Its all about keeping cool

I will say right off the bat that I'm not complaining. I know there has been terrible heat waves all over the country. For us it has been normal July 98ish degree days. However.....98degrees is still pretty hot. So for us it has been all about cooling off.

You all know I love sprinkler pics, its one of the only times I can catch the pure happy expressions of the boys. Normally something about seeing a camera pointed their direction brings out the fake smiles.

Once Dewey started this, all we heard was "again, again"

Such simple fun, such happy boys

A few days ago we had to drive to St. George (about 45 minutes to the south of us). Generally we love going there especially in the winter when it runs 30 degrees warmer then our mountain town. We are even fine going there in the summer if we are headed to a pool or say Costco with its air conditioning. This trip was for work...... outside.... in 112 degrees. Dewey had it the worst by far. Mostly I just tried to keep the boys from over heating. We were in a part of town we were not that familiar with, as we were driving the boys spotted water spraying. Of course we had to stop and investigate. We found the nicest little park set up, with water features.

Luke LOVED the random water sprayer. (Kolby was not a fan, too many kids I think)

Luke has no fear and ran right out in the middle with everyone else.

Keep in mind we had no idea we were coming here so off came the shirts and shorts it was for water play.

It was such a cool set up, waterfalls, little rivers and rocks to jump off of.

Their favorite part was a little "river" type area.

Whoever came up with this idea for kids is brilliant. It was packed, we were not the only ones that had the idea of cooling off in water.

We have a new favorite place to go in the summer. I have promised that next time we go we will be a tad more prepared with say swimsuits :)

Celebrating Pioneer Day

July 24Th is a big holiday in Utah. Its the day we celebrate the pioneers making their way across the country to Utah and then most importantly deciding to stay here. Dewey and I both had family that helped settle Utah. Its interesting history and worth celebrating. On Monday there were parades across the state. Our little town being rather small did the best they could.

The highlight in the parades was the firetrucks with their sirens blaring

The noise and largeness of the vehicles was a little much for Kolby, Luke however right out there waving.
Kolby perked up a little as soon as the candy was thrown. You can't miss out on the kid scramble for one piece of taffy.

You know you live in a small town when one of the "floats" is a Dutch oven band on hay bails. What you have never heard of such a thing?? Country living my friends, country living :)

We have yet to go to a parade when we don't run into kids the boys know. Which makes it all the more fun for them to watch with their friends.

Just a cute pic of Kolby thrown in cus come on look at that smile....

We had a great time enjoying the parade for what it was. It didn't try to be all uppity with uniforms, matching anything, or fancy floats. Nope just good small town fun.

And almost the best part this was all on Monday so a three day weekend WOOHOO

Ok its been a week......

I can talk about it....... yep its official I am 40!

Luckily for me I have the best hubby,siblings and friends in the world. They planned a surprise trip to Las Vegas for the weekend. I knew Dew and I were going, I thought to celebrate our Bir-Anni (birthday-anniversary same day). The fact that everyone else came down was a huge surprise. Its a 6 hour drive for Steve & Miki and Liz & Gary, so very nice of them to come down. It was kinda funny how it worked out..... there was apparently much planning and effort that went into the timing, which I messed up by wanting dinner in Cedar before Dew and I left. This made us literally drive past Liz and Gary on the freeway on the outskirts of Vegas...oops. Steve and Miki arrived about an hour after we did, another big surprise. The first night we all took a limo to Fremont street.

I swear Steve and Miki could not look bad in a picture if they tried :)

If you like to watch people Freemont street is the place to go...... we had a blast walking watching and laughing. They had live bands every so often which I swear were both playing 80's music for me and my oldness.
You can't go to Vegas without getting a picture taken with a creepy Elvis guy

Saturday we spent time at the pool, 100 degrees, cool water, yes please

Liz and Gary reserved seats for us at an AMAZING Cirque DU Soleil type show on Sat night. So we all got dressed up and went to dinner first. Delish Sushi place.

Cute pic of Liz and Gary, so happy we got to spend so much time with them.

How often are we all in one place dressed up? Not enough that we couldn't stop and take pics before the show.... Girls pic Miki, me and Liz

And how handsome are these boys? Gary, Steve and Dewey

Right before the show our friends Todd and Robin showed up as my last surprise. I honestly feel so blessed to have such amazing people in my life.

After the show we went to Margaritaville, one of our can't miss places in Vegas.

Happy 6 year Anniversary sweetie, LOVE YOU!!

We had a great time dancing, chatting and yup eating again :)

So glad Todd and Robin were there.

Boys pic with showgirls....check
Such a fun time, I sort of didn't even notice that I turned 40.
Vegas has such great memories for me. My grandma lived here when I was a child so we spent a LOT of time here. Its the last place I saw my dad alive. Liz and and celebrated her 21 birthday here. Dewey and I have been coming here since I was 19 and he was 21. (it seems like things were a lot cheaper then) Dewey and I were married here 6 years ago. So I can't imagine a better place to celebrate turning 40. Huge huge thanks to everyone for planning and putting it all together, Love you all!!

Family camping....

Since our family hike through Zions narrows didn't work out. (completely flooded out) we decided maybe we could do a camping trip, in theory a lot less work. The weekend before we left for Texas we all met out at my grandmas property. A place we love with tons a great memories but that is also located near the middle of nowhere.

Except an old mining ghost town, always a favorite of ours to explore.

Its no secret I love old buildings so I took many, many pics of all angles

We think this was the mercantile, so strange its just standing there by itself, I can only imagine what was around it. I caught Steve and Miki walking by.

Dewey exploring/watching for snakes with the Little's

Its not a camping trip without hotdogs and watermelon and Luke rocking his goggles

I don't even know what face Kolby is making here but it cracked me up.

The boys love "big" Hailey (my niece) and try to hold her hand every chance they get

It was so nice for to spend the weekend with family. Great food, great times, great company! We did have a rattle snake issue...... Kolby nearly stepped on one. He would have except Dewey was right behind him and grabbed him in mid stride. Needless to say this shook up Kolby and Dewey. And me who was not even there.... but can appreciate how scary and gross it was. We may have a family aversion to snakes of all kinds types and slithers. (I know not a real word :)

On the way to the middle of nowhere there are these very cool rocks by the side of the road. If I was much smarter I would tell you the name and kind but you'll have to just go with cool. The kids love to play on them and low and behold there was a geocache hidden. Which proves there are caches everywhere. Here's Steve finding it.

Kolby can not help but climb, I swear give him any kind of surface, round rock flat rock straight up and down rock, he'll climb it.

How cute is this pic of Liz and Gary and their little Leo? Way to cute if you ask me since we had been camping all weekend. You won't be seeing any pics of me :)

Very fun camping trip, enjoyed by all!!

Texas Vacation

We have been CRAZY busy lately, full swing summer fun.

The boys preschool closed for summer vacation last week for two weeks. This made things more then a little tricky to try and figure out with work. My grandma has been asking for us to come visit her in Texas for ages. Knowing this my amazing brother Steve and his girlfriend Miki arraigned for Steve, me and the boys to fly out there last week. I was going to have to miss work anyway so perfect chance to go.

This is how Kolby starts his vacation...... He fell asleep before the plane was off the ground. (on both flights) And can I just say personal DVD players best invention ever. Kept both boys happy as can be the whole flight. (for Kolby on the parts he was awake :)

We had an amazing fun filled trip.

Who doesn't love a carousal?

There is a park across the street from Grandmas, which the boys thought was the coolest thing ever. Living in the country we have to go into town to play at parks.

I do have to say I was not expecting the heat/humidity. We are high desert people IE DRY heat. Poor Luke ran around the whole time saying "why am I so sweaty" Steve dunked both boys heads in the cold water and they begged for more.

Me and my cute grandma in front of her beautiful little house. (I promise that's not a fanny pack its a purse that just squished over to the middle)

Steve and I both took a ton of pictures so we can put together a book for grandma, in this one we are enjoying the evening air. Me hot grandma cool as a cucumber :)

My brother Jordan Plays football for his high school. I had heard about Texas high school football but I don't think I understood until I saw first hand. We were able to go to a practice game he had, so fun to see. I might be a little prejudice but I think he is really good. Luke was more then impressed. Once we got home he has told everyone "My uncle is a football player, man you should see him play" too funny.

One of the days we went to the Children's Museum in Houston. We got there a little early so we took the chance for more photo ops. Liz is missing from this sibling pic, the first one we have had in a very long time.

This is a boys only photo :)

Luke and Kolby simply adored their uncles, it only took about five minutes and they didn't leave their sides. I love this pic of Kolby and Patrick so cute. Jordan and Patrick were so sweet with the boys one of the highlights of the trip for sure.

Once again the country thing comes into play not a lot of large children's museums around......so the boys went into full fun overload. I swear it took all 6 adults to look after the two of them.

The craft station was not as fun for them as it would have been for say me. But vise versa for the Lego building/racing station. I think Jordan and Patrick were having almost as much fun, except that as soon as they would start something the Little's were off to something else.

Who knew a little pretend store would be so fun for them. I assumed since they have gone grocery shopping with me at least 152 times they wouldn't care, oh not so. They had a blast finding the food they wanted and putting it in their very own baskets. Jordan was "cashier" and rang up their purchases.

Check out this climbing thing, I mean really how cool is this. Except for the fact that once Luke and Kolby started climbing I lost track of them and there were openings on three different floors. I'm a fairly neurotic mom so this did not go well. Jordan and Steve started climbing after the boys and Patrick ran up the stairs..... Your welcome everyone for the exercise :) In the picture you can sort of see the Little's scrambling up.

Such a fun day for the boys that they will not soon forget. They are already asking if they can go back next weekend. Um yea sure thing. I guess I better look into the Children's museum in salt lake city that's only 3 1/2 hours away.

There were two beautiful little lakes in my moms neighborhood, kids....ducks yup fun

Huge miracle that the boys didn't go in the water, it might have been the beware of snakes (icky and super icky) signs that I used to freak them out just a tad about even putting their toes in the water. Hey there was a sign that's a real threat.

I forgot some pics so I'm sure I'll be adding more in another post. Plus some from our family camping trip the weekend before we left for Texas.

Here's one last airport pic waiting for our plane.

A very fun trip that I'm so thankful to Steve and Miki for putting together!!