Catherine Pass Hike

So can you tell that we were super excited for the road to Albion Basin to finally open at none other than the end of July... yep, we were. The day after we went to Red Pine and the day off the road was finally clear and good for driving, we headed to Catherine Pass with our fab friends the Willardsens. We had a beautiful and invigorating Hike. I really love this one.
One of the many great views.

Great looking hikers.

All of the kids in our group... the Park family (some friends of Caryn's) came with us as well. Lots of kids running around.

Caryn and I cracking ourselves up. Mister Wyatt loves watching the other kids and all of their constant silliness.

The brothers "in real life." Except not actually... Josh and Henry.

Red Pine Lake Hike

A few weeks ago as some of the Iowa family was getting ready to leave and others were arriving, we rounded up a bunch of people and went on a hike. Caleb chose the Red Pine Lake trail, and we did something that I can't remember us ever doing on the Wasatch Front, we went hiking in the afternoon. The weather wasn't too bad and the hike was beautiful, but there was a serious bug problem. There were flies of all sizes that would come up off the trail to land on us, and the higher we got on the fairly steep trail the bigger and more numerous the mosquitoes became. When we would pause with Grandma and Henry for a little break we were attacked by some huge mosquitoes. Gross. Needless to say it dampened our spirits a bit and Grandma and I turned back with two of my boys and a few of the girls while the rest went up higher to have a snowball fight. I spent most of the hike back using Wyatt's hat to shoo the bugs off him while he was in the backpack behind me. I went to bed that night and had a dream about trying to get flies off of me. Aside from this damper on my mental psyche, we had some good times and enjoyed the more beautiful parts of nature.
My four favorite hikers...

A few other people who were good hiking company as well
Crystal, Kelbie and Lauren

These two making hiking look good-
Caden and Rich
Some of the group on one of the bridges along the way. You could really tell it was a wet year for all of the random streams along the trail that usually wouldn't be there at the end of July.A nice view.After the hike the rest of the family came up the canyon to meet us for a cookout.
The cousins hanging out together. It was a fun day that we will look back on and remember the bugs. :-)

Sparkling Cardons

Just a few photos of our pioneer day festivities. We had a great BBQ at Nathan's and a few Iowa Cardons were here to celebrate with us. We mostly just hung around, but then decided to try and burn through the stash of sparklers that Stacy and I have ended up with over the past couple of summers. There were quite a lot, but everyone had a good time. Now that Utah allows aerials we also just got to hang out on the lawn and watch other people's money explode in the air above us. Pretty enjoyable.
Libbie getting the party started.This is probably my favorite photo, just a great little shot of sweet Mia.

Grandma helping light multiple sparklers at a time.

Brennan preparing to do something dangerous, probably. The boys love playing with Brennan, especially Henry. Though since he and Rachel left town I keeping finding myself saying the words, "Just because Brennan does it, that doesn't mean it is safe for you to do." I can't wait for those two to have a baby so I can teach it to say naughty things, hehe.

Nathan helping Claire.

Gavin doing a sparkler dance.

Henry with Papa in the background.

The time has come...

In the past we have had a few unwanted visitors to our blog, and they have been returning. Finally I have made the difficult decision that I want to create as much distance between them and myself as possible and protect both my own children, as well as the other children in our life that we love.
So Yes, you probably guessed it... We are going Private.
We love having almost anyone check our blog and read about what we are doing and share in our fun, so please comment with your correct email address if you would like to be invited to be a viewer. I hope that we won't miss anyone, as I have loved the connections that we have formed by having a public blog. It is frustrating to me that because of the few, we are all up against a wall. And even though the blog is a small thing, it is one way that we can show that we are willing to protect and fight for what is ours to save.
In an effort to also maintain your privacy- I will not be publishing your comments containing your email addresses, but I will save them and send out an invitation to our viewers soon.

One year old Wyatt

First the stats-
25 lbs 5 oz
32 inches
and let's just say he has the Cardon head.
No walking yet, he seems to be refusing, though he will stand and loves to dance.

He knows how to demand the attention that he deserves, both from his parents and his brothers. And he adores his brothers. He wants to be doing anything that they are and be wherever the action is. He's pretty good at entertaining himself, but seldom has to since there is always someone around to make him laugh.

His belly laugh is incredible and he already has such a fun and boyish sense of humor. He is so determined and intense sometimes and so jovial and silly at other times. His favorite thing is to wrestle with the boys and he seems to have the idea that going through or over something is always better than going around.
He is the messiest eater I have ever met, but he has such pride in being able to bite things off with his teeth or cram 6-8 pieces of watermelon into his cheeks until his mouth is so full he has to spit it all out. Sometimes he just stares at us like he has something very important to say, but he just can't find the words.

Wyatt is such a great addition to our family and has taught us a lot about patience and slowing down the pace of our life. He seldom does quite what you would expect and I am starting to really love the surprises.

Happy #1 to Wyatt

Happy Birthday my little Wyatt. What a whirlwind of a year it has been.
First Cupcake

Weekend in Vegas- Part Two

Of course we had to make a stop on the Las Vegas Strip while we were there. We decided that any time spent there with kids had to be quick and not move around much between casinos. The Turleys really like the Bellagio fountain show, so we headed there. And checked out the Conservatory. Very cool, and even a bit pretty.

These two are quite the pair. They were my little buddies to help care for Wyatt everywhere we went. It is safe to say they were pretty obsessed with him.
Rachel was Wyatt's nanny for the trip. Everywhere he went, she went too. She was even dutifully by his side and holding onto his leg with two hands when he kids and squirmed away from her to log roll down half a flight on Tia's stairs. Luckily he was fine, and I think she was more shaken up about it that he was.Wyatt enjoying the crowded view.

Hannah's best librarian look. She is one tough cookie.
The original "Nieces". They have come a pretty long way.Cool Art made out of flowers.

More from the Bellagio Conservatory, Everything was made from plants and flowers. It smelled so good in there. Probably the only place on the strip that this is true.

Look at all those cute cousins... of course, there are always some who aren't looking.

Sisters.Ahh...Sunflowers.

We got the chance to go on a triple date on Saturday night. Cheyenne and Laina babysat all of the other cousins. They even got Wyatt to bed with very little screaming. We headed out to a great resturaunt "The Firefly" and had a fab dinner and then headed out to check out a few locations at the Strip and do a little people watching. I would probably be ok with never going to the Strip at night again in my life, but we had a good time together. You can tell that we tend to head for family friendly locations. We went to my store.
The Party Girl with The Party M&M

Proof that we were really in Vegas.

Sassy.

We spotted this store while walking through a mall between casinos. My handsome husband was nice enough to pose in front, even with crowds of people staring at him. As soon as everyone saw it, they told him it was the perfect store for him, so it had to be done.

Weekend in Las Vegas- Part One

In May, my sister Schatzy moved to Las Vegas. Her husband took a job there in January, and the family finally caught up with him. We decided to head down there for a long weekend and my sister, Heidi, who live in Mesa, AZ decided to meet up with us there. We got a rough start when our van overheated about 30 miles from Vegas and we drove the last 10-15 minutes to her house with the heat on, which is most just a big deal because it was about 105. Yep, hot. There was more heat to come during our stay, but we also found some ways to keep cool. We hit up the parks and all of their water features.

You can see how red in the face Henry was before getting wet.

Wyatt mostly just sat in a puddle and splashed a little.

One park has some long tunnel slides which are super hot in the summer, so Schatzy started bringing these sleds from years back and the kids use the playground turf covered hill to sled and then get wet. Gavin and Sarah were going strong on this hill. Apparently now some of the neighborhood kids want to get sleds of their own, but good luck finding a sled in Las Vegas any time of year.We also had a lot of fun just hanging out at Schatzy and Al's new house. I don't ever want to live in Vegas, but I was seriously coveting this house. It is huge and with the horrible housing market there, they paid next to nothing for it. Her bathroom is bigger than my living room. Yeah, nice.
The only issue that we had was that the AC went out Saturday at about 3am, so there wasn't much sleep had after that. And since it was Sunday and a holiday weekend, it wasn't fixed until about 5 on Sunday. It got up to about 90 degrees in the house. Very hot, and turns out most of us aren't good at moving around in that kind of heat. We survived though, and made some memories.
Wyatt had to be hosed off in the sink after dinner one night.All of the kids lined up to have us light their sparklers. Luckily our at home fireworks show went down without too many incidents.Rachel burning the patriotic flame.Gavin keeping his distance fro them other kids.I think Henry was holding his breath took keep from breathing the sparkler smoke.

The neighborhood at the back of the house put on a pretty decent show and we didn't even have to leave the driveway to see it. It turned out to be perfect and aside from all of us, there were no crowds and no driving.