Joy is in the Journey

2009-07-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

Tanners Baptism

2009-07-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

1 young man who just turned 8
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1 dad who holds the priesthood
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family and friends and food

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A wonderful day for a Baptism.

We did have a wonderful day and a great weekend. My family was able to come and be apart of Tanners special day. We even got a little rock band going. We were really rocking it out. Tanner was really excited to be baptized and was really ,really excited that Grandma bought him his first set of real scriptures ( mom and dad only bought him a Book of Mormon a few years back , while grandma Sherry bought him is quad) It was pretty amazing to see not only his family but his friends and our ward family. Boy, we are blessed. I thank my Father in Heaven for those in my life and lives of my family.

Bet....

2009-01-23T22:57:00.000-08:00

I bet you don't have better friends than I Do..........
I Love you all......

Little wonders....

2009-01-23T21:57:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard "Little Wonders " by Rob Thomas? if not just go to the bottom of my blog and you will find it on my play list. This song seems to fit the day we had up at Rifle Falls. That morning, as rick left for work he asked what our plans were for the day. Seeing how school was out for the day. I told him we would be cleaning and i had calls to make and who knows what the day would bring. Well that doesn't sound fun he says, as he heads out the door to go to work. So while taking Sydney to school i started to think he was right. Kylie and Tanner and i headed to Mc D's for lunch then we went home to finish cleaning while we waited for Sydney's school to be done. When we picked up Sydney, we stopped at the house and picked up our snow boots and hats and gloves and headed up to rifle falls to see if the falls were still frozen. As you can see from the pictures it wasn't ...Dang! but there was still chunks of ice behind the falls so it was still kinda frozen.

The kids wanted a funny face picture, but I'm not sure what Sydney considers a funny face. Tanner and Kylie sure do.

The closer you got to the falls you could feel the mist ( boy, was it cold). You could see how it would make the snow on the trees freeze. It looked like a winter corn dog - snow on a stick and it was hard as a rock, but it sure was pretty.

I had to get a picture of the fallen winter corn dogs( i don't know what you would call them.. sorry) they were all over the ground in front of the falls.

You can hike around the falls up to the caves and beyond to the trails. Sydney wanted to be our leader so she found a cat tail and away we went.

Look close at this snow. (its probably hard to see) It looked like jagged glass and when you looked up close it was snowflakes that had froze and you could see their shapes up close. It was truly beautiful. we found huge sections of snow like this on the trail behind the falls.

its kinda hard to see their shapes in this picture. Tanner says that they look like crystal Christmas trees. they were way cool

on our way home we saw 2 bald eagles and a few deer, But our highlight was when we came up to where the golf course is. We saw a huge herd of elk, it seemed like there was about 75 (or more) They were all over the golf course so it was hard to get one big happy family picture of them...:)

We had such a great time, they keep asking when are we going up again. We have been up there in the fall and the winter and in summer, so i am thinking spring will be next.

Gone but not Forgotten.......I hope

2009-01-15T22:01:00.000-08:00

I hope that you haven't forgotten or given up on us. My bad, it seems when i wanted to sit down and update the blog ,i got busy or just wasn't feeling up to it and before i knew it, months had passed. I thought that time flew by fast but it wasn't until i noticed when the last time i was on here that its been way to long. I thought that instead of really back tracking of what went on i thought that i would post a few of the pics that were taken and then move on with the New Year with better aspirations of keeping up on my blog. We shall see how it goes.

When tanner was 2 he wanted a buzz lightyear and woody, it was his favorite toys, he sure loved them. when we went to Disneyland when he was 2 1/2 and i thought he would love it but i think that the real buzz and woody kinda of scared him a little or he was just a little star struck. he was speechless. we found a little boy in our ward who loves woody and these toys needed to be played with again so we gave them to Ty. and it sounds like they are loved again.

Hi welcome to my messy kitchen. The kids wanted to play restaurant. I made soup and bread sticks. They were so funny, they made menus and they took our order, gave us our drinks

and even did the clean up.......(Sydney and i and rick were the customers)

Tanner taking our order

kylie giving our check......(wait didn't i cook the meal i should get a discount...)

Halloween 2008 Fairy,Fiona, Star trooper ( don't check out my messy craft closet)

Yeah Pumpkin time...

Thanksgiving day and Christmas day was spent with some of the elderly in rifle. Carol (ricks mom) works at the rifle housing authority. She wanted to have a Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner for those who had no family coming to see them for the holidays. Carol and i cooked the turkeys and hams and brought drinks and some sides while they brought some to. The kids loved it , they were getting them drinks and helping them with their food. We had such a great time. It made my holidays so much brighter. I hope we can do this often.

Ricks Birthday cake..34 and still cute as ever......

Kylie is really getting into her Christmas concert or she just got done yawning j/k she was singing her heart out..

Rifle has a parade of light during the month of December. We bundled up and head down town to watch. We went and picked up some Hot Cocoa and Chili and some yummy fudge . sat and waited for the parade to start. Boy, was it cold ,but we had a great time.

We love the fire trucks and like any parade they were loud.

Let it snow. This was our first snow storm. We have had plenty of it since, yeah baby i love snow. so do the kids Sydney is showing me that its snowing.

Kylie made a Mohawk out of snow....

Tanners didn't turn out so well....

This Christmas season we had a nativity bandit. When i would set up the nativity set and spread it out on the table. Then a few days (or less) it would some how rearrange itself to form a tight circle around the baby Jesus. I started to watch to see who had done it and caught Tanner moving it around. After watching him i started to understand why he felt like he had to move them, I never did move them again and i think that in the years to come i will have them form a tight circle around baby Jesus. And a Little child shall lead them ....... Thanks Tanner,

What a Wonderful World.....

2008-10-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

It has been really crazy around here and i have noticed that our leaves on our tree in the front yard are starting to change color and if its happening here, just imagine what the canyons hold. We watched the first session of conference on Saturday and recorded the 2nd . We went for a drive to see the colors. We headed to Aspen and went to a place called Red Stone which was so pretty . They have a little town in the canyon with cute little houses. The pretty red rock and red sand was a pretty contrast to the green pines and splashes of yellow and orange and red here and there. It was raining so the colors weren't as bright as it is when its nice and warm. We then headed up McClures Pass Which was breath taking and the colors weren't that bad either. The road is really steep, and the switch backs are really tight,but the colors were really pretty. You had tons and tons of Green pine trees and then yellow splashes which looked more like Fireworks shooting up every where. we went to lunch in a little town called Paionia which i am told that they have wonderful fruit orchards, i could see some but we didn't have time to stop, Rick had to get back for the Priesthood session. It was so fun just being together and really seeing how Colorado is really like the signs says . " Welcome to Colorful Colorado "

Red Stone

Red Stone. You can kinda see the Red Sand in this Pic.

Starting up McClures Pass

The weather was rainy and cold and the pics really don't show just how beautiful it was up there. The clouds covered a lot, I am so glad we went because i heard that it snowed the next night and i am sure that most of the yellow leaves are off the trees, now its a mini winter wonder land.

Born To Be Wild

2008-10-09T22:14:00.001-07:00

Uncle Dave and Rick

Rick's Aunt Polly and Uncle Dave ( who live in North Carolina) called to let us know that they were going to be in Salt Lake for some meetings and they wanted to stop by and say hi. They had their bikes shipped over to Salt Lake (ouch, that had to cost ) and decided to take a Bike ride home. This part of Colorado was not on their way and the closet place where we could meet was Moab. Rick left work early and we headed to Moab ( 2 1/2 -3 hours away). We had dinner with them and went out for Ice Cream afterward and visited with them until we had to head home. It was so nice to see them it has been awhile. Their Bikes were really sweet and rick tries to talk me into getting him one. I tell him that his Dirt bike is just enough. The kids loved the bikes and thought that Polly and Dave were cool . we had such a good time, the long drive was worth the 2 hours that we visited with them. I hope it won't be long until we see them again.

Kylie is looking pretty sweet, but check out Tanner's face we could not have planned it any better. He looks the part, you will see a tooth pick in his mouth, dad's shades and the cool thunder birds stare. And Yes, he did try to start the Bike, which Uncle Dave helped him with.
(click on the pic so you can see his face better)

Check out our Biker Babes

I caught a Fish and it was this Big..........

2008-09-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

They have a Fishing program called Pathway To Fishing , This program teaches the kids the right way to fish and how to be a conservationist for fishing so that our next generation will have those same opportunities to fish. Tanner and Kylie wanted to take the class so i signed them up. we spent the morning going to the class and then afterword we went fishing in a near by pond. ( Lions pond).

All work and no play ( for now ,until class is over )

Getting a little practice in before we head to the pond

She's a keeper...........

We saw the fish and tried to catch them but they were just to small that they wouldn't stay on the line. We still had fun trying and it was a nice day to enjoy the weather and the company. Tanner brought his friend Micheal along, you would have thought they were fishing for sharks with the tackle they brought. I am sure the jigs were bigger than the fish themselves. Tanner is trying to talk rick into Ice Fishing.

Here fishy , fishy, fishy

No injuries thank goodness.....

I've got a bite.......

She has daddy Hook , Line and Sinker....

Where in the world is.......Dinosaur City

2008-09-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

On our way home from our Ward Temple Day we went through a little city just outside of the Utah State line. I had to stop and take a picture of their city sign, the kids thought that it would be cool to live in this town. Even the church was called Dinosaur Church. It was a little town, it took us all about 2 minutes to get through it and that includes the 1 minute that i took to take these pictures. But i thought, what a cute name and i bet every kid thinks its awesome.

Look what is on top of the street signs little dinosaurs...way cute......

How many licks does it take?

2008-09-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

We had a great day today. We had a Ward Temple Day, its weird not to have a temple close to you. Living in Utah you tend to take for granted how close it is. The Temple that we go to (because it is the closest) is Vernal, Utah. It take about 2 1/2 hours to get to it, Denver is about 3- 3 1/2 hours away. So off to vernal we went and we had a great day. They had some of the sisters in our ward there so they could watch the kids while we did a session. Afterwords we went a park and had a picnic and the kids had a pinata. The kids really had a great time and want to do this every weekend. My favorite part was being in the Temple with my ward family whom i consider to be friends and it really does feel like family.

On our way home Kylie was reading her sucker wrapper and the question was" How many Licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop", so she started to keep track, she had a mark for every 100 licks. ( remember its a long ride home......)

So how many licks did it take?.......... 1,556 licks OUCH!!!!! poor tongue, It was Black and Blue( just kidding it was blue cause of the color of the sucker)

Check out the shapes on her sucker its like one of those splatter pics what do you see?

(I saw a profile of a girl with a pony tail, Kylie saw a duck)

This one looked like a Bird , What do you see? Let us know. Kylie has a talent with her tongue which i will not tell her that until she gets way older.. She must get that from me. Just kidding other than i must brag, i can unwrapped a starburst with my tongue in under 10 sec.

Rise and Shout.....

2008-08-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah Baby, its that time a year again when we like to fly our colors for the whole world to see. Well maybe not the whole world but at least Rifle Colorado to see. If you drive by our house on almost every Saturday and some times Thursdays you will see a flag flying. I went to school at USU and i am an Aggie but growing up i was a cougar and thats what we get really excited for around here. Their first game is this Saturday, Rick and I love college ball, its just plan better then those Pro's ( which we still like to watch but college is tons better) It should be a great year and we can't wait . Hopefully we will be able to go to at least one if not at least we have them on comcast which is better than nothing.

It isn't easy being Green

2008-08-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

There is a bike trail that runs along a creek thats right by the school and the other day while walking home from school we came upon this cool caterpillar. He wasn't that hard to spot he was huge and almost a neon green. I am so used to the big fuzzy brown and orange caterpillars where i grew up. I had my cel phone with me so i had to take a picture. The kids wanted to keep it, but i talked them into letting it go back home.

Fun in the Sun

2008-08-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Its that time of year again , Food, Family and Fun....wow that sounds like a McDonald's commercial doesn't it. We headed up to Bear Lake for a family reunion. My Aunt and Uncle own some land up there so we all brought our tents and trailers. We camped at night and spent the days at the lake. It was perfect and the water was clear and warm . My mom and dad brought up some jet skis and my Neice had her boyfriend bring up his boat and we played in the lake and the beach every day. Rick has been there, but not in the lake. He has been working crazy hours and really needed this time off to have fun. Which he had a really great time. Not all of my cousins or Aunts and Uncles could make it, which i was bummed. However the others did show, My mom and i realized that it has been about 5 years since my brothers and sister have been together all at once. That was Nice. I sure do miss family reunions, I love them all so much. Time to relax and talk and have a great time was what we needed and yet in the end it wasn't enough, we could have stayed longer, it was sad to leave. One of the Nights we were out by the camp fire and looking up in the sky you could see a satellite moving in the sky and a few night later while in Logan we saw the space station moving up in the sky. It was way cool, my dad is such a space freak, not surprising seeing how he works out at Thiokol where they build the boosters for the space shuttle. While we were playing board games i have come to realize that Tanner has a love for money. His eyes would light up when people would have to pay him money and would always ask who had the most money and was always looking for a way to get more. This should not surprise me, he is the one who would try and pull out his teeth just so that he could get money from the Tooth Fairy. Our little entrepreneur. The girls had a great time playing at the lake and playing with cousins. It was hard to get rick and my brother off the jet skis and me away from the fire and yummy smores.....no surprise there......

Here's our little lumberjack cutting the wood for the fire. check out those muscles.....

Hot dogs $1.00, cooking sticks $2.50 Smores stuff $3.00 Fire Wood Free....... Getting Sticky and burping up hot dog breath .......... Priceless..........

Kylie cooking smores.......shes a pro.

Can't you just hear rick singing " Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away with me"
Here is my Uncle Lynn , i can hear him now... wow i love my jazzie......
Tanner was on Uncle Todd's 4 wheeler trying to spin out in the sand. Any thing with wheels he can ride and rides well.
Tanner cooling off in the lake.....

The Kylie and Sydney and I are enjoying the sun and cool water. Time for a little relaxing.
Rick and Tanner coming in from a little time out on the jet skis. Tanner had a blast he drove for a while by himself and when Uncle Todd was on he did a rooster tail and Uncle Todd went flying off. Way to go tanner.
Kylie and Sydney Playing in the sand. We love Bear lake Beach but the sand tends to get into every little crack and crevice. Which you will find days later........
Kylie and her sand castle.......hurry take a picture before it gets washed away.
Wow thats a shocker ,Tanner in the muddy sand hole. I bet he is trying to find some Treasure.

At the end of the trip i ,myself found such a great treasure in all of the memories that i took from trip and the past memories that pop up to touch my heart.

I found a quote that seems to sum up not only the trip but life in general.

Greet the Sun,......... Welcome the Moon, ........... And Wish upon a Star.

Things that go Bump in the Night

2008-07-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

We decided to sleep on the tramp tonight and what a sight it was. Tanner wanted to tell ghost stories so went and got the flash light and started our scary stories. They weren't really scary in that sense of the word, But scary how hilarious they were and how funny the kids were while telling them. Kylie's was a about a bear that was nice. Tanners was about moose. Sydneys was about a princess. wow totally scary...... so it was my turn. hee.hee I told the famous story of " I gotcha where i want yah now i'm gonna eat yah.... Remember . Lets just just say i got them good.

Kylie wanted her picture taken, its was pretty dark so i couldn't see what she was up to until the flash went off. Her head was no longer there. She is such a clever girl...

Then there was Tanner who tried but couldn't hide his head to well... i guess he was trying to be Qwazmotto ( the Hunchback of Notre Dame ).

Sydney just wanted a picture of her with the flash light trying to be scary during our ghost stories.

We had so much fun ,Rick had to work early so he did not get the chance to sleep out there. The stars were really pretty so were the bugs... j/k i ended up going in around 5:00. a.m. My kids like to roll and kick and move all over when they sleep and i was getting kicked and punched and bitten ( by bugs of course, they must love my blood cause the kids hardly got touched) They want to do this every night crazy kids....

Yes,I can have my Cake and eat it to.

2008-07-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

I know that is was in may 2008, but rick just download this pic from his phone and i had to show all of you. Some of you have heard the story all ready ,sorry just read fast or act like you have heard it for the first time. hee.heee

Here is the cake ( a yummy cheesecake) that rick and i had at a wonderful restaurant in Texas. When we went on our trip to Texas in may and my in-laws watched our yahoos while we had a wonderful evening/morning for our anniversary. Rick and i had planned that Texas would be our family trip for the summer and a nice dinner was our 10th anniversary. Rick on the other hand had planned something much bigger, Which i had no clue what i was in store for He planned for a limo to come and pick us up ( he tried to find one that was like the one he got us for when we got married) we ate at a place called Vic and Anthony's ( they place the napkin in your lap for you and there is no prices on the menu) it was really good and my lobster was ( I had not clue and if i had known i would not have gotten it) $70 yikes i know... at the end they brought out a little dessert for us which was the cheese cake and it had a candle in it and we had to make a wish and blow it out together. It was so good it melted in your mouth. (Rick used his phone to take a picture so the its a little grainy sorry) I thought that the night was over but we drove around Houston until the limo stopped in front of a huge building and we went in and rick had bought tickets for a Broadway play of the Wedding singer, it was hilarious and then we headed back to my in-laws ( or i thought ) and we pulled up in front of an huge old house. It reminded me of the old houses in the south (like gone with the wind) and we stayed at a bed and breakfast for the night. They had candles burning every where in the room it was breath taking some thing you would see in a movie. The best of all of this was not only did i have no clue ( which isn't very hard to do) but he had taken money out of his checks for 3 months so that he could pay for all of this and i had no clue , He had the room and tickets and the restaurant and limo reserved for those months. He is the Best, i wish that i was that good. We didn't plan to get each other gifts because we spent it all on our trip to Texas so the poor guy did all of this and what did i do.....Nothing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,what a wife huh?

Pretty In Pink

2008-07-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

Kylie's Dance Academy put on the ballet of Sleeping Beauty. Kylie was way excited. They actually did a really good job. It was so cute to see all of the girls all dressed in cute tutu's. Kylie's class were part of the good fairies. Heather and Christine took some really good pic's of Kylie and her class, mine did not turn out as well. I love the pic of kylie and her class in the black and white pic. They are were watching the play when they weren't in it. Its just so sweet and cute and so innocent (which i want Kylie to stay as long as possible) The only problem we have is now Sydney thinks that she gets to have kylie's outfit now that she is not in the play and it seems to be a never ending battle who gets it now.....:) (Kylie is the 3rd one on the right)

Our Olympic Hero

2008-07-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Rick and his cub scouts had a great time at their cub Olympics. From some of the Pic's it looks like the leaders are having more fun then the kids. They had a great time. The Cubs had a great time, they had to do a relay with home made stilts and race on a big wheel while wearing a hat and a scooter. There was a tissue toss and cotton ball balance. It was a good time. They even got to have their own medal ceremony with the Olympic music. We are so proud of rick and his acheivements.

A chip off the old block

2008-07-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday Night as i was flipping the hamburgers, the girls were in the hot tub swimming around. They decided to put their goggles on and try to see under water, when out of the blue the stairs in the hot tub jumped and bite Kylie in the tooth, or should i say she tried to take a bite out of it. Needless to say the stairs won and Kylie was left holding the chip. I called the dentist, he said to bring her in on Monday. I took the before and after picture to show what a wonderful job he did. If all goes well she won't need a crown until she is in her teens.

When she chipped her tooth all you could hear between the tears and sobs was

" My Precious Tooth" We had a nick name of chip or chippy for a few days but we can't call her that now.