St George

On our way up to Utah for a family reunion we stopped at Del Taco for dinner.  We specifically chose Del Taco because they had a kids play place.  But, the play place was closed and that was a bummer.  You certainly can't tell from the look on Henry's face that he is bummed about it.  

Beautiful St. George Temple

 On Sunday we went to sacrament meeting at the first building we could find.  It just so happened to be a senior branch.  So our family was the only one with kids.  It was the quietest meeting I have ever been to!  Luckily, our kids were exceptionally good that week so we didn't stand out too much.  After the meeting an old guy even came up and said our kids were "so well behaved."  

That's Henry with a beanie baby bear inside Devin's church shoe.  He told Devin to take off his shoe and then used it for a boat for his Yogi Bear.  What an imagination!

Ollie was such a trooper in the car

 Henry was so tired he fell asleep at dinner.  He actually does the frequently, while still chewing.

 We went to the dinosaur track museum.  Yes, a dinosaur track museum, not a dinosaur museum.  Not as cool.

 Trying Origami at the museum

 Teething on the chair

 I sat behind the boys for a while because other people were in the van with us.  Here's a few with my super excited kids...

And that's all the pictures I got from our trip.  For all the stuff we did, I should have taken more.  But some of the other fun things we did include:

Grocery shopping at Harmon's (the best grocery store ever).

My own alone time at Robert's Arts and Crafts!  Amazing!

Seeing Devin's grandma, grandpa, aunt, cousin, cousin's husband, and their cute baby.

Swimming in the condo ice cold pool then jumping in the jacuzzi and back in the pool.

Running what felt like 5 miles on a giant hill, but then realizing it was only 2.

Showering in an awesome shower without a door in hot water!  (At home our shower is so far away from the water heater the water doesn't get as hot as I would like it.  "Turn the heat up" you say, but in the kitchen, right next to the water heater, the water will just about scald your flesh so we don't want to do that.)

Sleeping in a KING sized bed.  One of the loves of my life.  Some day we will upgrade.

Seeing my amazing friend Lacee and her itty-bitty baby who was born super early.  Little baby Olivia is sure blessed to have such and amazing mommy!

Getting 2 pairs of running shoes and 4 pairs of running socks for $125!  What a steal of a deal at the outlets in Laughlin!  We stayed there on our drive home so we wouldn't have to do it all at once.

Getting woken up an average of 5 times a night because of Ollie's teeth coming in--SO sad!

Getting woken up about 5 times because of second hand cigarette smoke seeping through the door from the room next door during our night in Laughlin.  I guess that's what you get for being too poor to afford a nice hotel and falling for the cheap rooms in a casino.

Seeing Josh and Joy and their family (My personal highlight of the trip!  It might be Devin's too, but then again it might come second to his Harmon's shopping.)

Creamies.

Oh, yeah, and fixing a flat tire!  Maybe we are jinxed because on our last family vacation (only a few months ago) we got a flat tire too!  This time instead of it being blazing hot, it was really cold because it was really late at night and just off the mountain outside of Fredonia.  I broke down at that point.  Devin was a champ, of course.  I just couldn't believe it happened to us again!  On another long road trip!  But, after Devin got the spare on and pronounced it "pretty low" we said a desperate prayer and went along on our way.  After the prayer I did feel peace that we would arrive safely and we did!  It definitely was a blessing of safety and peace because I was so nervous about that spare!

It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun!

Family Reunion - Manti, Utah

The awesomely beautiful Manti Temple.  We did a session and it was amazing.  

 Jaxon going out on the canoe.  He was fearless, but Henry didn't want to get his feet wet.

We had lifejackets at home, but didn't bring them because we didn't realize we were going to be literally 10 feet from the lake.  Luckily, there was a Walmart near by.  So, now we have 4 toddler lifejackets:)

 Canoe ride with Daddy and cousins!

 Henry with his giant lifejacket.

Snack time 

Balloon swards and hats!  What could be better?!  

(I guess Henry thought no pants would be better so he went for it.) 

Catching frogs by the lake. 

The HUGE screen to watch Tangled.  It was so fun for the kids! 

Jaxon playing with the light saber he won in the auction. 

Mama and Henry and Ollie 

Adorable Henry 

Playing with cousins and light saber! 

All of a sudden the winds picked up like crazy!  The kids were running everywhere and thought it was so fun. 

Then it started hailing!  We ran to the car and waited while Devin helped the guys secure the rain covers to the tents.  

Ollie was happy as ever! 

We got donuts from Millers on our way out of town. 

Then to St. George and our favorite grocery store Harmon's!

3 boys!!!

Devin says he would move to St. George just because of Harmon's grocery store.  We do love it!  

Bottomless Toilets

On our way up to Utah for a family reunion we stopped at a rest stop over the Grand Canyon.  The boys were fascinated with the bottomless toilets.  

 Exploring

Utah Trip Pics

Finger dancing in the car on the drive

Here is Henry at Pasta Factory.  Luckily we got a booth or else we wouldn't have been able to eat there because he needed to lie down.  He basically slept the whole trip since he had just broken his leg.  This was one of the few moments during the whole trip that he was being his silly self.  

Our night in Laughlin was spent in the hotel with Panda Express, and it was really fun.  I almost tossed this shower cap, but Jaxon found it and entertained himself with it for the rest of the night.
When he first found it he said, "Is that what they use to make stuff at Costco?"  I thought it was funny he thought of the Costco sample ladies when he saw the shower cap!

That black rock is his "lava rock."  He learned about volcanos in preschool recently so they were his obsession during the trip.  

Henry laying down, of course.

More shower cap fun!

Story time before bed.

I was trying to get them all to look at me, but I actually love how this turned out with the boys looking at their daddy.  They sure do look up to him!

My little cuties!!!

4th of July 2008

I'm not a big fan of watching the fireworks in the 100 degree weather so this year we went up to Kanab, Utah. I lived there my junior and senior years of high school (go Cowboys!) and absolutely love their 4th of July celebration. They have a breakfast and parade in the morning, then vendors and booths for lunch at the park, and a BBQ dinner and show before an amazing fireworks show.

We invited our friends Josh and Joy and their little boy Landon to come with so we loaded up 4 adults and 2 babies in their Honda Pilot and headed north for a 6 hour car ride...

Jaxon is excited about all the snacks!
Here are the boys watching the parade. BFF's!
The splash pad at the city park was tons of fun for the boys to play in.
Here we are eating dinner and watching the show.
Daddy and Jaxon:)
The fireworks were awesome! They play patriotic music for about 3/4 of the show and then at the end they keep it quite so people can hear the echo off the mountains. It really is amazing! Jaxon was scared of them at first, but by the end of the show he was definately a fan!

We headed to St. George to see Devin's grandparents after the fireworks. We stayed in their 2 bedroom condo. The grandparents, of course, were in one bedroom and we gave the other to Josh and Joy so Devin and I were left to the pull-out sofa bed. I think that thing is actually like 50 years old...I knew it wasn't going to be very comfortable, but I didn't know it was going to be THAT bad! Because of the growing baby belly, now I can only sleep on my sides. I could feel every spring individually under my ribs and hips! Luckily Devin made plenty of jokes about it and we were so tired we fell right to sleep and slept relatively good!

The next morning, we played some cards with the grandparents before they headed back to Salt Lake. I think Josh is Grandpa Miller's new BFF because their card playing style is very similar: play to win no matter what how mad it makes your wife! Haha...j/k...the boys always play "meaner" than the girls, but they also always win (says the score, but who really wins when the wife is upset?)!

Anyway, after that Joy and I went for a little shopping time. The original plan was to go to Roberts (my favorite craft store ever! if only we had one in AZ!) but we stopped at the outlet stores first. We found awesome deals on clothes for our little guys and before we knew it, all our time was spent shopping for them and we didn't get to go to the craft store. It was okay though. Joy and I realized that we really are moms becuase we were so excited about the great deals we got for our boys and didn't really mind that we didn't get to go to the craft store. We also realized that we are married to some pretty great men who were so willing to watch our kids so we could have a fun break with just us girls.

We really wanted a cold treat so we picked up all our boys and headed to Iceberg for some "thick thick shakes." They really were thick. I don't know why they don't just call them frozen yogurt...anyway...they were really yummy too! We drove around looking at the huge homes in the area. I think we all found our dream home on Foremaster ridge...if only we had $800,000!

We ate at Basilla's for some yummy Mediterranean food and stopped in Devin's favorite grocery store ever, Harmon's "just for old times sake" oh, and I did need a few snacks for the ride home.

K, so we were going to stay another night in St. George and drive all the way home Sunday morning, but Josh came up with a brilliant idea: we would load up the car and leave after dinner and drive until we got to Flagstaff and stay the night there. That way, the boys would pretty much sleep the whole way rather than trying to drive Sunday morning after they had gotten a full night's rest. Then, we'd only have about a 3 hour drive home in the morning, instead of 7.

So, we got to Flagstaff at about 11:00 and both Landon and Jaxon woke up and wanted to play! They were in their pack & play beds watching each other instead of going to sleep...after about an hour of fussing/playing they both finally fell asleep.

The rest of the drive home went good. We had a great weekend, but were glad to be out of the car and home!

We had a few very memorable, hillarious moments...put Josh and Devin in the car for 7 hours and you'll probably laugh for about 6!

Devin: Man, there's Dick's popping up everywhere! (Referring to Dick's sporting good store.)

Devin said that he didn't even mean for it to be a joke, he was really just thinking, "Wow, I'd never heard of this store, and now they seem to be building them everywhere!"

Ruthann: What's Noni Juice?
Devin: You know, it's juice made by little men called Nonies. (said known-ees)
Josh: Noni is singular. It's made by the Nones. (said knowns)

These are probably some of those moments where you had to be there, but if you were there, you'd be laughing like crazy!

Happy Birthday America!