MightyJohnsons

Zermatt Girl’s Getaway

This was supposed to be a weekend getaway with Seth’s Mom and sisters, but after Mom’s recent fall and pelvis fracture, we had to reorganize and make a new plan. Instead, we decided to make it a weekend away with our little girls. Rachel brought Lucy and I brought Meg, Katelyn and Claire. Seth’s sister Abby came along as well. Mom had already had a night booked at Zermatt Resort in Midway.

Unfortunately, we were only staying the one night, but we made the best of our short time there. We ate a yummy oven-grilled pizza joint and then headed back to the hotel for swimming and hot-tubbing.

Rachel had this brilliant idea that Abby and I should play “chicken” in the pool with Claire and Lucy. Of course she couldn’t participate since she is expecting soon, but was happy to sit on the sidelines and play photographer. Why is it that when we leave our normal routine on a girly getaway, we start acting half our age?! Maybe it is just me? 🙂 Anyway, it ended badly with Claire throwing Lucy into the water and a few tears were shed, but it was fun in the moment and even funnier for us to look back and laugh about.

After swimming, we came back for ice-cream. There were no DVD players so most of us just watched Modern Family and prepared for bed (It was late…we didn’t even get to Midway until almost six that night).

We woke up the next morning to Lucy and Claire banging bowls in the kitchen. We strategically placed those two on the sofa couch knowing full-well they would wake up the earliest. After quieting them down, I went back to sleep and didn’t wake until 9:30! It was fabulous. We all hustled to get ready and checkout so we could head to Park City for some lunch and shopping. Of course, we couldn’t leave without making our way to the top of the crater and snapping a quick picture.

We had lunch at Zupas and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around trying to find stores the little ones enjoyed. It isn’t an easy task trying to make everyone happy. As a matter fact, Katelyn never even found anything to buy and was pretty disappointed. I told her we could go shopping again another time.

Although our weekend was way too short, I really enjoyed being away with my girls. Megan commented, “Mom, you are acting so different.” She went on to tell me that she usually doesn’t see me acting so silly and goofy at home. It made me think and reflect a little. First, I realized how easy it is to get caught in the routine of being ‘mom’ and forget to let things go and have a little more fun with the kids. And second, we need to do this more often. When I am away, it alleviates the stress of cooking, cleaning, and all the other mommy tasks and lets me just be me. I like that. 🙂

Tulip Festival 2014

Due to a super hectic schedule, I had to fit in a quick visit to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point whenever I could. It just happened to fall on the first day it opened. Unfortunately, a lot of tulips were still in the process of opening up, but we still had a great time and got a snap a few quick photos of the beautiful flowers (and kiddos!).

My sweet friend, Kristy, and her little boys joined us and we made an afternoon out of it. We also met up with Emily and her daughter Gwen and Penny and her daughter Izzy for the latter part. Here are some photos of our little adventure through the gardens.

Ellie & I

Kristy & Owen

Climbing the big hill!

Owen, Ellie and Miles

Feeding the fish!

They even had some bounce houses to play in!

Easter 2014

We had another fabulous Easter filled with a day of Easter fun on Saturday and day of sweet reverence for the Resurrection of Christ on Sunday.

Saturday we went to the Highland city park for an Easter Egg hunt and then came home and had a family egg hunt as well.

Much Easter fun was had by everyone. Unfortunately we didn’t get a Sunday Easter pic this year. 😦

MRJH President

Jake has been selected as the student body president of Mountain Ridge Junior High!

He was involved in student council this year as an 8th grade representative. Jake has always been a good leader (he was president of his elementary school too), but being the MRJH president is another level altogether. He will need to work hard and be a good example every single day.

We worked together on his campaign, and Jake had the idea of playing off of those funny DirectTV commercials. I was a little worried that the video and flyer may have been a little too silly for a student body president, but apparently I was wrong.

Way to go Jake!

Meadow Hot Springs

We went camping last weekend and had a blast. It is always a lot of work, but we usually have a great time together. The drive was pretty significant since we went all the way down to White Sand Mountain, just west of Meadow, UT. Uncle Bryan had been down there a few times with his scout troop, so he invited us down there and was the tour guide for the weekend.

We planned to set up camp here: (coordinates: 38.915259, -112.492692), but the spot was occupied when we arrived at about 6pm. We’d towed our neighbor’s little pop-up trailer for Manina and the girls to sleep in while Jake, Drew, and I all roughed it in the tent. We explored for a bit, and found a good spot up on a ridge, overlooking the valley only a few hundred yards away.

Manina made dinner which was great (and cooking is so much easier in the trailer than out over a fire or some other camp stove). Then, we opened an entire half gallon of ice cream and let the kids have at it.

Bryan and Michelle got there after dark, but quickly got started making some dutch oven cobbler. It cooked while they went off to setup their tent, and meanwhile their kids played with our kids and got crazy. Nate, Kayla, and Becca quickly became buddies with all of our kids and they had a blast together for the rest of the trip.

The cobbler turned out to be delicious, and we were joined by another family who had kids nearly the same ages as ours. Bryan works with the husband, Jacob Hamberlin, at Stock Building Supply. They were nice folks, and their kids quickly joined in on the fun too.

We woke up Saturday morning and had an easy breakfast. I boiled a couple eggs in the trailer, the kids had pop tarts and cold cereal. We had planned a busy day, so we didn’t have a lot of time to cook and get ready.

Our first excursion was to head out to the hot springs. The hot springs are out in the middle of a cow pasture, on private property. However, the land owner has fenced in the hot springs and made some nice improvements to make it accessible to the public. When we got there, there was one other couple in the pool, but they quickly left after they saw us heading their way.

The hot springs were super nice. They’re not stinky at all, and the water is a very comfortable temperature, around 100° F. The pool was actually pretty deep too. Ellie and Drew aren’t strong swimmers, so they were the most timid—we should have brought floaties for them. The other kids had fun balancing on the rope stretched across the pool, playing slime wars, doing cannonballs, and splashing around.

We stayed in the pools for at least a half hour. Maybe longer. Our toes and fingers were definitely wrinkled by the time we got out.

Our next excursion was to go see the lava tubes. The drive to the lava tubes was over some bumpy roads but it was well worth it. The lava tubes are underground cave-like structures, apparently formed long ago by flowing lava.

We explored several long (couple hundred yards) tubes that we could scramble into and all around. The kids had fun, although there were a couple of difficult scrambles. Megan went into one offshoot chamber that required some army-crawling for about 50 yards before opening up into a bigger room. Some of the caves were pretty dark, others were small enough to catch some light from the ends of the tunnels.

Claire came home with a bunch of great igneous rock samples for her rock collection she’s putting together for her 2nd grade science project.

After the lava tubes, we decided to do some shooting. Bryan brought along some tennis balls, and we pulled out our .22s and started firing away. Katelyn wasn’t feeling very well, but everybody else had a chance to shoot a clip or two. Eventually, even Manina was persuaded to try her hand with a rifle, and she said she really enjoyed it. I guess we’ll have to do that more often. It was a hit.

We went back to camp and got packed up. It was late afternoon and we were all pretty hungry. Bryan had a solution for that problem too, and we met them at the Costa Vida restaurant off Exit 162 for a hearty lunch. It was a great way to wrap up a fun camping trip. We had a great time hanging out with our Cryer cousins.

We’ll definitely do it again soon.

Happy Birthday Great Grandpa Walt!

We were able to get together and see Great Grandpa Walt just before his birthday. When I grew up, I rarely saw my Grandpa, much less my GREAT Grandpa. I often remind my kids how fortunate they are to be able to see him so often. On his actual birthday Jake and Grandpa went golfing together. What a great memory! Happy birthday Great Grandpa Walt!

2014 April General Conference

We have a big family. When we had the opportunity to get six tickets to the Sunday morning session of LDS General Conference we snapped them up.

We made arrangements for Drew and Ellie to hang out with Rachel and Spencer and their kids. The rest of us were excited to go attend conference all together as a family. Getting that many tickets might never happen again.

Sunday morning started early, especially since we’d had such a crazy weekend already. We’d driven to Vernal Friday night, all stayed in one hotel room, gone to Megan’s soccer game on Saturday and then driven home. So, even though we were all pretty wiped out, we managed to get up early, get ready, and get to downtown Salt Lake City in time to join the happy throngs heading to the Conference Center.

We got to our seats in time for the broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word, which was immediately followed by a great session of conference. Elder Bednar’s talk about the load making the difference was particularly memorable. But, overall, it’s nice to listen and feel uplifted.

The kids were dumbfounded by the protestors we walked by as we left the conference, but it led to some good discussions about opposing viewpoints and the need for civility and friendliness even if you disagree with someone. All good lessons, and a nice way to almost immediately apply the principles preached during the conference.

Ellie can ride a bike!

Letting go of the seat of the tiny bike and watching your little tike pedal along solo is one of those “parenting payback” milestones. Ellie might be slow when it comes to getting haircuts, but this last weekend she asked to go out and try her big-girl bike.

After about 30 minutes of practice with Manina and I holding onto her seat and running her up and down our road, she took off on her own. Once she got the hang of it, she didn’t want to stop. She and I rode around the neighborhood for more than an hour, showing off her new skills to our kind neighbors who shouted words of encouragement. Ellie loved every minute of it.

We’ve always had a hard time keeping up with our little Ellie, and now she’s got a much larger range. Way to go Ellie!

Ellie’s First Hair Cut

As I have mentioned before, my babies are born nearly hairless. And to make matter worse, especially for the girls, they don’t really grow hair until they are 3 or 4. Well, Ellie couldn’t be happier to have finally gotten enough hair to need a hair-cut. Here is Ellie at 4 1/2 years old and getting her first trim. Ellie has naturally very curly hair so that hasn’t helped her situation. See below as to just how big she is smiling while getting her hair done. Weeks later, she is still asking me when she will get to go in for another trim.

Keep on reading, buddy

Drew and I went to the library yesterday. Our purpose was to check out a Pirates of the Caribbean movie (he’s really into pirates right now), but since we were there we checked out a couple books that would challenge him a little bit.

He’s doing well in his kindergarten class, but the books he comes home with aren’t very challenging. He breezes through them. So, I picked out a couple books from the library that I thought might be good next steps.

He picked one up this morning and started reading and quickly became frustrated. I told him to sound out the words, and he ran off screaming.

When he composed himself, he came back sheepishly and handed me the following note:

Note_from_Drew

Let me translate: “I HAt reDeG HrD Books.” = “I hate reading hard books.”

Notes like that are exactly why it’s important to keep on reading.