Sara turns 8!

Sara has been so excited for her birthday.  Turning 8 is a big deal.  She has been counting down for a long time.  I love how excited she was to get baptized.  She had to wait another month for that but she handled it well.  At this point we had just pulled Sara out of gymnastics and that was a hard decision.  We used this year as a trial year to see how the time commitment worked out.  It didn't work out well.  She was already practicing 6 hours a week and 3 of those was every Friday night.  They changed her level to be a competition level and wanted to change the Friday night practice to every Saturday morning.  We just felt like that cut into family time too much plus by competing it increased the cost of it.  So we just felt like it was better to take her out.  She was ok with that, 6 hours was a lot for her, but she was still a little disappointed too.  I was too, but it was a crazy commitment and knowing how it increased every year, we just felt like it was better.

We started off celebrating by going to a movie with her friends.  We skipped a big party knowing that we'd have a lot of people over for her baptism so instead we went and watched Hotel Transylvania 2.  It was a lot of fun,

 The next day was a big day.  Sara's a bit hard to shop for because she doesn't really play with toys a lot, but she did have some things on her list like another bow and arrow.

She also really wanted to go climbing.  She loves it and is really good at it.  Jerry and I took her and we had a ton of fun together.

  She also still loves the Utes and was very excited about her Utes hoodie!

Happy 8th birthday, Sara!!

Halloween 2015

I try really hard to be excited for Halloween, but I just never am.  It was fun to dress Abby up, though.  I love when I can just pull whatever costume or dress up thing out and tell them that's what they going to be.  It took Abby a while to figure out Halloween.  People would ask her what she was going to be and she really had no idea what they were talking about.  I'd answer for her and say, "a witch".  Once I said that enough she started answering, but then they'd ask, "A good witch or a bad witch?"  She still didn't even really know what a witch was so sometimes she answered good and sometimes bad and sometimes she'd just look away.  She was pretty darn cute as a good or bad witch!

 Sara had all sorts of random ideas of what she wanted to dress up as.  Finally we found a Katniss knock off and she settled for that.  It was fine.  She was mad that I made her wear yoga pants under her "dress".  Can you believe that was considered a dress?!

Kate wanted to be a witch.  I love the simple costumes!  Matt wasn't interested in dressing up and instead hung out with his friend playing Minecraft.  They got candy so it was a success!

This was my jack-o-lantern.  I secretly loved it!

Home in the Mountains

Spending so much time in the dessert I've really started to love it, but then I come home and go to the mountains, and they'll always have my heart more.  We made it up to see the end of the fall colors and enjoy to cool mountain air.  Little Cottonwood Canyon is one of my most favorite places!

Tulo round up

Most of us love our little puppy, Tulo.  Kate not so much, but it's become more of a show than anything.  Whatevs.  He's hyper and actually a complete spaz, but we have noticed since he turned 1 on January 9 (yes, we celebrated) he's starting to mellow a teeny tiny bit.  I'm hoping there's a chance that in the next year or two, he'll calm down more.  He really likes to jump and mostly he just wants to play.  So when a new person comes over he'll spaz around and jump and lick and then bring a toy to play fetch or tug of war with.  He's really nice, he just wants to play.  He is the best running partner.  It makes both of us very happy to run together!  He also loves to catch a frisbee, we've found that he's a bit more successful with an aerobie so we try to do that a lot.  Here's some of our first attempts with him.  The best part of the video is my laugh at the end.  Seriously, what the heck!  The kids refer to it as my goat video!  LOL!!

 Abby and Tulo love each other very much.  They are like little siblings together.

 He has loved the snow this winter.

 We got him this bone for Christmas that was supposed to be for a level 3 chewing dog.  It lasted 24 hours and the one we got him for his birthday, even less.  He does really good though with not chewing on things he's not supposed to.  We haven't lost a toy in a long time and I'm not very careful about what gets left out.  I also can leave doors open and he doesn't go into rooms and chew on everything.  He does sniff around a lot but he's really good to drop or leave something and not come back to it when he's told.

How could you not love that puppy dog face?

Moab Day 3- Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point

So in my life I have seriously driven from Durango to Salt Lake or Provo at least 100 times.  In all of these times I've never taken the time to drive out to Canyonlands.  I'm really disappointed in myself for not doing that.  Especially all those times I drove that route when I was in college and only traveling according to my own schedule.  But we made the drive out this trip and it was so awesome!  We'll definitely be stopping again!

Mesa Arch was the first stop on the itinerary.  This has got to be the most photographed arch in Utah and definitely the most photoshopped.  I've seen a lot of well known yoga teachers from the website I use for yoga doing poses in front of this arch and it's always the exact same photo.  In fact, it's the exact same photo that is on the park map that you get when you enter the park.  I've seen mountain bikes advertised in front of this arch, tents... It is a very popular arch to photograph at sunrise and so then I've also seen a lot of pictures of this arch that have used filters.  Needless to say, I was very happy to see it with my own, unphotoshopped eyes!  It. Is. Awesome!  The way it is on the edge of at least a 1000 foot drop and it just opens up into all of Canyonlands... It is so cool and probably my most favorite view in all of Utah.  I loved it!

 Looking through the arch and down.

 The view through the arch.

 It was really cool to see where the canyons are still being formed.  I mean it takes a million years, but someday the canyon will be even bigger!

After Canyonlands we headed over to Dead Horse Point State Park.  It's really basically the same thing from a different angle.  It was really cool to see all the different layers and to see the river closer up.

Sara spends a lot of time on her hands.  It took a few tries but she held this handstand for a while!  It was a cooler day than the others which made for really perfect weather to be out hiking around.  The hikes this day were short and easy enough for Abby to do on her own and the kids enjoyed that.  It was so cool to see such an awesome part of the state.  I have always claimed Colorado as my first love, but after our desert excursions...well, I really love Utah!

After this, we sadly headed home, but actually we skipped out before a big rainstorm came through and camping in the rain just isn't that much fun so that made it easier to leave.  Until next time...