Las Vegas

June 9-12 we spent as a family in Las Vegas. We went out to spend some time with my sister and take a little break from life. So here are a few highlights:

It was the first time Nathan, Addison, and Donovan had been on an airplane and my second. We stayed at Circus Circus. After we got all checked in we went to see the Lion at MGM and walked to the M&M Store and watched the 4d movie. Then we went to dinner at Chili's with Becky and she took us to see her appartment. The next day Becky had some business to take care of so the four of us walked up to the Mirage to the Dolphin Habitat. It was reaaly cool. Addison was waving to the dolphin and it started waving back at her. On the walk back to our hotel we walked through the Venetian and saw Whoppi Goldberg, and the awesome fake statue. When we got back we hung out at the pool for a bit. That night we walked down to the Stratosphere and went up to the top. It was the first time we had been up there at night. It was pretty cool. We were very suprised when Addison told us she wanted to ride some rides up there. Nathan took her on the big shot and I took her on x-scream. It was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. It was actually kind of lame. The next day we played at the pool again for a bit and then met up with Becky. We got ready and went to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. Addison really enjoyed it...but once we got to the deep part Donovan wanted to leave. He wouldn't even touch the sting rays. Then we walked over to MGM and ate at Rainforest Cafe. That is one place I will never go to again. The food was expensive and not that great. Donovan fell and got a nasty bruise on his leg when we first got there and he cried every time the thunder and lightening came on. The kids and Nathan all tried Calamari and loved it. Donovan ate almost all of it on his own. After dinner we walked down the strip to see the water show at the Bellagio and the pirate show at Treasure Island, (which, BTW, I think is dumb since they changed it). We then walked back to the car and went back to our hotel. Donovan fell asleep in the stroller on the way. We saw several interesting people on our walk. One of which was high on something and kept following us and saying weird stuff. Addison said to me "mom what's wrong with that guy?" It was a perfect teaching opportunity. My reply was "thats what happens to people that do drugs Addison". A little while later we saw a homeless man in a fountain picking up all the change. The funniest part to me was all of the tourists sitting around just watching him. I should have taken a picture. The next day Becky had to go back to work. We were sad to say goodbye. We took the kids to the Adventure Dome at the Circus Circus. We spent the entire day there. We left at 6:30 ish to get to the airport. We ended up being delayed for a bit so we walked around and tried to keep the kids entertained. Much to our surprise...Donovan fell asleep on the plane only a few minutes after the cabin lights went off. Overall it was a pretty good trip. We had fun and it was good to see my sis.

Snakes, Lizards, and Cacti...are we in the desert?

I have been wanting to go hiking really bad lately but Donovan is not a big fan. So I found some short trails to start him out on. This morning we went for our first short hike. My cousin and her two kids came with is. She is also trying to break in her kids. We hiked the Birdsong Trail in the mouth of Ogden Canyon. It was about a mile long. It was a great hike for starting the little ones. We saw some surprises along the way.

Its really hard to see because my camera sucks at close ups, but there is a lizard in this picture! I tried to catch one....but my lizard catching skills are a bit outdated. We saw a total of three lizards.

I am glad Brody(my cousins 8 year old) was paying attention because he was the one that spotted this guy. At first I thought it was a rattler. Thank goodness it wasnt. It is definately the biggest wild snake any of us had seen. After further inspection of the pile of logs we found another smaller snake.

There were little Cacti all over the place. I was begining to feel like I was in the desert instead of the mountains.

And then we saw this little waterfall and it felt a little bit more like the mountains.

Katelyn

Brody

The kids all did pretty well. It was a fun little hike.

My Achievement...

So last week I got our garden planted. It took me a few days, but I did it. It was kind of frustrating because the head of my rake kept falling off, and Donovan wanted to help. I would get my row started out and he would come behind me with his little rake and ruin it. Then I got my soaker hoses buried and decided to check them before I planted...its a good thing I did because one of them had a big split in it. So I had to pull it out and put a new one in. Donovan was really excited to plant seeds and he and Addison had a blast doing it. I don't have any pictures because I am the picture taker and I was occupied. I think I will take a few in a week or so when our stuff grows a bit more. We planted tomatoes, zuchini, crook neck squash, cucumbers, watermelon, and pumpkins. We will see how much cross pollinating happens. I am excited...we wil have lots of our favorite vegetables!

Our Busy Saturday

Last Saturday was a busy day for us. We were going to go watch my sister Becky run in the Ogden Marathon...but she got injured and wasnt able to run. We were sad for her, but we were happy that we still got to see her. Addison had a soccer game and then her Elite Olympics. (Her gymnastics performance) Addison was really excited that aunt Becky was able to come and watch her. Addison did very well in soccer this season. She is really a go getter and gives it her best. She earned the nick name "grasshopper" from her team because she is so fast.

Addison's friend's mom brought up the idea of putting Addison in gymnastics with her daughter. Addison was really excited about doing it so we thought we would let her try it. I can't remember exactly when she started but it was towards the begining of the year. She has loved it. They have a performance at the end of each session. It was fun to see all of the progress she has made. It has also been a BIG confidence builder for her.

This last picture is Addison's friend, Rachel and her little sister. She is the one that got her into gymnastics. Addison has done so well that she is advancing. She is one out of four of the ten girls in her group that gets to advance. I feel bad because her friend is not one of them.

We are VERY proud of our daughter!

After all of that we had a birthday party to go to and Addison slept over. I went to work. It was a very busy but fun day!

Reptile Show

Nathan's mom got this reptile guy to come do a primary activity at their church. He showed a bunch of reptiles but most of the pictures were blurry or too dark. He showed two different types of scorpions, a triantula, a gigantic turtle, some type of lizard, and a couple of snakes. The snake in these pictures was over 140 pounds. Donovan didnt want to touch it but when he finally did he laughed.

I love the kids faces in this one. Addison and Demree's especially.

It was a fun evening....even though I was feeling pretty crappy!

Adventures

Since I am on summer break from the nursing program I have made it a goal to do something worth posting about at lease every other week. Maybe even every week. We will see. Since I will be working full time it might be a challenge. The first week in May I started getting sick, but I had cabin fever really bad. So I packed Donovan into the truck and we went for a drive up Farmington Canyon. We didn't get very far because the gates were still closed due to a lot of snow still up there. We stopped a few times and took picutes and took the trail to the cave. We forgot our flashlight so we didn't go in. There were a lot of little waterfalls and the little stream was more like a river due to the run off. Once we got to the bottom we stopped at the pond and walked around. Donovan took some pictures. It was a pretty fun little outing.

This man amazes me!

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4784012n
I hope this link works because I think this pilot is amazing. I hope that I can stay that calm and collected in the face of a stressful situation!