We have a garden!!!!

You might not think that's a big deal but this was our fourth try (and definitely last if it didn't grow) so I didn't hold out much hope for this year.

I just could not believe I'm a vegetarian who can not grow veggies.

So this year we went big, we started in April planting seeds to grow inside the house. (part of the problem is our very short growing season)

This is the boys taking their gardening jobs very seriously.

We got through the first hurdle the plants (for the most part) grew. Here they are ready to plant.

Next Dewey put up hay bales on both ends to act as a wind break (another big issue here) and fencing to keep the chickens out.

Here it is with everything planted. The plants that you can actually see are from my amazing garden extraordinaire mother in law. She has a green house and a green thumb. Lucky for us she had to many plants for her garden so she shared them with us.

Like I said at the beginning even with all this work I sort of assumed the plants would die. So........ I may have planted WAY to many squash plants. I was playing the odds plant 10, if 8 die I still have 2. I love love squash so that was a must in our veggie choice. We did also plant beets, carrots, peas, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins.

As you can see the squash took over!!! No more neat little walking paths between the rows. One whole corner we can't even get to. But look at all that green. Everything grew, YOOHOO!!! We only had to add a few more hay bales and more fencing, sneaky chickens found a way in.

We have a real garden!!!

Now that we know we can do it we have all kinds of plans for next year to fix everything we did wrong this year.
In the mean time we pick this much squash every other day. Anybody have any good squash freezing recipes? As it is we are eating some form of squash every night for dinner. And I'm pretty sure people pretend to not be home when they see us coming with bags of squash. Who knew not everybody loves it?

4th of July!!!

We have had such a crazy busy last few weeks. The week before the 4th my Grandma visiting from Texas was able to stay with us a few days. The boys just loved having their G.G here to play with them. Luke even had her out playing baseball.

For the 4th weekend my brothers amazing girlfriend Miki arraigned for all of us to stay in a condo in Park City. (which happens to be one of my favorite places in Utah)

This is Steve (with the scary mountain bike face on) Me, Miki, and Kiena waiting in line to ride the ski lift. On this trip down Dew stayed with the littles.

It was a BLAST!!!!!! I LOVED speeding down the mountain with he wind in my face enjoying the wondrous views. On the next run I went with Steve and Dewey, we did a harder switch back run and I'm happy to say I only wrecked once with no visible damage.

Dewey took Hailey Luke and Kolby on the lift to ride the Alpine slide.

Unfortunately when they got to the top they were told he needed one more adult to be able to ride the slide down. So there walk down the mountain not near as much fun as our ride. We were all able to go down the next day. Luke yelled the whole way down "Go faster, go faster". And Kolby just laughed.


They did have some Kiddie rides that the three littles could not get enough of.

On Saturday Liz and Gary hosted our annual family BBQ at their house. It was so fun seeing everyone. We were able to see Grandma one more time before she goes home. Liz and Gary did an amazing job, the BBQ turned out great. Whats not to love about mondo big marshmallows to roast over the fire.

One of the boys favorite cousins is "big" Hailey (we have two haileys big hailey is big by virtue of being the oldest) Luke took tons of pics of her and her husband Dan. This one is so cute, sorry Dan I swear I didnt take it.

On the way home on Monday we stopped at Sundance in Prove canyon........beautiful beautiful ski resort.

The mountains in this area just take my breathe away away every time I see them. An amazing weekend!!!!! Thank you so much Miki, and Steve it was a weekend we will never forget!!!!

Coin toss drive

One of our favorite things to do is take a "Coin toss drive". Dewey and I did our first one about 20 years ago and ended up in rural Idaho, we had a blast. Now we try to do them every couple month's. You start by picking two directions and assign one to heads and one to tails. In our drive last Sunday we picked North and East. We ended up going East over a mountain. It was a beautiful cloudy day.

When we got over the mountain out came the coin with the choice to go North or South, South it was. Out only other "rule" is we have to see something we have not seen before. We ended up in Kanab a beautiful little town we have been to quite a few times. But we found a museum that is made up of old western movie sets. A place we had never been to. Luke just happens to be a huge fan of Westerns right now. Both boys were beyond excited to see "real cowboy stuff" .

Their favorite was the house that was in "The Oulaw Joise Wells".
The funny thin about this picture is my legs, see how far apart they are? P90X is doing something for me. I have Luke on one knee, I'm holding Kolby up with my arms and leaning over to my hole. Twister here I come.

The "boys" hamming it up by the Livery.

You can't have a cowboy village without a stagecoach.

This was from the set of a Disney movie.

And of course we had to check out the antique farm equipment.

It was such a fun little place, a perfect find on our coin toss drive.

Have a great weekend!!!!

Our favorite Hike!!

Dewey's Birthday was two weekends ago. (I know I'm a little behind in my blog posts.) Cassidi was able to come down for the weekend. It just happened to be the perfect time of year to do one of our favorite hikes in St. George. We only have a two month window every year to go. To early and there is too much water. To late and the water is gone and its way too hot.

It really is a stunning hike with red rocks and pools of water.

Dew, Cass, Luke and Kolby at the first water pool.

This is the top but to get here you have to climb.......

This!
Dewey wore our hiking backpack that in previous years has carried the boys but for this year was used for this spot. (Kolby was able to hike the whole hike on his own other then this area) I went across first then Dewey carried Luke over and went back and brought Kolby over. Kolby is just looking around smiling the whole time.

Cassidi had her own way of climbing across.

There is a small slot canyon that you can keep hiking if you are willing to drop in and swim at times. Cassidi and I went as far as we could without swimming, just beautiful.

The boys had a blast jumping in and splashing in the stream.

Red red rocks and sun, whats better then that?

Luke showing off is dive moves.

Would you ever guess the water is literally two inch's deep?

A beautiful woman with a beautiful backdrop.

And one picture of me climbing back down. I'm sure its bad lighting or something my legs can not possibly be that white :)

Cass coming down with a better view of the waterfall.

And one last picture by the bottom pool.

We all had so much fun, a wonderful day.

Luke graduated Preschool!

Wow the year has just flown by, it seems like Luke was just starting preschool, now he's done with the next step.... kindergarten....sob.

We were so lucky in that he had one of the nicest teachers I have ever met. It was such a good experience for him. On the last day of school I woke him up and then went in to check on him. He was sitting on his bed crying, when I asked what was wrong he said "I'm just going to miss my teachers". With all the rough and tough stuff I forget he has such a tender heart. He asked me to take a picture so he could remember Miss. Barbara. I think it turned out just perfect.

Luke and Kolby pretty much divide their time equally between fighting and playing. They are either screaming or laughing with a few moments of rare quiet time in between. Luke is Kolby's very best friend he follows him everywhere. Luke takes his role of big brother very seriously in quite the bossy demanding way.

But I have noticed something lately, every time time I go to take a picture one of them puts their our around the other.

I liked this fence at an old barn and just told them to stand there, they did the rest.

I was taking pics of our dogs and the boys ran over and jumped in.

And my favorite picture because they don't even know I took it. They are totally engrossed in a Diego video on the computer, I looked over and this is how I found them.

Such sweet examples of love just melt my heart.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's day!!!

I have had the privilege to "meet" so many amazing mom's in the blog world. I wish you all the very best this weekend!!

I have two favorite pictures of me and the boys. They still make me smile and cry to look at them.

This one is in Kazakhstan, sitting at the Baby house with Luke. This was before he smiled, we were there a few weeks before we saw his first grin.

After waiting so many years, holding my son in my arms........heaven.

And this is Kolby on our visit trip to Guatemala, Dewey took this not long after we brought Kolby back to our room for the first time. He was such a happy easy going guy.

There is nothing in the world like holding your child for the first time.
And one of my new favorite pics, taken in San Diego. It makes me smile because it shows the real us. Luke is not smiling because he is on a ship and oh so close to huge planes and his mom is making take a picture. And kolby is doing his "cheese" grin, looking at all that is going on around him and crossing his leg's because he can not hold still for even a few minutes.
LOVE IT!!!
When Kolby looked at this picture he said "look mom your a princess". I think that is the best complement I have ever received. If my son thinks I am a princess I'm a happy women.

To all the wonderful women in my life and all you Amazing mothers out there....

Have a simply perfect weekend what ever you do, you deserve the very best!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

A Mother's Love

There are times when only a Mother's love

can understand our tears,

can soothe our disappoints

and calm all of our fears.

There are times when only a Mother's love

can share the joy we feel

when something we've dreamed about

quite suddenly is real.

There are times when only a Mother's faith

can help us on life's way

and inspire in us the confidence

we need from day to day.

For a Mother's heart and a Mother's faith

and a Mother's steadfast love

were fashioned by the Angels

and sent from God above......

-Author Unknown-

Big News!!

Luke can ride a bike!!!

The snow/rain/wind FINALLY let up enough for us to get the bikes out of the garage. Dewey took Luke's training wheels off and we headed to our neighbors (the closest place with an asphalt driveway...or any paved driveway) for some practice rides. Both Dewey and I assumed this would be a slow going process. Wrong..... as soon as the wheels came off Luke hopped on and started riding. He was giggling and laughing the whole time he was so excited. I took these pictures and videos once we got home.

Sorry about the wind in the video, it makes it a little hard to hear. And yes Luke is in cowboy boots, We do live in the country after all ;) He is already asking for a bigger bike, with the helpful suggestion that Kolby can have his soon to be old bike. He also wants Dewey to build him a dirt track to ride on. We might need some helpful hints from the Wilcox clan :)