Sunday Highlights

1. Sneaking binkies  Abby has a binky when she goes to sleep.  When she wakes up she sucks on it while she wakes up and then we go throw it in her bed.  Sometimes it lands in a spot where she can still reach it.  So I had to laugh when one day this week she got it out of her bed and then wanted me to put her in her chair, snuggle the blanket around her and get her a book.  She is so darn cute!

2. Blurry vision  A couple of months ago Kate started complaining about blurry vision and was begging for glasses.  Honestly, I didn't really believe her at first, but she kept whining about it.  So, finally one day I had her stand back from the microwave and try to see the numbers on the clock.  We had to get pretty close before she could see them and I felt bad for not believing her.  So I took her in to the eye doctor.  And yes, she does need glasses.  Her vision isn't horrible, but it would make it difficult to see the board from the back of the room.  Luckily, she doesn't have the same weird optic nerve thing that Matt and I do.  What is really funny is that when Matt was in 3rd grade, in April, he got his glasses and their prescriptions were very similar.  Creepy!

3. Signs of spring You know it's spring for me when I paint my toenails.  So I pulled Kate and Sara into the bathroom with me yesterday and we all painted our toenails.  Abby was with us and watching us so I painted hers too.  It was so much fun!  Abby is so silly.

4. Mountain biking and hiking  On Saturday Matt wanted to go on a bike ride with Jerry and Sara decided to go along too.  So we met Jerry after he'd ridden a few miles and he took those two.  Kate and Abby and I hiked along the trail they rode on for a while.  We had fun.  Abby stopped and touched every single plant.  Kate and I enjoyed walking along at a very slow pace.  I had a great time with her.  I like getting her alone and letting her talk about things.  She is a sweetheart!

 Here is Matt coming down the trail.

 He was ahead of Sara and Jerry so he stopped and talked to us for a while.  He loved this trail.  Jerry planned it so that they wouldn't have to ride quite as much uphill.  Matt had a great time.

 Sara also had a great time.  She was coming at me like a maniac!  I'm not sure why I was taking pictures instead of video.  Duh!  Jerry says she is very natural on her bike and will keep her pedals parallel and sit up on her seat.  Makes him proud!  Sara rode a short section and then Jerry took Matt on a longer ride.  All in all Jerry rode 20 miles yesterday and 13 the day before.  Kudos to him!

Matt suffered is first major wreck!  He learned that rocks are not forgiving!  Jerry said he was very tough about it and kept riding down.  Battle wounds always look awesome, right?  He said that taking out the wrecks of course, this was his favorite ride ever.  Yea!

5. RunGr8  You might remember I love this one, local running store.  On Saturdays they have a group run and yesterday they had hidden some eggs along the course.  So I ran with some of the other ladies and had fun talking and looking for eggs.  I was talking with one girl who I've run with before and she has told me before that her husband doesn't love the fact that she runs and doesn't really support her and that he gets made when she spends money on races and traveling to St. George to run the marathon there etc.  She told me a little more yesterday and I felt really bad for her.  She told me that it came up in conversation with another couple that she has always had a goal to qualify for Boston.  She told me that later he said to her that she would have to come up with a new goal because he would never let her go to Boston.  She made it sound like it was a final, end of discussion type statement, but I don't really know.  I felt really bad for her.  She's older than me and her husband is an attorney and their youngest child is graduating from high school and I don't get the impression that they're strapped for cash or even time really.  It was a sad conversation and it made me really grateful for Jerry and how supportive he is of any hobby of mine.  I'm also glad that he has his own hobbies and we can work together on balancing things.  

Four for Funday Sunday

We had some perfect spring weather this week so we filled our days with a ton of activities.  I'm exhausted!  It was a very fun week.  Here are some of our activities.

1. Boondocks  We met some friends at our local Boondocks and had fun riding go karts, bumper boats, playing laser tag, video games, and miniature golf.  Bumper boats and go karts were definitely the favorites.  Everyone could drive their own boat on bumper boats so that was fun.

It was a warm day, about 70, so it was perfect to be outside, but after they got soaked on the boats, it got a little cold!  Sara had a ton of fun.  She cracked me up.  One time she went on the boats by herself with a group of other young boys.  She kept going after them even though they were kind of mean and ganging up on her.  I felt kind of bad for her and really wanted to tip the boys out of their boats, but I just had to watch it all from the side.  She was kind of mad at the end because of how they kept soaking her, but she told me she said to them, "If you come after me, I'm going to spray you."  Funny girl.

 Abby was very patient all day and even took a nap in her stroller.  I cracked up when I saw she'd fallen asleep playing with her belly button.  As a fellow belly button player, I was very proud of her!  There is just something so fascinating about that body part!  If she had an outie, I'm sure we'd have a mini me on our hands!

2. Stretching  I've given Kate and Sara the job of helping Abby stay flexible.  Kate taught her how to do the butterfly stretch.  Abby will stretch and then when she gets praised for it, she'll jump up and down and clap and then sit down and do it again.  It's quite the show.  I hope she stays as flexible as she is now.

3. Antelope island  When Matt was a baby Jerry and I decided to explore Antelope Island.  We drove up there one summer day, brought up a picnic lunch and hoped to check out the Great Salt Lake.  We found a picnic spot and got out and were instantly bombarded by bugs.  They would go right to your hairline and bite and it was horrible  We were out of the car for about 2 minutes and we quickly got back in and just drove around the island.  Along the causeway, there were plumes of bugs.  It was so bad.  We swore we'd never go back.  Fast forward to last summer and a friend of mine was in town and wanting an adventure and suggested we go to Antelope Island.  I immediately shot her down and then felt bad for dashing her hopes.  She went without us.  She had a better experience then we did although it wasn't bug free.  But she did have fun with her kids and they even floated in the lake for a minute.  So then I decided I needed to suck it up and give the island another try.  I was hoping that the bugs wouldn't be so bad in April and I was right.  It was a better experience.  We did a couple of short hikes, found a geocache and stood in the GSL.  

 Kate and Sara loved playing in the sand.

 It was a long walk from the parking lot to the edge of the water.

 Abby hated the sand.  She wouldn't move at all if I put her in it.  I stood her in the water and she didn't know what to do for about 5 minutes and then she figured it out and loved it.  She soaked herself and went pantless the rest of the day!

 Kate is my beach loving girl.  She could stay at a beach all day long just playing in the sand.  While walking out to the water we saw a couple of kids walking back totally naked.  We laughed about that and called them nakeybabies and nudies.  At some point, Kate sat in the water and got her bum wet.  It was totally uncomfortable for her to walk back to the car so she would pull her shorts down and let her shirt cover her bum so all day we laughed hard about her being a nakeybaby and a nudie.  Silly, but hilarious!

 We had fun hiking and caching.

 We drove around the island and saw the bison.  We also saw an antelope, a jackrabbit and even a dead snake on the road.

 We checked out the old ranch on the farm.  Sara got all ready for the cattle drive this summer!

All in all, we were glad we went, but it's still not my favorite place in Utah and I don't think we'll be back there soon, but if you come visit me and want to go, I promise I won't shoot your idea down!

4. Goblin Valley  This has been our highlight of this off track time.  We had such a great time the last time we went to Goblin Valley and we decided it was time to go back.  We wanted to make it a bit longer of a trip so we wanted to camp.  Unfortunately, the campground was full all the way until July, so we decided we'd camp in Green River, about 45 minutes away.  You can camp at Goblin Valley in other places besides the campground, but little girls and no bathroom is not my favorite.  Jerry had camped in Green River with the YM once and thought it was the KOA there.  Turns out there is another, better campground in Green River that they'd camped at and we were stuck with, well, less than ideal.  At least it had a clean bathroom and running water though!

 Our tent site, if you can call it that, was right next to this park.  The kids had a BLAST!  They played well into the dark, stopping only for hot dogs and smores and played all morning until we left.  Sara kept asking if we could go back after Goblin Valley to play there some more.  I heard her tell Kate after the trip that the playground was her favorite.  What's funny is that we go to parks but this one was old school, and by old school I mean old.  It was all metal.  It had a wooden teetor totter, this glider and awesome metal slide and a monkey gym.  Little tikes has ruined playgrounds for kids these days.  These kids need the old time playgrounds to have real fun!

 Our tent site, if you can call it that, was also right next to this Motel 6, where they'll keep more than one light on all night long for ya.  It was horrible.  Jerry was so mad.  We just laughed and said, "Memories.  Creating memories!"  It was fun, though not ideal for camping, but the kids had a great time.

 Goblin Valley did not disappoint!  We had such a great time there.  It is such a unique, weird, crazy place.  Everyone should see it at least once.

 The kids were really excited to climb the goblins, but don't worry, we didn't knock any down!

 Matt was feeling pretty cool that he could climb higher and better than the last time we were there.

 Jerry and I were there too and loved being together as a family.

 The goblins...

 I thought this area was so pretty and right next to a geocache we found.  The spring run off would come down here.  It probably came down in January this year!  It would be a beautiful waterfall, I think.

 Peek-a-boo

 Abby was there too!  She actually did so well all trip.  What a great little girl!

In the afternoon we were going to hike a nearby slot canyon, but there were some pretty dark rain clouds in the sky and there have been a lot of weird rescues in Utah this spring and we didn't want to be another one of those!  So we hiked some different parts of Goblin Valley.  We walked out to Molly's castle overlook.  It was pretty although not as unique as the goblins.  So we went back to the goblins and played sardines.  It. Was. Awesome!  Kate and I had the best hiding spot.  It was a blast.  We had a great time together.  I love the cool things in Utah!

Four for Sunday

1. General Conference  I, like so many others, love General Conference weekend.  I mean, who doesn't love watching church from the comforts of your own couch, in jammies or sweats?  Right?  We've played bingo since Matt and Kate were little to help them pay attention.  We made sure Abby had her own bingo sheet today.  It lasted all of about 5 minutes, she actually really likes to color so 5 minutes, I thought, was pretty good.  After that she climbed over all of us, back and forth, for the rest of the time.  It kept us awake though!  I loved so many of the talks.  I especially loved the one from the presiding bishop.  I loved the analogy of this life being the equivalent of 4 minutes in eternity and we'll have the rest of eternity to think about what we did good and what we could have done better at.  And how we can all work really, really hard for 4 minutes, right? Of course, I loved the shout out to Torah Bright (as well as the other LDS Olympic medal winners) and the fact that he skis and snowboards as well.  I wonder how many days he gets out on the slopes!  I also loved President Monson's talk.  How could you not?  I just loved the focus on loving others.  It was a great day/weekend.

2. Bountiful Baskets  Maybe you've heard of Bountiful Baskets.  I hadn't, by name, until a couple of weeks ago.  I had heard from my sister who lives in California and Jerry's brother in Arizona about this co-op thing they did where they got a huge basket of fresh fruits and vegetables for an inexpensive price.  I thought it sounded cool, but I just didn't know much about it and I thought it might only be in California or Arizona where they have good growing seasons.  I was telling some friends about it and they were like, "Oh yeah, Bountiful Baskets."  Even Jerry knew all about it.  So, apparently, I'm really slow to clue into some things.  But I did some quick research and fell in love with it immediately.  This past Friday I picked up my first basket and we. love. it!  My kids were so excited about it.  I talked it up big all week.  The girls came with me to get the basket and then we got home we pulled out all the goods.  Within about 5 minutes they'd eaten a bunch of apple slices, half of a melon and cucumber slices.  They wanted to eat more, but I thought for the sake of digestive issues, they should stop.  I packed the rest of the stuff in the refrigerator and was so excited that I almost didn't have room for it all.  We got bananas, pears, apples, honeydew, artichokes, peppers of all colors, onions, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, lettuce, broccoli and I think that's it.  Fantastic.  I am hoping to get some different fruits and vegetables to explore with.  I'm sure some we won't like.  My sister was telling me about getting kale.  I have not jumped on the kale band wagon yet, and don't expect to.  I'm not sure I'll be thrilled about eggplant; I hope we don't get that.  I was excited for the artichokes this week.  The only time I've eaten them fresh was when I was in college and visited my friend in Huntington Beach and her parents were on an artichoke kick.  I looked up some recipes on pinterest and we tried this boil/grill recipe.  It was SO good and the kids loved it!  We ate all that we cooked.  I saved one to try steaming.  We'll do that this week.

A weird fruit, but it was so good and I'm so glad we got some.  So far, after one week, the basket is a success.  Hopefully, we can stay excited about it so that it all gets eaten.

3. Running shoes  I got some new running shoes this week.  It makes me happy.  If you followed me on instagram, you would already know that I'd bought new shoes.  If you don't follow me on instagram I say, "WHAT?"  What was so funny was that I put some hashtags under my post and one of them was #mykindofshoeshopping.  Matt saw that and asked if anyone else had put that hashtag, so I clicked on it and sure enough, 21 other people had put that hashtag.  They were all pictures of running shoes.  Awesome.

  

4. Off track  We've been off track for two weeks now.  We had better weather in February.  Fantastic.  This week looks better.  Fun times, here we come!