Cardon Reunion FUN

We have fallen in love with the Breckenridge and Keystone, CO area. We spent a week there with all of the Cardon clan. We packed in so much fun. The boys just love being with their cousins, and this uninterrupted week was like heaven for them. We stayed in a nice big house in Keystone, complete with hot tub.

We got to spend some time holding babies that are smaller and more restful than any children we currently have. This little man is great to cuddle with, since he loves to fall asleep on a lap.

We also spent some time in Breckenridge throughout the week. The Gondola there is a guaranteed good time, and we love that it is free, so the kids can ride it as much as they want. The first day we headed up for a ride and some fun on the snow pack at the ski resort on top. Everyone loved the ride up and most people even spotted a moose.

Crystal got to be pals with Tatum and Wyatt.

This is what it would be like if Nathan and Stacy only had two small children... they can pretend, since all of their other kids were in other cabins.

Finn was a little nervous, but he felt better about the whole ride after a few minutes.

 

These other kids tried to pack as many people in for fun as they could.

Not everyone ran up to slide down the small and crusty snow pile.

Finn in particular was not super happy about wandering around at first. At age 2 it seems that he does not travel well, and he spent the first two days of the trip alternating between his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personalities. This was not one of his finer moments. He spent a lot of time crying for his mom and asking for Mom to "Hug You." Which is what he calls holding. He also used a phrase that was cute at first, but soon became annoying, "Mommy, talk to you something." Even tho he seemed to actually never have anything he wanted to talk to me about.

Luckily, older brothers are much more easy going. Henry chose to play in the snow in flip flops.

Crystal and Jade had some fun.

Caleb did take Finn walking a little, but had much more fun helping the other kids run and slide around.

What a great group of spectators.

We had a nice rain adventure as we headed to our gondola ride down. Turns out the gondola can't run if there is any lightening spotted within 12 miles. We were informed that buses would be running to take us down, but because we are great communicators, we missed the first two buses. We then waited about 30 more minutes in the rain or under a tarp for a bus to finally take us down.

We packed in.

Even though we battled a bit more rain for the first two days, we made it to a nice night at an outdoor concert. Not sure how many of us listened to the music, but we did at least pack a ton of people onto some blankets and eat treats.

I also got to go on several great run with nice trails and amazing scenery. On the longest run I was joined by these great ladies, Crystal and Stacy.

 

Dillon Reservoir was really breathtaking the entire time we were there.

Mount Timpanogus Half Marathon and Summer Running

 It feels as though many hours of my summer have been dedicated to running this year. While this doesn't seem like a big change from recent years, I have added extra days and extra miles that often make me feel like I am running all the time. One of the enjoyable things about pounding the pavement for so many miles is that I get to check out some amazing countryside all just outside my door. I am so blessed to live in such a beautiful place and to have such beautiful friends to run with.

On the trails near Old Mill.

 Big Cottonwood Canyon with Shelby and Caryn.

 Wasatch Blvd with the whole valley for our view, Shelby, Caryn and visit from Paula.

Downtown Salt Lake (more Caryn and Shelby time)

 One highlight of my training this summer with the Mount Timpanogus Half Marathon. I was pretty tired at the start of the race and not feeling as great as I would have wanted to, but I was determined to try my hardest to run fast and finish in my best time. While there wasn't much uphill on this course, the canyon portion of the run lasted until about mile 7 and then there were a lot of city trails to follow to the finish. The weather conditions were pretty bearable and the race organization was great. Even though it was painful, I finished in 1:48, beating my previous personal record by 3 minutes. It was confidence builder even if I was exhausted for a couple of days after.

Wyatt's officially gets Big- 4th Birthday

Wyatt was so excited for his birthday this year. He has decided that now that he is 4, he is officially "Big." There is nothing that he thinks he can't do now. It certainly makes things more interesting around here, but also nice to convince him to have a little more independence with things we would like him to learn to do. He is a very crazy guy, and often says the funniest things.

One of his favorite things to talk about is his imaginary friend, who happens to have the same name as his cousin, Lincoln. If a toy or game exists, Lincoln has it and has played it. If there is a cool place that you want to visit or something fun you want to do, Lincoln has done it. Gavin and Henry have started to contradict all of the outlandish things that Lincoln has apparently done, but nothing they say will convince Wyatt otherwise.

He also tells us on a regular basis that he wants to go to his favorite restaurant "Let Bean." This is a restaurant that has every food you could desire and also serves plenty of juice and colored sodas. Whenever Wyatt thinks of something he wants to eat or drink, Let Bean is sure to have it. He even tells elaborate stories about the meals he has had there and how much he likes it. I will be sad for the day when he discovers that his dream location exists only in his mind. Though maybe he is destined to open this great establishment some day.

Wyatt has also started to be a bit more brave about trying things he had no interest in before. This summer he has done an amazing job in swimming lessons and now holds no fear of jumping under the water or even trying his own version of the back float.

While he hasn't had a lot of academic interests lately, he is obsessed with the letter "W" and is constantly on the lookout for anything with a W on it.

This guy never fails to keep us on our toes and keep us laughing. He insisted on a slumber party with cousins for his birthday this year, along with a "ganilla cake with ganilla ice cream, and green frosting." He asked for Legos and more legos and also an indiana Jones lego game for the Wii. And he even tried to convince his parents that he had been able to move his birthday up a few days so that he could open his presents a little earlier.

My baby, Finn, turned 2!

Yesterday, this handsome little man turned 2. I can hardly believe it. He is so fun, and become such a crazy little character. 

He was so happy to get to sit next to the birthday sign, since I usually won't let him touch it since he tries to break off the ballons. Of course, he is holding his Mickey Mouse clubhouse decorated cup of milk. He is a huge fan of Donald Duck and also of milk.

The other thing he is totally obsessed with is Cars. Especially the Cars 2 variety. He has been watching Cars 2 several times a week for the past 6 months. If you try to put on the first Cars movie for him, he will argue and let you know that he does not like that one as much. He talks about cars constantly, and needs to have some handy to drive on any surface that he can find. His other obsession in the car territory lately is "Monster Trucks" He thinks that anything that even resembles a truck of any size is a "Monster Truck". Highway driving has become one of his favorite parts of the day, as that is the best place in town to spot big trucks.

 This guy seriously talks up a storm. He sometimes confuses us with the garbled big words he like to try out, but we can never mistake him asking to play a phone or iPad. He has a technology fetish that we are trying to curb quickly, and even knows how to unlock his Mom's iPhone. He also loves to talk about his brothers and whatever they are doing. Even tho he has proven that he can say "Gavin" quite clearly, he still calls him "GaGa." And he loves to do things that GaGa and Henwy are doing. He also loves when we tell him to go and tell his brothers to do something. Being the boss is right up there on his list of favorites.

 Since this was only his second time, he was pretty confused by the whole birthday thing. He liked that people gave him toys, but didn't really want to open any presents after the first one, since he just wanted to take it and go play. He was also very unhappy about the fact that people kept singing to him. When Wyatt and I started to sing at breakfast he yelled "Stop It!" And when we sang over cake he tried to run away. Maybe next year he will be more comfortable with this attention.

Finn also really does love all kinds of music. It is hard for him to hear a song without starting to dance or sing. His favorite songs right now are "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons, and "The Hairbrush Song" from Silly Songs with Larry. He gets pretty mad when anyone else sings when these songs are playing since he wants to hear every word. 

This week he started sleeping in a new big bed, the bottom bunk and only took a couple of days to decide he was ready for the change. He has taken up the new habit of screeching, which makes my least favorite list, right up there with his attack biting. Here't to hoping these things are short phases he is going through.

A hike and A boat trip... kind of

Our other events for the Independence day weekend ended up being a bit of an adventure. 

The first was an attempt at a hike on the 3rd. We headed up to the Catherine Pass trail for hike one of our favorite spots. We were just over a mile away from the trailhead when we saw the road blocked by a gate and a sign saying that the road to the trails would not be open until July 4th... like 12 hours later. We cursed the late snows this year, and then got out and decided to wander around the mountain. About 30 minutes later, it started to rain pretty hard.

Finn was a pretty big fan of the colored licorice, even though he did not eat it with any speed.

 We had packed a picnic and stopped on these rocks to eat, and luckily things were still dry while we had our dinner.

 We did get to see this very awesome double rainbow on our way back to the car. It was a high point of our wet time.

 Our second adventure of the weekend has only one photo, but plenty of exciting details. We tried to take out the inflatable boat that was a Christmas gift to us. Up to this point it had been sitting in it's box. The first fun part was that the box said a pump was included in the bag with all the other details, so Caleb did grab either of our two battery powered pumps... and the pump that was included was a hand pump. By the time it was inflated, we had already had our sun umbrella blown down about 4 times, and had discovered that lakes in Utah do not have anything that resembles a beach, even if it claims to.

We only own 4 life jackets, so we suited up the kids and headed toward the water. As soon as the boat was in, Gavin and Henry hopped in and Wyatt and Finn both started to cry and panic. We finally coaxed/tossed Wyatt into the boat and got him seated by Gavin in the middle. Finn was clinging to me like some kind of wild monkey, so we pried him off and I climbed into the back and took him on my lap while Caleb got in the front. The first thing we realized is that it was extremely windy on the water and also that we probably need 4 paddles the size of the ones that we had in order to get anywhere on the water. Also, we probably needed one less 2 year old sitting on my lap in the boat screaming his head off in terror.

So after a few minutes of frantic paddling by Caleb and I, and after I had already smacked Gavin in the head once with the paddle while trying to switch sides with Finn in my lap, we had gotten about 20 yards from the shore. Wyatt had calmed down by this time and even tho any amount of wake from bigger boats seemed to startle him, he wasn't crying... at least not until I was trying to paddle on the other side again with Finn having a tantrum on my lap, and I smacked Wyatt in the head with my paddle! With only one of us paddling from the front of the boat (Caleb) and one of us wrestling the angry monkey and accidentally hitting people with paddles in the back of the boat (Marci), things started to deteriorate pretty quickly. We were being blown ashore a ways down from where we got in the water. 

We finally decided it was time to call it quits and we let ourselves wash up in a nice dirty swampy areas and got all the younger boys out and started walking back. 

Caleb and Gavin did try to go out on their own another time, but with the wind and the short paddles, they washed back up a little farther down in an even muddier spot and then carried the boat back.

It was not a boat adventure that we will soon forget, but after it was over we got some good laughs and packed up to head out, just as the sun was beating down and all of the gross bugs were coming out to prey on us.

Our Independence Day

July 4th in our neighborhood is so fun.

It starts off with a neighborhood parade featuring all the cutest kids and their parents, walking, riding and cruising around the streets. All of my boys love it. Gavin had a bike mishap in the first half block, involving the pedal coming off his bike. However,  after he dropped the bike off at home a few minutes later, one of the neighbors, and a dad of Gavin's friend, picked him up on a 4 wheeler to finish the parade. It probably goes without saying that he later confessed to be a little glad that his bike came apart.

These two were my cute passengers.

 Henry chose his scooter as his mode of transportation.

 There is always a short flag ceremony and program after the parade. Gavin was asked to participate in the flag ceremony and he took the occasion very seriously. He was joined by his two closest friends, Matthew and Sam. They did a great job.

 After a bit of a fiasco trying out our new raft in the morning, we spent the end of the day hanging out with neighbors and lighting sparklers and other fireworks in the street. The boys absolutely loved it. The weather and the company were great. The day really made me count the blessings that are given to me by living in this country.