such a rush!  And then as it swings you back up you are just praying and praying that you will stop and not fly off into space.  Quite similar to skycoaster at Lagoon only probably not quite as high and you are strapped into a seat.

Daniel with the tram behind him. (I didn't really want to try and keep track of my camera up there while trying to ride all the rides so I hesitantly opted to leave it behind in the car.  I'm so glad I did, but the quality of the pictures are because they are from Daniels phone)

The view down off the hill.  We ate  lunch at their little restaurant up there and that's the view from our table.

We HAD to try out the bull riding just to say we've done it- but it really wasn't fun at all.  Neither or us got thrown, just jerked around.

We also went on a tour of the privately owned cave up there.  We've been to several others and never really get bored of how fascinating caves are and the fun stories that come out of the discovery and exploring of the the caves.

The cave opened up to a ledge on the same cliff that the giant swing goes off, I wish I would have gotten a better picture of the huge drop off below but you can see how the swing just hangs you right off the cliff there.

Sorry about the unorganized manor to this post but I really just need to get caught up.  A few more pics of the trip to come along with the dramatic tale of the scariest things I've ever done to myself- BUNGEE JUMPING!!

 

June 8th

June is such a busy month for us every year with mine and Daniels birthdays, fathers day, and our anniversary.  It gets a little crazy.  Unfortunately I somehow managed to delete all the picture from my birthday except this one.

The boys and I just took it easy and played most the day besides all the cleaning I did- my gift to myself was a clean house!  Then we met up with Daniel and went out to an old favorite restaurant (Tucanos) and then over to temple square to just enjoy the afternoon together.  The boys had fun just running around and I had fun snapping pictures (until I deleted them all).

It was a perfect day. 

When I was a monkey....

 2 little boys  

 + backyard swimming pool

+ popsicles

= pure heaven... for all of us.

This is a story that Chase told us tonight out of the blue.  I was laughing so hard I couldn't help but write it down.

When I was a monkey I was swinging on those strings up there (power lines).  They kinda shocked me a little then I swung down into the car and I was in the Thingamajig.  The hands buckled me in and them mom was there.  I didn't want to get into the bath tub because there was a big..... RED........ CLIFFORD!!!  So we got a Christmas tree and we got his out.  That's the end.
My new favorite story :)

Mothers day

On Mothers Day this cute little face came and woke me up, chocolate and all, and I knew it was going to be a good breakfast.

I went downstairs to find this handsome man cooking,

and sat down at the table for this wonderful breakfast!

(crepe filled with chocolate pudding, strawberries, and bananas with bacon on the side.)  It was perfect!