Trip to the Zoo

Last week we took a trip to the zoo with Korby's dad. It was hot but the kids had a great time. One of their favorite things is the water feature outside of the zoo. Why bother going to see animals when you can look at a water feature with pennies in the bottom for free?!

While we were there, they were giving the elephants a bath! It was fun to watch them play in the water. They used the same type of hose that fire fighters use to put out a fire~ that is a pretty intense bath! Korby's sister came with us as well. Shayden really wanted to take a picture of her, Jackson and the cat~ she probably tried for 3-4 minutes. Between the cat pacing back and forth and Jackson being the squirmy boy he is I am not sure if Shayden ever got a picture.

The Hogle Zoo has a new carousal. The kids had a really fun time. So, in the background you can see Korby, Jackson and Shayden all excitedly waving at grandpa and aunt Marisa. While Tanner on the other hand it looking in the complete opposite direction!

Korby told me the name of this bird but I forgot~ I just liked the color of it!

Usually the tiger is sleeping in the bushes in the top corner of the enclosure so that if you strain your neck you can see the top of its right ear. This time we got to watch the tiger gnaw on a bone, get up and waked over to the water, take a drink and then climb into the water and lay down in it. It was neat to see such a beautiful animal up close and even more amazing to see it actually moving!

The giraffe was eating leaves right in front of us. I was trying to get a picture of its long purple tongue, but never got a good shot of it. What a cool animal!

Playing at the lake

Every year Korby's grandma Lee reserves a campground spot at Pineview Reservoir for a week in July. Since Korby and I have always shared 1 car, we have only ever been able to go up for an afternoon (because Korby doesn't have enough extra vacation days for it.) But.... now that we are a 2 car family, the kids and I were able to spend the night and play a little longer.

There was a sand volleyball court right next to our camp that kept the kids entertained for hours and luckily for me kept them close as well.

This just goes to show that without enough sleep for Tanner even a soda and a piece of cake can't make everything better.

Jackson on the other hand was in 7th heaven the entire time!

I really wanted to get some good action shots with my camera while we were boating, but this is as brave as I got with taking it out while on the boat (we are still attached to the dock in this picture!) My kids absolutely loved riding on the boat and fought almost the entire time about who got to be the "flag holder" when someone fell behind the boat.

The kids absolutely loved playing in the sand. If you look closely in the background~ Shayden is smiling really cute and Tanner is making another one of his "special" faces. I was trying to take a picture of all 3 of them, but this is Jackson walking up the camera saying "see, see" to look at the picture I have just taken. Check out the blond curls on that kid!
~Side note~ we only packed enough stuff to stay until Thursday afternoon because if anyone knows me really well my yoga class is on Thursday nights and I really don't let anything interfere with yoga (family events, date night, you name it and I won't do it on a Thursday evening). So, the fact that we stayed at the lake until almost 10 pm on Thursday night must really say something about the sacrifices I am willing to make for my children (hee hee) or I guess it just shows how much fun we were having!

Quick Trip

My brother's mission president's home coming was this weekend and my parents decided to drive up to meet him and his wife. They left Saturday morning at 1am and got to our house about noon. After lunch, my mom, Shayden and I decided to go to the fabric store while my boys napped and my dad rested. To my shock and surprise Korby said that he wanted to come with us! Well, after an hour of looking at fabric and being nowhere close to ready to leave, Korby finally asked for the keys to the car to listen to music and wait for us out there. We finally made up our minds and left with some beautiful fabric to make this Amy Bulter bag that we both LOVE! We then headed up to Salt Lake to meet John and Megan for dinner. Afterwards we ate ice cream in the park. It was a great day. Then, today we went up to Layton to meet President and Sister Muir. In the middle of the meeting they asked all the missionaries (about 60 of them) to get up and sing Called to Serve in Portuguese. It was beautiful! I had a chance to take a couple of pictures before and after the meeting, then my parents got in the car to drive home. They will have been gone for about 44 hours and about 20 hours of that will have been spent in the car! My parents are awesome!

Jackson and Grandpa

Shayden and Grandma

Close up of Shayden. Notice the gap in her teeth on her bottom right~ that is her 5th tooth to come out and she has 4 more loose ones.
Jackson sitting on the grass after church. Why is it that I could not get him to sit still for more than 30 seconds during church without doing everything minus putting on a circus to keep him contained, and after church all I said was "Jackson, go sit down on the grass" and he walked over and sat right down. He must be 2!
This is Tanner's newest "picture face." He makes an "L" with his fingers, tilts his head to the side, closes one eye and sticks out his tongue. I haven't been able to get many pictures of him because this is the only face he will make when I get my camera out. So, just so no one thinks I am ignoring Tanner or not posting any pictures of him~ here he is, silly face and all!

C is for....

Cherries and my new camera!!!!! So, I was playing with the telephoto lens on my camera and decided to try taking some pictures of the cherries we have in our backyard. We have two mature cherry trees completely full of cherries right now. Here are the results.....

I just wanted to get a shot to show how many cherries there are up there (even after picking buckets full and sharing with friends and family)!

I loved the way the light was hitting just the single cherry.

I am amazed at the capabilities of this camera. These cherries were at least 15 feet up in the tree!

I absolutely LOVE this camera (if you couldn't tell!) I am sure I will have more pictures to post soon!

We're Back in Business

YEA!!!!!! We are now the proud owners of a Nikon D40x camera! We have only had the camera for a few days now. I don't know how to do anything but have it on auto, point and shoot, but I am LOVING it! We have missed a couple of big, and not so big, events such as:

• swimming lessons for Shayden and Tanner, including the kids going off the diving board by themselves on the last day of class
• Shayden's last day of 1st grade and a fun party at a friends house
• getting a new kitty (I will post a picture once I take one of him)
• fun trip to Cedar City to visit Korby's dad
• Jackson's birthday (sorry kid!)
• 4th of July neighborhood breakfast and bike parade

But..... that is all in the past. For the 4th of July we had a fun neighborhood breakfast and bike parade (as noted above), but later that day we went to the Sandy City parade and then went camping with some family. We had a great time and it is soooo... fun to have pictures to remember it by!

The kids loved waving their free flags at all the cars and floats~ especially the ones that were throwing out candy! We weren't by very many other little kids, so our kids cleaned up with all the free candy! Tanner had a bit of a rough day. He had a bloody nose on and off almost the entire day, and he threw up that morning. I think we changed his clothes at least 4 times that day. But he was a trooper and still had a lot of fun!

We went camping in the Spruces and the kids absolutely LOVED it! It was a LOT of work to only be up there for less than 24 hours, but worth it in the end. To bring back some memories of girls camp, I braided Shayden's hair. It was so nice to have it out of her face, and not a tangled dirty mess. Best of all, she liked the way it looked when we took them all out!
While all the kids and adults were involved in a game of kickball, Jackson was having so much fun looking at all the bugs and rocks! What a little boy!

Now that I am a mom, camping isn't my favorite thing to do. It is so much more work than I ever realized. But once we are there, it is always fun and we always have a great time together.

Name that Sound

This morning I was laying in bed when I heard a little tinkling sound coming from the bathroom. Korby was at work, Shayden was watching cartoons and both of the boys were still in bed. From our bed we can see into the bathroom, so I checked that no one was using the bathroom. Any guesses what the noise was..........?!


It was actually our cat peeing in the shower!!!! Oh my goodness!!!! Apparently the litter box had gotten a little too full for his taste, so he decided to relieve himself down the shower drain. I guess we should have named him George! (Seinfeld reference anyone?! hee hee!)


*Needless to say~ cleaning the shower just moved to #1 on my list of things to do today!