The rest of July....

It seems like every summer we put off our blogging for a while. I think we just need time to recover. July is always busy for us and this year was no exception, but we're not complaining. We had a blast with family at Bear Lake (thanks Becky & Neil!!). We were there for 4 days this year. Each day Neil started out with the traditional Circle Valley bike ride. It has to be one of the most scenic rides in Utah. Circle Valley is a collection of some great ranches at the foothills of the Cache National Forest. We always see sandhill cranes, ducks, geese, yaks, fallow deer, and white peacocks. There is a farmer/ rancher that has quite a few of these animals. After the bike rides it's pretty much down at the beach. It's amazing that after 4 days, the kids still loved going to the beach. The boys are quasi amphibious. I half expected some of them (A and Maggie) to grow gills. They were in the water more than out. All the kiddies had a great time though. Nate and Jodi saved all our bacon with their shades. Rach and Doug brought lunch down to us at the beach and it was almost like being on a cruise. We missed Jess, Lindy and Finnegan. Jess had to play doctor and Lindy is preggo. I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking......

This is how it started and ended, at the beach

Ava in her birthday glasses, cute as a button

N and his green bucket

A and Maggie out to sea

Building somthing fantastic

Fisher man flying the kite

The Painted Ava

N would freeze because he has no insulation, and loved the warm sand and towel

Nate and Jodi's canoe with the kiddies

Gma and T, just hanging around....

Leg wrestling: Doug is the man, but I held my own, especially vs. Teeny

Tye-dye'd family pic. Thanks Beck for the great shirts!

Neil brought up the Honda 90's and we took A on a trip around Circle Valley. Lots of bugs, but you can't beat the scenery.

Our 24th of July:

We had to get out of the heat and a couple of years ago we went hiking with Neil up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Lake Mary at the top of Brighton. Anywhoo we thought we'd try the same hike with the boys since we had such a great time the last time we went. I can't tell you how excited it was to watch the temp drop from 95, 90, 85, 80, 75....all the way down to 70 degrees at the top! It was perfect. After a short picnic we hit the trail. The fellas were awesome hikers and had a great time. There were tons of flowers out and lots of potguts too. A tried to catch them all.

Hittin' the trail

The Fellas

Teeny took this pic of some of the foliage

Takin' a breather, we took quite a few.

Finally, Lake Mary, what a beauty (the lake too)

Teeny and little man on the rock

These guys just couldn't help climbing around

After the hike; What great hikers we have!

Another thing that we've done a lot of this summer is swim at the Orem pool. In the current economy, the city had to cut back on some things and instead treated all the employees to a bunch of passes to the pool. It's nice to work for such a great city.

A has become quite the swimmer

Mondays at Thanksgiving Point...

So every Monday Thanksgiving Point does a family night activity. We've only hit a couple, but figured it was time to head back. We didn't even look before what activities they would have, but when we got there and saw the '100 foot Slip and Slide' we were bummed that we didn't have our swimming stuff on. Nevertheless, we had a great time. Who needs swimming suits??

The Kiddie Car Wash

T with his shirt off

For some reason taking their shirts off made the experience even more fun....

A slippin'

N slidin'

T hitting the plastic

I thought I'd go alot further, but was barely able to pass T.

I love the muscles! These poor guys have their dads burly physique.

Our 4th of July

We started off our 4th up at Palisades Lake with my family. The kids had a blast swimming and playing while Clint was off golfing with the dudes. It was nice just hanging out with the family and soaking up the sun.

My boys with their cousins.

Mr. T loves to wear my sun glasses.

The boys doing a little canoeing with their dad.

N tried so hard to catch a fish in his little bucket.

I would like to give a special thanks to my sisters Jodi and Jacki for teaching Mr. T how to pee in the mountains. One of these days I promise to teach your kids a thing or two.

We went to a motor cross.... we had never been before and my boys thought it was the coolest thing ever. They kept saying "sweeeet!" Hopefully they don't get any big ideas. I have to say it was pretty fun to see.

N and T at the festivities.

A the Dancing king at the concert before the fireworks.

The next day was the parade. My sister and her husband run the town paper, so all my nieces and nephews were in the parade as newsies. It was pretty cute.

A getting ready for the parade.

A and my nephew Carson walking in the parade.

N and T working hard for the candy,

Everyone needed a turn on Ryan and Jacki's sweeet new 4 wheeler when we were all done.

Thanks Jodi and Mark for having us over for the 4th!! We had a blast, just like we do every year!!

After the Gunnison festivities, we headed to Neil and Becky's annual party for some good ole volleyball, steaks, and home made ice cream (no pics, sorry). It was great visiting with everyone there and we hope to see you all next year!

A's insight on the temple....

We had the opportunity to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house this last Tuesday with the kids and A had some real great insight that we wanted to remember. As we were leaving he told us:

"I think the temple is just a really beautiful place, but the most important place is our home".

How right you are little man. Couldn't have put it better ourselves.

Numero "10" and the Bahama-Mama

This one's for you, babe.

Ten years ago (June 10, 1999) Teeny graced me at the alter to marry me for "time and all eternity". What possessed her to do so was probably my good looks, because I had no money (not even a job at the time). We've come a long way since then. 10 years . . . . and look at all the amazing things that have happened. Three young lads now occupy our home and most of our lives, which we love. We have a home to put those three lads in, and dependable cars to run them around in (the old Hyundai just didn't make dependable). I even have a job now! There is just too much to even go into here, but we are happy, healthy, weal....well, we're doing OK there, and wiser.

To celebrate such an occasion we thought about taking our first cruise. Mexico was cheap and we started our search there, but then the flu hit and we had to start all over. Tahoe maybe, or what about.....the Bahamas! We got looking into cruises there and they were cheaper than Mexico, we just had to get to Miami. Well, we figured a way to do it pretty cheap and booked it. Now that we've gone and been home, we couldn't have done ourselves better.

After checking in and spending the afternoon on the pool deck, ordering Cokes at will, we headed down the the spacious room to get ready for dinner.

Hanging out on the top deck was the best. Here I am as we headed out to the Bahamas.

This is looking back at Miami after possibly the most amazing lightning/ rain storm we've ever been through! Glad it passed.

Glad I trimmed my toenails for this one. That's the Norweigian Cruiser in the distance.

All the ladies hair was doing exactly what Teeny's is here. I was sure we were going to get nailed by lightning. It was probably like this for a good hour!

After our dinner (steaks, yumm) we learned to Salsa and then hit the 70's dance floor with our cruise director pictured here. He was hilarious! He'd probably stuck 3 wigs together to create this bad boy fro.

Day Two: Coco Cay
Here we are on the ferry to the island. Royal Carribean owns it, and they brought a BBQ lunch out to us too. We sat around on the chairs, snorkeled, ate, swam and hob-nobbed the local shops. What a relaxing day!

Teeny looks amazing.

Heading out to snorkel. I may have scared some fish away that day, but we still had a great time. We saw a sting ray of sorts, blue fish, puffer fish, sunken airplane, etc. We could have stayed out there all day.

This picture is mearly to compensate for the last horrible one I was in.

A seagull shat on my chair, missing my leg by inches, but still managing to splatter on it. I hate thems seagulls!

Looking back on the sunset after Coco Cay.

Teeny, her man, and her drink (Diet Coke of course!!)

After watching the 'How well do you know your wife show' we spent the next night dancing too. This time is was outside by the pool and we sweated like crazy. Teeny probably won't like this pic, but it was fun.

Day Three: Nassau, Bahamas
We hopped off the ship and shopped at the local flea market before heading to lunch at Senor Frogs. Then we hit the beach. Yeah, rough day.

Bahama-Mama!

My beach babe. Check out that clear blue water. While we were sitting here we had some fish just start jumping out of the water all around us. Freaked us out. We thought for sure they were piranha. We also had a little crab friend that was next to our beach towels come out of his hole and do a little excavating. He was pretty fun to watch.

This is the view leaving Nassau. The picture is of Paradise Island and the city of Atlantis. We didn't make it over there, but it sure was nice to look at from the beach across the bay.

This is Teeny's cruise bling she bought on the ship. They were selling all kinds of things for cheap. My souvenir was a frisbee that changes color in the sun (sounds pretty jouvenile, and it probably is).

This is my 'hollywood wife' picture. It should have a caption about how this hot celebrity stopped to pose for a picture with a local.

Alas, the trip came to an end, but we had the best time. This is the farewell breakfast back in Miami. We spent the rest of the day in the airports getting back home. It was great seeing the kiddies again and we owe a big thanks to my mom for watching them. We'll definitely be cruising again.