So we headed out to a water park Friday with some friends. The park I think was call the Western Trails or Western experience two or something. Or maybe desert exploration oddessy of Spartacus. Okay that’s not the name, I can’t remember it. Also if you haven’t been able to tell yet, this isn’t Alison. Okay so read on for all the juicy goods!
So there were these little ponies you could rock yourself on. These were a big hit with all our kids, only Andrea would pose for me. A side note, we went to a park in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and it was really nice but had only one of these in the entire park. It was like the designers wanted to see toddler death matches on a daily basis!
These windows were dearly loved by our youngest. He played around these, looked through them and played peek-a-boo for a few hours. It was really cool!
Here is another good looking shot of our Josh. He is 3 weeks away from being 18 months. It does seem like he is so much older than this! The hats were the most recent addition to our outdoor adventures and we really do love them. I am not sure if the boys do, but they can’t take them off to easily and the amount of sunburns we have experienced has gone way down!
This is a favorite with the doctors. It keeps up business. It is a a wiggly walkway or whatever you want to call it. It was really fun to see the kids play on it!
Here is one of my children’s favorite things to do. Watch other people. Actually unabashedly stare at them! So I am sorry if you have ever been subjected to the Williams stare!
Here is our new baby girl. Just Kidding. Though if our friends didn’t want her anymore I would take her. She is adorable! Perhaps I am also excited for our little baby girl that will be coming out so soon…
Okay so here is Zach finally. I corned him on the teeter toter. It was kind of cute. How many of you have seen these at parks recently though? I was amazed to see them!
Andrea playing in the water, and seriously loving it! She held my hand, dry clothes and all and pulled me through the water for quite a while for a lot of great fun!
More water fun!
That was awesome. I am really tired, and still totally wet. I love water parks…I think that sums up Andrea’s emotions at the time the camera clicked here!
This park besides having a fun water play area also had walkways low and high that were a blast, especially for our water shy Josh.
Also take note at how great Alison is looking at almost 8 months pregnant!
This little stage coach was a ton of fun for our kids as well. They played in here a lot! This also kind of shows the wade variety of design that they put into the park. It was laid out to be a lot of fun for kids and enjoyable for parents as well. I am impressed by the park for all except the wood chips on the ground. Oh well!
Here is another view of a different area of the park. It was lots of fun and I would need at least 20 pictures to show you all the cool parts of it!
Okay last of all here is one last view of a free standing tower that lets kids climb more than 3o feet in the air, and still be pretty safe overall. Nice place. If only we could get around the 40 minute drive to get there! Blows me away that we could almost drive to Valley of Fire faster than driving out to here. Dang.
For all you people around Vegas that may read this, the park is off of Durango and Blue Diamond, turn towards LA off of Blue Diamond onto Durango and you will see it.
Hi. Remember us? That one family in Vegas? Have you wondered where we disappeared to? Or did you just assume that our house swallowed us? Well, the truth is the summer is just too much fun to spend much time in front of a computer. But seriously, is it really the middle of August?
Let’s see…last you heard we bought a house. Shortly after buying the house we made a quick trip to Provo for my brother’s wedding. I was nervous about packing for a trip while unpacking for the house, but it turned out pretty easy: you just skim off the top layer. That way you only get the stuff you’ve been using anyway. It was a great trip and the wedding was beautiful! Congratulations Derek and Jessica!
The rest of May was spent enjoying the unusually cool weather (sub 90s!) and working on our house and yard.
Goodbye who-needs-a-real-backdoor-anyway.
Hello I’m-a-real-backdoor!
Goodbye kid hazard and roach breeding ground.
Hello beautiful new and beautiful pool!
Ha ha! A girl can dream! (Currently our pool consists of a 6″ wading pool).
And if you aren’t thoroughly convinced that we’ve been busy, here are some more pictures of my hard working family.
Currently we’ve filled two dumpsters with broken concrete and other various pieces of rubble. We’re debating if we really need to go and get a third. Hmmm…..
We celebrated our hard work by taking our kids to a movie under the stars at The District.
About then June came. Let the camping trips begin! First we caped with our friends up in Mt. Charleston and then Chris did an overnighter with the scouts. (Did we tell you he’s been called as Scout Master?)
Our next camping trip took us to Zion’s National Park. Oh it was beautiful!
As you can see we even got Robert, Jenny and Melissa (Chris’ siblings) to come and relax with us.
I think my favorite part of the trip was hiking up the Narrows. I highly recommend it!
My least favorite part was taking Josh to an emergency clinic to get stitches. Now over the last year we’ve had a couple yeah-possibly-maybe-needs-stitches-but-maybe-it-will-heal-on-its-own. Not this time. Josh was a trooper. He didn’t mind getting the stitches at all; I think he was most upset about being strapped to a papoose board. (The stitches have healed beautifully!)
After Zion’s, Melissa decided to brave the heat and come back to Vegas with us. We had a great time with picnics and parks and shopping. We even made it to the Chocolate Factory and cactus gardens. This sweet girl also convinced us to go on a spontaneous camping trip to Valley of Fire. Wow it was hot! (seriously, sleeping on the ground was like laying on a heater). But it was beautiful! We even got to see the full moon rise over some cool rock formations.
Chris also found the arch that he has spent 100s of hours (and the last two years) looking for. Pretty cool arch, eh?
Somewhere in the midst of this we also found the time to attend a candy making class, speak in church, learn to make cheese (which is delicious, by the way), swim with friends, and make it to an ultrasound. We’re having a girl! Boy, girl, boy, girl. I’m feeling remarkably balanced right now.
A few days ago our family stopped by a friend’s house to check out their kittens and decided to take two home with us.
Why?
Well, A) They were really cute, and B. They were already house trained. What other reasons are there?
The kids absolutely adore them (Probably a little too much for the kittens’ liking…). Zach is surprisingly gently (unless he’s picking it up by the tail), Andrea really doesn’t pay much attention to them, but Josh can’t get enough! He chases them with unbounded joy and an almost maniacal laugh!
The happy homeowners! Oh wait, you didn’t want to see us; you want to see the new house!
Ta-da!
Let’s see, what information would you like to know? It was built in 1983 and has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and 2000 sq ft. Oh yes, and a two car garage. I think I’m in heaven!
Here’s the front entry way. Obviously these pictures were taken before we moved our stuff in, so you don’t get to see the current chaos. Don’t feel too bad about not seeing my decorating skills. Currently it is rather simple, couch on that wall and piano against the other wall. We’ll get tricky and fancy later. Maybe.
And here’s the view looking down on our living room. You can also see a bit of our sun room through the window. We currently have all the toys in there and it is so nice to have a space for the kids to make as much mess as they’d like.
Here’s the dining room and you can see a bit of the breakfast nook.
Here’s a better new of the breakfast nook and kitchen.
And the kitchen (I seem to spend a lot of time here…).
And now for the backyard. Drum roll……
I believe this is a large Koi pond. It’s about 12 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 4 feet deep, complete with two large waterfalls. And by the end of the month we will have ripped that sucker out!
And this is our patio. I think it has a lot of potential. There’s a raised bed in back that goes the length of the yard.
And here’s another shot of the backyard. I’m not sure what all those shade structures were for down there. It has a nice sprinkling system…
Anyway, as you can see the yard needs some fixin’ up! Okay, a lot of fixing up. But we have a rather simple plan for getting it under control. Step one: get rid of all the junk. Step two: plant lots of green stuff. What do you think?
So, you know those times that you see a friend, and you ask “Hey! How’ve you been? What have you been up to lately?” And they respond “oh, the same. Not much…” Well, let me tell you, we have been pretty busy lately.
First of all, Chris officially switched from a contract employee to a full time employee. Hooray for paid vacations and health benefits! He is a physical research scientist technician for the EPA and gets to run all the big machines and play with a lot of dirt. When he gets tired of that he goes out in the field and collects samples. I think he enjoys his job…
About the same time we started doing a little house hunting, and within two weeks we’d found a house (the first one we walked through ironically). The process of buying a house is absolutely frustrating and nerve wracking. I can’t believe what a pain it the whole process is. But we’re done! We closed on our house and moved in almost two weeks ago (and so we have a new address and phone number). Since then we have been to Home Depo several times. What a wonderful and terrible store it is. Infinite ideas for the finite wallet. Oh it’s fun to be a homeowner! (and slightly overwhelming at times too, to be honest…) Oh. i guess now woul
In the middle of unpacking and cleaning and moving we run back up to Utah. My little brother got married! Congratulations Derek and Jessica! I seriously can’t imagine anyone more perfect for my brother. We haven’t heard anything else from them so I guess they’re still on their honeymoon… It was a beautiful wedding on a beautiful day!
Also, WE’RE EXPECTING!! Baby number for is on his or her way! Hooray, hooray! We’re due in November, and Zach desperately wants another brother so that we can name him Zach; although last night I was talking to him and he decided it was okay if we have a girl (we don’t know yet). We can name her Zach Too even if she is a girl. So I guess I don’t have to worry about names anymore…
Well, I had a few other random bits of news but I think I need to go fix dinner because my kids are hungry. Funny how some things never change. Any dinner ideas for me tonight? (Or for other nights-seriously any tips on easy dinners or new homeowner ideas would be wonderful about now).
It is interesting being a parent. Especially if you have more than one kid. I honestly believe that, like Bill Cosby jokes, if you only have one kid then your not really a parent. Well okay you are, but you miss out on the excitement of being a parent.
You miss out on things like “who [...]
So today Andi and I were brushing our teeth and she picks up my face wash.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“That’s for washing my face?” I reply.
“What’s this?” she asks holding up my face lotion.
“That’s lotion for my face.”
“Oh,” she says and then holds up the foundation, “And this is for when you have a frown-y face?”
Yep, [...]
Thursday morning Chris looked at me and asked, “can we go camping today?” Get out of the house? YES! A few hours later after cleaning the house, washing some laundry, packing, organizing food…we were ready to go to Valley of Fire State Park.
We pitched camp and played on the big rocks. Later we had a [...]
Do gardens really grow and thrive and produce here in this hot place? (I mean beside the cacti) Well mine haven’t yet (herbs and tomato plants just haven’t done well), but I’m excited to try again. This year my garden consists of 6 pots of carrots, 1 big pot for a pumpkin plant and one [...]
Last week (March 2) Josh turned one! Can you believe it?
We started out his special day with cake…pancakes! Generally we always do letter pancakes and my kids have fun yelling out different letters and seeing them flipped to their plates. But since this was Josh’s day there was only one letter: J! (Good thing it’s [...]
The happy homeowners! Oh wait, you didn’t want to see us; you want to see the new house!
Let’s see, what information would you like to know? It was built in 1983 and has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and 2000 sq ft. Oh yes, and a two car garage. I think I’m in heaven!
And the kitchen (I seem to spend a lot of time here…).
And now for the backyard. Drum roll……
Anyway, as you can see the yard needs some fixin’ up! Okay, a lot of fixing up. But we have a rather simple plan for getting it under control. Step one: get rid of all the junk. Step two: plant lots of green stuff. What do you think?