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| Baby Hummingbird-aka: Elsa Cutes |
The kids and I were done with the heat in Mesa, so it was off to Utah to spend some time with my parents. We really wanted to enjoy the beautiful mountains as much as we could. My parents live very close to Provo canyon and I miss that canyon a lot! Our first day there the kids found a baby hummingbird-likely fell out of a nest way up high in a tree. The kids were super diligent with it. We were able to get it to drink some sugar water. The kids made it a "natural" home with a cardboard box, leaves, and branches. One morning it was gone, and I'm pretty sure it flew away on it's own. It was so cute and tiny-this picture is a child's hand, so that should give you a perspective on the size of this baby bird.
My kids and I and Emma (one of our favorite older cousins) went with us one of our first days there up to visit Riverton (where we used to live). We spent most of the day visiting my dear friend Renae and then we found the Up house in Herriman-it was super awesome! I had forgotten just how neat that house actually looks! We decided to go on a hike in Herriman that I had done with the youth. I don't think I remembered it quite right though because it wasn't very green and it was super dirty-lots of dry dirt. I couldn't believe just how dirty we got, but it was a good opportunity to test out a small hike before hitting some real mountains.
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Isabelles First hike!
We needed a hat to block the sun, her lightweight
blanket and elastic bow actually worked out quite well! |
After our first hike, we realized that Amelias crocs were not going to work for hiking-duh. So we went to buy her some new shoes. There was a pair of these funny, cute shoes on clearance-the only pair left actually and they fit Amelia! She fell in love with them and for the remainder of the trip, they hardly left her feet.
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| She even slept in them on many occasions. |
On another gorgeous evening, we hiked up 1st and 2nd falls with my parents and my sister Mary and her family one evening. It was really beautiful, though harder than I thought carting a baby on my back-mostly because it strained my neck so much. But it was such a beautiful overcast evening and the mountain air was just wonderful!
My kids love Grandma and grandpas yard-it is an awesome and beautiful place! They have a pool, a sandbox, playhouse, tramp, and wonderful grass all over!!
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| It started to rain, and not hot, muggy, mesa rain-real rain that feels how it should-nice and cool. The other cousins started to run right inside-any of my kids that weren't already outside ran right outside screaming for joy of rain!! The other cousins were inspired and joined my kids on the tramp since it did look pretty fun to be so excited! |
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Unfortunately, with luschious yards, come insects and bees-
Jonathan stepped on a bee our very first night there.
His foot was so huge! Poor kid! |
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| Amelia was being so cute playing so adorably! |
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| Love that face! |
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The kids were outside quite a bit, enjoying grandma and
grandpas amazing yard and the amazing weather!
Aubrey decided to jump very gently with little Isabelle. |
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| Digging for "gold" |
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| The Salamander-aka: David |
We went up to spend the day with Grandma and Grandpa Hansen. Several of our Hansen cousins met us there for a big lunch. Jonathan was so excited to see Taylor-one of his cousin idols. It was so cute to see Jonathan talking to him and wanting to sit by him and whatnot. Grandma and Grandpa Hansen burried a bunch of quarters in their sandbox for the kids to find-I think there were 50 quarters total! The kids had a lot of fun finding them. They found an extra surprise while looking though-a salamander that desperately needed water! They got it in some water and helped revive it back to life. Before we left, they took it back to where it likely came from-across the street in a water reserve.
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| Jonathan is a brave, good sport! |
One of my favorite holidays is Pioneer Day-it is a Utah and Mormon holiday. I have many fond memories of that day and I really love to learn about my pioneer ancestors and the lives and lifestyle they had. I know I romanticize it, but I still would love to adopt more of it into my own life at times. Being in Utah over Pioneer Day made for a super fun day and I hope my children will have fond memories of this day as well. We started off with a new tradition-as of last year-of the Temple to Temple walk/run. It is a 5k that goes from the Provo Temple to the Prove Tabernacle Temple. The neat thing about this race is that it is so family friendly! It is completely free-unless you want a shirt, then you pay $6 for a shirt and the shirt is really neat, so I paid for the shirt :)
I loved when I signed up for the race that the shirt sizes that you could choose were 12 months, 2 T, 4T, and so on. That means this is really a family race! So even my little Isabelle got a shirt that actually fit her!
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| Ready to start-though Amelia and Isabelle are still waking up :) |
We walked together with my kids cute cousin, Emma, and Jon's sister Lisa. It was really nice overall. It was fun to see all the people that were doing it-in fact it was actually amazing-there were 10,000 runners! We were at the start off to the side and thought we would just wait for the main crowd to go through and then move through. The stream of people seemed endless and after 10 minutes, we decided to go ahead and squeeze our way through the start line! My dad and my brother Jeremy did the race as well, only they actually ran it and then ran back to the start to get our cars-cause you know, 6 miles is really nothing to run to us ;)
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Watching the thousands of people going through the finish line,
wondering when we should try to jump in. |
Afterwards, Jeremy bought a bunch of BYU Creamery chocolate milk (the BEST, most AMAZING chocolate milk there is!!!) and french bread and we made french toast and had chocolate milk at my parents after the race.
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| Me with the kids and Lisa. |
Then my mom and I went on to one of my favorite things-the pioneer cabins on display in Spanish Fork-next to/part of their quilt show as well, so a double bonus. What I love about it is showing the kids the cabins and the blacksmith (they always have a blacksmith, who will make horseshoe rings upon request, which he did for the kids :)
Then they also have a couple of ponies that they let the kids sit on, feed, pet, and brush. They had baby chicks this year and last year they had bunnies. My kids loved it and absolutely loved the ponies! They each got at least one turn sitting on them.
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Mariah is my animal lover-all of my kids love animals,
but Mariah just adores them. She's a natural when it comes to animals. |
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| So cute! I love Jonathan's sweet smile! |
We then went to Jon's brother's home (Eric) and many of the Hansen cousins and families were there and we had dinner and fireworks. Eric let Jonathan light several rockets-boy was that crazy! The kids had a super time helping with and watching the fireworks!
We visited the bean museum, small BYU dinosaur museum, and then walked up to Bridal Veil falls another day. We lucked out because when we parked the car to hike bridal veil, a man with a horse and buggy came up to us and asked if we wanted a ride. He said he had just finished a job and hadn't packed up yet and would be happy to give the kids a little ride! Pretty fun! Then they had a super fun time playing in the water at the bottom of the falls. We of course had to end our fun day with a Macey's ice-cream cone (we did that a few times while in Utah :)
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Our lucky buggy ride! Jonathan said he got nervous
when the man started driving away-kind of cute. I knew
I could take down a buggy in the parking lot if not by foot,
for sure with my car-I wasn't worried to say the least. |
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| Bridal Veil Falls-my kids are the ones in the middle, I think. . . though that's Mariah on the left walking away. |
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Aubrey, Mariah, Jonathan, Amelia & Cousin Matthew behind Amelia
-at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls. |
And then we of course had to hit moms and my favorite fabric stores, and Salem Pond is right in the middle of them, so we had a picnic there with my cousin Maida. It was so pleasant and the kids had a really nice time playing in the pond/beach area. It was a beautiful day and mom, Maida and I had a really nice visit.
We got to play in the irrigation at my parents and Jeremy was so fun with the kids on several occasions. We met at the park one evening to have dinner and then play. It was a pretty neat park and Jeremy was a super awesome Uncle and played tag with the kids for over an hour!
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This isn't the park Jeremy took us to, but one of the
parks we went to while we were there.
The park Jeremy took us too was one of those
awesome wooden structures that has a fort feel to it.
The kids LOVED it! |
Aubrey and I went to a card class with Mom-that was really fun as well! It got me wanting to make fun cards and use fun scrapbook stuff that I have again!
We were there for Mom's birthday-Aubrey went all out! She made her grandma an adorable card, decorated, made her breakfast (scrambled eggs) and was so super thoughtful! We went up to Ogden and got to go to the Ogden Temple open house.
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| Ogden Temple Open House with Grandma Robertson-aka: Mommy Granka |
We had so much fun and such a nice time while we were in Utah-we enjoyed the outdoors as much as we could. I read
A Little Princess outloud to the kids while we were there-that was more fun than I thought it would be. Oh, and I can't forget, little Isabelle cut two teeth while there! At 5 months old! I was completely surprised-and they are sharp little things!
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A snow cave-water was streaming under this hige patch of snow,
so we didn't venture far under it, just under the very front edge.
We had a little snowball fight as well :) |
Our final hike was Mount Timpanogous. I wanted to hike it with the kids, but knew I could really take Isabelle, but she is exclusively nursing-she hasn't ever had anything else, not even a bottle, so I wasn't sure what to do. We decided to get up super early and hike early. It was really nice to hike when it wasn't quite so hot, but the fact that it wasn't cold either meant it was going to be a hot day and it was. It took us longer to hike it that I thought, but it was such a great hike. Aubrey and Mariah went, Mariah for her 1st time, Aubrey for her 4th time. Jeremy, Dad, and 2 of Johns kids (Adam & Johnny). They all did really well. They had their weak moments and they had their fun and exciting moments. That's something I love about hiking-it's something that's hard, but it teaches you that you can keep pushing yourself and you get to enjoy the beauties of nature, ending with something awesome-like looking down the top of a mountain, or getting to a big lake, or a snow glacier, enjoying waterfalls, flowers, streams, and other beauties along the way. We got to have some of all of those. At one point Aubrey said she couldn't keep going. Then she heard a waterfall and ran on to it in excitement. It's great to have moments like that! Mariah was by far the most enthusiastic about everything, but especially the snow! She was so excited to be in snow-she just kept playing in it and sliding on it and jumping in it. It was awesome! She made a little snowman that she carried back down the mountain for quite a while.
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Mariah and her snowman.
A 4th grade teacher saw Mariah up there and asked if she could take a picture to show her class how
enthusiastic Mariah was about hiking so high and finding snow! |
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| A gorgeous view of the meadow-almost to the lake. |
The hardest part of the hike was of course, the way back down. They got pretty tired and worn out. I had to push them as well because Isabelle was waiting for me and starving. Mariah wanted this rock-it wasn't small either. She really wanted to carry it back down (it was from the lake). I told her that if she went as fast down as I needed her to, that I would carry it for her (I had previously said that we weren't carrying any rocks down-I knew she couldn't carry it down). I carried that rock for her in one hand and a bunch of wildflowers of Aubrey's in the other. They really struggled, but made it down-it really is so tiring and hard on your knees coming down. I am really glad I was able to do that with my girls and family. Jeremy and Dad are always good sports and willing to hike with me and my kids :)
Dad loves to build trains and train models. He and Jeremy have really gotten back into it the last few years. When I was young, there was train building going on here and there. Dad did a great deal of it when he was a kid. He and Jonathan spent many hours working on building these mountains and tunnels. Unfortunately I only took one picture. But Jonathan treasured those memories and thoroughly enjoyed that time with his grandpa.
Oh, and of course Dad and I went on several great runs together and Jeremy got to join us a time or two as well! We had great discussions and got to enjoy the beauties around us. We would run down by the Provo River-so nice to see trees and water-I think I needed to get a break from the desert. I know I live in a super nice home and a really nice area, but it was so nice to get a break from the super heat and just enjoy the outdoors so much!
And that's a quick sum-up of our Utah fun!
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| If you know me-you know I love to eat delicious food and if I am given the opportunity to make something yummy even more yummy-I will do it. I like to enjoy things to their fullest :) This started out as a regular, yummy chocolate chip cookie. After adding homemade chocolate sauce, pecans, and chunks of french vanilla dark chocolate. . . it was amazing! |
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