Bear Lake for the 24th

To celebrate Pioneer Day every year we go camping with the Taylor side of the family. Every year for as long as can be remembered the family has gone to Miller's Flatt, but this year we talked the family in to going to Bear Lake instead. It was much easier camping with full trailer hook-ups and it is warmer at night for those of us tenting it. We had a blast like every year we have been.  Here is a brief overview of our adventures. 

A trip to Minnetonka Caves as we haven't been in three years. I was glad there were extra family members to help with the kids, there are a lot of stairs and Alden gets heavy after a while.

I think Gracie enjoyed it (except for the total darkness part). And Cass was awesome to carry her up and down all those stairs.

As mentioned earlier hooray for extra people. Alden explored quite a bit of the cave from the top of Dane's shoulders. He was big enough to really enjoy getting to see everything and hear some of the funny names of different formations.

No trip to Bear Lake would be complete with a trip in to town for Raspberry shakes. Gracie loved the ice cream almost as much as her mom.

Along with plenty of beach time we also went to see Juanito Bandito at the Pickleville playhouse.This is such a fun place to take the family with good clean entertainment. The lead character sports this mustache in all of the plays so all of the grandsons ended up with one to match. I think Alden makes facial hair look good.

We enjoyed pizza in town after the show and lots of great family time during the whole extended weekend. Cass and his brothers took his dad golfing one day while the women and kids shopped. We played in the water and ate really well so what else do we need?

5 months

Happy five months on July 28! Gracie babbles and laughs at her brother. She is spoiled to death and although she still doesn't sleep the entire night she is getting better and she is so cute we let her get away with it. Gracie has rolled over for the first time this month and spent most of this month traveling.  She let us know she will tolerate camping, but not without letting us know it is not her favorite thing. We love her contagious laughter and all of her hair.

Independence Day 2015

We spent the 4th of July 2015 in Elko helping my parents move out of their home after 25 years. It was a crazy busy working hard weekend, but there was still a little time for fun. 

We are going to play the day backwards, so here is watching fireworks atop of the hill behind K-Mart. This was an experience to say the least. We were all tired, Gracie screamed through most of them, Alden got tired of the noise and cried a lot so I cried some.  Not our family's finest moment, but hey we saw the fireworks and the rest of the day was fun,

The next two pictures are our selfies from the parade. I was so excited to take Alden to this parade because in Utah you have to put your chairs out a day or two ahead of time to save your spot, then fight a ton of people to see the parade and get candy, but Elko is so much more laid back we showed up about 15 minutes early got a great spot and the boys didn't have to fight to get any candy.

Alden was so fun to watch because this was his first real experience to get candy at a parade. He didn't realize he could pick up more than one piece of candy at a time. So he would pick up a piece bring it me, then walk back out to get another piece. Also once he got a popsicle he couldn't figure out how to eat and pick up candy. I love that he was not greedy and that he had a great time with his cousins watching a good old fashioned home town parade.

And the start of the day was Home Depot days. Alden and Jonathan made Minnion Scooters and Gracie showed off her adorable outfit aunt Shawna got her just for today.

Somewhere in here we celebrated Dad's birthday and packed a lot of the house. On the 5th we came back to Pleasant Grove and saw on the news that night that a local man had hung a huge American flag in the canyon not too far from our house, and this was the last night to see it, so off we went to check it out. This a was an amazing sight that the camera will never capture well enough. We are so thankful to live in a country with so many freedoms that allow us to worship and live as we want. 

New Orleans

In the patch to adulthood I hit a milestone in July, shortly after my 30th birthday. I got to take my first business trip for work. Because we only had to pay for Cass' plane ticket and some meals I let him tag along because, come on New Orleans is awesome (at least we found that out after we went there). It was a very quick trip, but we were incredibly blessed to have family crazy and willing enough to come watch our kids so we could go. Jamie brought her three kids, my dad, and LaWayne to help with 5 kids three and under. 

The view from our hotel room.

I spent the day in conferences while Cass went to play. He spent the entire first day at the National World War II Museum. I wasn't there so there are no photos because I don't have them and I wouldn't even know what to say about them. But in the evenings we got to play together. We wandered the French Quarter quite a bit because our hotel was right on the edge of it, hit an authentic Jazz club, walked miles to check out a cemetery, touched the Mississippi River, and in general just enjoyed being together and being able to sleep all night uninterrupted.

Bourbon Street, this specifically leaves out the dirty part

We loved Jackson Square and getting to listen to the street bands that popped up.

Proof we were at the Mississippi River

Our pediatrician actually told us about this place. Preservation Hall is an authentic jazz club. We had to get in line about an hour before the show in order to make it in to this one room place with no air conditioning and incredibly limited seating (this means we stood for another hour), but in the end we got to have an amazing jazz band entertain us. This was one of the highlights of the trip.

And while we waited to get in Preservation Hall we stood in front of Pat O'Brien's where the famous Hurricane drink originated. 

Not pictured is our trip to Cafe Du Monde, the Hard Rock Cafe, the cemetery,  and the French Market. But while we were away the kids were also having a good time. Here are some pictures we got while away from home.

The hospital did a teddy bear clinic one day. Apparently about a bajillion kids showed up, but Jamie stuck it out with these two and they both walked away with a free stuffed animal and a lot of other stuff they gathered along the way to help take care of those stuffed animals. Jonathan was little tired and done for the day by the time this picture was taken, which makes it a little cuter.

The next day brought a McDonalds trip though and you can see the energy difference on their faces.

Finally, check our this cutie! Missed these kiddos so much and am so thankful we didn't have to worry about them at all while we were away because they were in great hands.

July 2015

Here are a few of the cute pictures from July that don't have a whole story to go with them.  

When I was on maternity leave got pretty used to going to lunch once a week with Grandma Peterson because she works close to our house. We went to Chick-Fil-A most of the time, so after I went back to work we wanted to keep this tradition up. One day Gracie decided she wanted to try the food as well. She loved it even if she didn't actually eat much of the french fry.

This is also about the time Gracie started sitting up by herself pretty well so the kids got to take a bath together on occasion.  These two get along so well and loved playing in the water together.

  And finally just one of the perks of having a girl, you get to dress them up really pretty. Check out the adorable shoes!