our fun trip to slc =) pics are way out of order though =)

WARNING! THERE ARE A TON OF PICTURES AND I SHOULD PROBABLY HAVE MADE A SLIDE SHOW, BUT OH WELL. :) AND THEY ARE OUT OF ORDER. OOPS. :)

We all went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. It was very pretty inside.

our last night in Salt Lake the kids all camped out in the living room and watched BOLT.

Madelynne's birthday party was the 18th and she had a lot of fun. She was so excited we were cracking up.

She was soooo excited to see her new scooter.

more birthday fun...she's 4 now! wow!

fun fun!

licking the candles after she pulled them out.

Madelynne picked out her cake...i was lazy and didn't make it this year. :)

This is Jumpin' Jacks. It's a warehouse filled with fun obstacle courses, slides, bounce houses all air filled and for any age. It was lots of fun. I was sooo sore by the time I crawled into bed that night. Wow!

Tali was the instigator of throwing kids down the tall slides. They loved it. Way fun!

This is one of the smaller slides, the big one we didnt get pictures of since we were all on it at the same time. lol

this was an obstacle course that ended with a slide...the landing was definitely not soft on this one. :)

Madi having fun :)

the huge obstacle course with two course to race someone to the end.

the air left this section for a minute and Ben and I totally fell to the ground. Jacob jumped on top of us since it looked like so much fun.

Michael having some fun.

my niece Lexi having fun.

Madi couldn't keep the sidewalk chalk off her face. lol

the boys made a ramp on the sidewalk out front of the house and rode back and forth for hours on bikes and scooters. Check out Michael on Lexi's pink bike. For some reason they all fought over that one. Never did find out why that one was so cool. haha!

Lexi doing a little sidwalk art.

The chocolate factory in SLC (Mrs. Cavanaugh's) didn't have an elevator so the boys were recruited to help carry Jacob down the stairs. :)

Lexi & Jacob with the mini villiage at the chocolate factory in the background.

watching the movie at the beginning of the tour in the chocolate factory.

Michael watching BOLT on our last night.

all of us minus tali at the little movie in the chocolate factory.

Jacob and Madelynne playing on Jolene's swingset the night before we left on our trip at SheraLee's birthday party. :)

Lexi & Tali

Tali during our game of Canasta. She and Steve were on a team and her mom Debbi and I were on a team. We KICKED SOME SERIOUS BUTT!!! lol we even tried to lose. :)
on the way to utah we ran into traffic barely 20 miles after we left. haha

madi is famous for getting into everything...here's her getting into the stickers. :)

my niece Lexi and brother in law Steve

more of the traffic on the road. lol check out that black sheep. haha

madi and jacob reading in bed before everyone else was up in the morning.

we saw a lot of rainbows since it rained a lot down there. Very pretty.

This is at SheraLee's birthday the night before the trip. It's in Cowley. We bbq'd with them.

the older girls at the birthday party made a castle out of a box...pretty funny. The little girls loved it.

we had a fun afternoon at the park while down in salt lake. The kids played and played then a family showed up with 2 little puppies and the kids were in heaven. The people were really nice and let them play with the dogs.

Madi chillin' on Tali's couch.

Madelynne and her cake.

another storm, another rainbow

hangin' out on the porch watching the boys on their bikes.

tali set up a bounce house in her living room and the littlest kids had a blast. Then the older kids realized it was up and came in for some fun for a bit. more birthday fun! the cake was yummy.

tali & me

Benjamin's baseball

Benjamin joined the Minors in baseball this year. He's graduated from T-ball. His team this year has won all three games so far. He'll miss the next week and a half due to a rockin' family vacation, but resume practices on the 22nd. He's excited. He's come a lot way with it and taken the coaches tips to heart, but he's growing up way too fast. haha! Guess they all do that. Always a fan of watching sports and cheering the kids and their friends on.

hi there!

hanging out in Theron's truck for a minute :)
it snowed this past Sunday morning...INSANE!! snow is definitely not good for the garden. lol
Michael, Dad and I got a good little game of Monopoly in on Sunday. Not sure who won. We gave up after a while. That is one LONG game. =)

Change of plans...

I am sad to announce that my Dad is NOT getting married after all. He's put a lot of thought and prayers into it and decided that it wasn't the right thing to do. We're sad and surprised, but he and Jennifer have decided not to get married. It's sad to see Dad going through this rough time, but this too shall pass. Love you Dad, hang in there.

My dad's future wife...since future step-mother sounds so weird. lol

This is Jennifer Haynes of Glenrock, Wyoming. My dad's fiance'. He's the happiest I've seen him in a long time and we're all very excited for him. June 27th can't come soon enough for them. haha! Her hair is a lot shorter since this picture, but this is still her. :) She's a sweetheart of a woman. We're looking forward to having her join our family. YOU GO DAD! :)

Memorial day fun!

We started out our morning at the church for a flag ceremony and breakfast. It was fun. :) Then we headed for Cowley for a visit to the cemetery to see my mom's grave and Theron's mom's grave. The kids got some fun in at the park and school playground before we headed back.
The view of the water tower from the swings at the Cowley town park.
My mom's grave.Theron's mom's grave.

They always gravitate to this one particular tree in the cemetery. Too fun.

Michael in the tree.

Various pics for fun. :)

Michael putting the old VHS's to use. I guess we can't say we hardly ever use them. haha
Benjamin hanging around.

Jacob looking peaceful in sleep. :)

Jacob and Madelynne playing in the yard.

Madelynne's idea of getting "on" on the car so we could leave the park. :)

Another one of Madelynne's little moments of mischief. (and the mouse pad and the mouse...ugh).

Madelynne hamming it up.

Madelynne in Benjamin's cowboy boots striking a pose.

Katrina watching the kids play while Rita chews on some paper in the background.

Benjamin's state project

Benjamin has been working on a his 3rd grade state project for a couple weeks now. I still don't know if he picked Georgia or was assigned it. Yesterday they put them on display in the gym for parents to come see then the entire school walked through. Ben did a presentation with ten facts about the state. He did a great job. It also showed me that he'll be working on his spelling all summer long. Wow! :o)

fun on the deck :)

It's been so beautiful today so the kids and I took advantage of it and hung out on the deck.

Madelynne posing for the camera with Grandpa relaxing in the sun.

Madelynne & Jacob playing. Dad still getting some sun and is now a bean bag chair for Jacob.
Jacob letting Grandpa get some rest for a moment. :)Lunch on the deck. We spread the car rug out then set up the play tent for some shade. Gotta love the pb&j cheeks. Why they eat through the middle of a sandwich escapes me. lol :)

been a while :)

Hey there! It's been forever! It was always at the back of my mind to get on here and blog, blog, blog. We've had a busy past week. A friend and her daughter came out from California to job hunt, do a few interviews and visit some friends. She stayed with us 3 days and they were action packed. We hit the drive-in in Powell on opening night and saw Mall Cop then didn't get home till nearly midnight. Gotta love living in the middle of nowhere. :) There's always a travel time tacked onto everything. The kids loved that one, but froze were all shivering by the time they crawled back into the suburban at the end of the movie. They swore they were fine out in their chairs. Tough guys I guess. haha! I was a major wimp and turned the heater on from time to time to warm up. It was a fun weekend. Ben and Paul came down with croupy coughs and have missed all week. It's been a pain. They have appointments today with the doc so that should help. Maybe some zithromax or something. Who knows. They haven't been in in forever so I can't remember what they had last. The wedding plans are fun to watch happen for Dad. He's pretty funny and reminds me of any young couple waiting to get married. :) He's extremely happy so that's contagious. :) Theron's working like crazy. He's been gone nearly 4 weeks this time around so that's been a bummer. The longer he's gone the less and less I like to do things around the house. Crazy how that works. It's not depression I think it's just the motivation and team effort isn't there and I drag. Crazy. So he'll be home in about a week and a half. We've been exploring new job ideas for him so our fingers are crossed. Ok, this has taken me a couple of hours to get to this point so I'm thinking I'll quit now before it gets erased. There's a couple of pics from when Kortney was in town.