Our Labor Day Utah Trip

So for Labor Day weekend we decided to go to Utah and see Ryan's family. We had a lot of fun. We went to a bunch of temples and took some great pictures. Went to the Planaterium in SLC which was so fun and played in the pool and got some more awesome pictures. You'll have to wait till Christmas time to see our best pictures we'll use them for christmas cards. I was so happy to have some great family pictures taken...Thanks Lamar.

Here is the girls visiting the moon

Here are the girls visiting Mars

Grams and Pops with the girls at the newest temple...Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Daddy and his girls at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple

The Gates Gang at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Yep this is cute but wait till you see at christmas time the cutest one of them all :)

Having 5 of us now to take pictures is quite the challenge. Most of the pictures Natalia was crawling out of them so some of them she just needed a prop to hold I didn't think she'd try to wear them :)

Trista was so cute and so excited to take pictures she is growing up way to fast

At the Mt. Timpanogos temple

Yep I love this one but wait till you see the perfect one that is one of my favorites...See Natalia is crawling away again :)

We all went to eat at Panda Express one of Ryan's favorite places to eat...Ashley and Bryce meet us there. The girls were so excited to show Uncle Bryce how they can use chop sticks.

More to come with Christmas cards :)

our end of aug first of sept fun

Here are some more interesting things that we have done...

Yep only in Idaho can Trista ride her bike and herd sheep :)

Trista and Vanessa cheering at their first official home game :) Vanessa was the oldest on this squad and totally took over.

So I go through stages of what movie I watch at night well lately it has been Toy Story 2 so when we were in Boise a few weekends ago we went to the Disney Store and Natalia did a V line for the Woody dolls and got so excited she didn't know what to do with herself and couldn't quit laughing it was so cute. Guess she is watching the show more then I thought :)

Vanessa on her first day of 3rd grade. Ya can't believe she is in 3rd grade and has the same teacher I had and she'll be 9 in a month so sad how time flies.

Trista off to her first day of Kindergarden. Ya I was sad but she is a pro since her teacher is the same as last year. She has grown so much this summer she is wearing pants that I bought Vanessa the beginning of 2nd grade ya I couldn't believe it either. Both of my girls did not want back packs with characters on them (without each other knowing) they both told me "mom I am way to old for that." well ok then :)

When we went to Cabela's we had to try on coon hats and of coarse the tounges were out through the whole store not just the picture.

August 2009

Since it has been forever since I actually was able to post to our blog I figured I better do it before I forget. August was so busy for us. We have no idea where the summer has gone because the kids are already back in school, which makes us sad because we love having them home. Vanessa is a big 3rd grader this year (has the same teacher I had in school) and Trista is a Kindergardener. Natalia hates when they leave and is always so excited to see them come home. Yep this past month I turned the big 28. I just wanted a nice relaxing day which wasn't because Natalia had gotton her shots the day before and was sick for my birthday :( but had a great day even at that. So here are a few things that we have done...

Vanessa in her cheer leading uniform she is loving being one of the older girls and being in charge...

the girls are cheering not for Wood River school but a private group based out of Hailey...Lots of boys are playing football for them and half the cheerleading squad is from Carey its been fun being the assistant coach for them this year.

Trista in her adorable uniform she is so loving cheerleading

Natalia thinks its a fun game to stand (starting the first of the month) she still only takes a couple of steps she prefers to crawl and I am not complaining at all she gets into enough trouble right now.

Natalia thought it was so much fun to get her kitty Carmel and push him around in Trista's shopping cart. We haven't figured out yet why the cat puts up with her but he does.

Since both the big girls were on the team the head coach had an outfit to small for anyone else and gave it to Natalia for the season. For the team pictures they put her right in the middle of the whole squad can't wait to see those pics. She is so cute she was a hit at the Gold Card Party all dressed up.

Our Little Miss all dressed up and heading to the doctor for shots. She did not like that idea at all.

The 3 girls in the yard playing. My dad gave them a few of these tunnels from the sheets of metal they came from they love it...the girls even got my mom's bum lamb to go through them.

Fair Time in Carey

Wow Fair time finally came after all summer working on Vanessa's project. She was so excited and I was a nervous wreck for her :) I guess I remember being in 4H and all the work and the judging and the sale and was double worried for her especially being mom :) Vanessa had such a great time she loved it. She could have showed her sheep all day if they would have let her ha-ha. She placed 12th over all in quality that is just awesome out of all the sheep so that was the place she got to sale her lamb. It was a lot of fun.

Fish Creek kids RULED this year in quality. They won in the sheep, pig and beef Yahh to those kids. We figure it must be all the grasshoppers they ate :)

Vanessa showing her lamb during fitting and showing.

Vanessa loving on her lamb "butch" a few days before the fair

she loved to snuggle and love on him it was so cute

This is her after she sold him...she got in a cuddled him for a few minutes whispered something in his ear and got out and got her potato chips to share with him...that lamb ate everything she fed him he really loved pop tarts though. I thought she'd be a crying wreck after she sold him but after she got out of the ring she said "that was hard work, mom how much did I make!" I was floored but proud of her. She knew he had a purpose.

Vanessa and Butch just before going into sale ring. I was a nervous wreck for her she was excited.

Vanessa, Butch & Natalia.

Natalia loved holding Butches lead rope she would get mad when Vanessa had it. She just wasn't a fan of when he would nibble on her toes or her hair.

What a great experience we had in 4H this year. Vanessa is already excited and talking about next year. Trista is also excited since she'll be old enough for clover buds (she can show but not sale her lamb). Should be an interesting year lol.

Pioneer Day Parade

Every year Carey does their annual Pioneer Parade in July. This year it was July 25 and since the cheer squad is new to Carey I decided lets do the parade here (since they did Hailey parade over July 4th) so most of the girls on the squad are from Carey anyways. So we did it. We took all Natalia's bday luau decorations to decorate the float and ended up winning 2nd place. Yahh! so our cheerleaders are going to get a party with the $$ they won.

Girls are loving cheerleading. Practices start next week and I think football starts in Sept-Oct. should be fun.

This is only part of the girls from the squad that could make it. Doesn't Trista look thrilled (on the far left) Vanessa was loving that she was the top :) she's going to love that part lol.

Natalia our little cheerleader and Tiff (assistant coach) yep we road on the 4-wheeler on the way back man she was heavy after awhile lol. She loved waving at all the people.

This is how Natalia was before she even started the parade. It was so cute. She was the hit :)

The girls getting ready for the parade to start

Ryan was a great volenteer and drove the 4-wheeler for us and even got into the spirit and wore green to match us and the float :) He did great. He got the girls ready for the parade while I was gone early decorating the float. What a super daddy.

10th Anniversary

So we weren't sure what we wanted to do for our 10th anniversary for so long then we just decided how much fun it would be to take the kids camping in Yellowstone since its only like 4 hours from us. We couldn't go long because of the fair being so close but I got lucky and had a break in school that week. I was determined this time to make it to the upper loop since I had never been to the upper loop even after all the times I have been there. The kids were so excited and we couldn't wait to show them lots of fun things.

Us girls in front of Old Faithful ya it was the last thing we saw on day 2 and the girls actually had to wait to see it which they weren't thrilled about and Vanessa said "that's all that is boring" kids.

Seeing a bunch of the mud pots, etc...the girls faces were so funny at the smell they weren't fans but thought they were so neat. Natalia as you can see was so thrilled she crashed lol

Natalia and I if I look freaked I was you should have seen where Ryan told me to sit for this picture ya not fun on the edge of a rock with a waterfall behind us but the picture did turn out good.

Natalia, Vanessa and Trista all smiles

We all thought this was neat that the steam from the hot springs were soooo hot they were melting the pavement.

Ryan and Natalia eating lunch at Mammoth. Natalia's first time trying kiwi she loved it.

Wow we just can't believe its been 10 years since we got married. It just seems like yesterday we swear but in other ways it doesn't. We look at the kids especially Vanessa and wonder where the almost 9 years of having her has gone (she'll be 9 in Oct). It has been an awesome 10 years though and I love him more than ever.

Our beautiful girls so excited about seeing everything

The elk that we saw right after we got into the park

Our first family picture after entering the park. there were elk on the other side of the river yep the girls were soooo excited. Even though we see them at home they were even more excited here. What a great vacation. We also got to see Ryan's step sister Jeanine who works there and meet her new boyfriend. We had a great visit with them.

Death in our Family

Trista digging the hole while daddy and Vanessa watch

So early last spring Ryan took Trista and Vanessa fishing and Trista caught a Bass and she was so excited. When they got it home and Ryan went to clean it up SURPRISE it was still alive. Well Trista didn't have the heart to kill it so guess what her and her daddy had a bright idea to put it in our fish tank. Yep! we no longer had any little cute fish after that night. We soon learned that Bass eat everything and even try to eat the fingers that are trying to feed him. Well after a year one morning Ryan and I woke to him not being alive. Trista handled it so well I was proud of her. She decided to bury him in front of the flag pole and insisted to dig the hole herself. Poor thing there are so many rocks she did great though.

Though we are sad that "Hungry Hungry Hippo" (Trista named him because he eats anything) is dead we are excited we can again get fish.