Provo, UT aka BYU

Weston bought a whole pound of candy from the bookstore.  He still has most of it.

We planned to tour BYU the same day we hiked the caves....not practical for me.  I felt pretty good on the hike, but we hiked from 11 till about 2:30pm and once I sat down I could hardly walk.  My sciatic nerve was killing me so we just kind of hobbled around the Wilkenson Center and the BYU bookstore.  We made it as far as the Library and said....
"There ya go kids...BYU." We did drive around and see where Jake and I met and our first two places we lived in Provo.  It brought back great memories for both of us.  My kids say they will attend the Y someday...and I hope they do.  I also hope they find companions as amazing as I did!



Here is Aubrey showing she didn't get anything.  She just kept her money for something of more value.

Weston "Thanking Dad" for the candy.

 That night we planned on staying with Trisha and her little Harmon crew.  Neal suggested a few places to eat and we ended up trying Korean food.  It was delish!!! Thanks so much for having us Harmons!

 

Weston, Michael, Lily, Taleise, Rachael, Hayley, and Aubrey

silly faces

It really was so nice to have extra time with Jensens and the Harmons.  I felt like we got to see them more that night, than we had the whole time at my Mom's house.  Thanks again!

Mt. Timpanogos Caves

So if walking around Salt Lake City for hours on end wasn't enough to make this preggo mamma tired...well then the Mount Timpanogos Caves were definetly going to do it!!! Seriously I had no idea that the hour and a half hike would be so grueling.  haha...I survived though and got a lot of compliments by other hikers that looked more whipped than myself. 
First we started out with some sort of RANGER thingy...it was really boring, but Weston got to be the Fuel in the fire pyramid...so I guess it was a success. 

Here we are about half way up.  I felt soooo bad for Jake.  We took turns carrying our food and water and jackets...but Jake ended up carrying Spencer for far too much of the hike.  Our other kids did great. 

 

It was a beautiful hike...just too hot that day really.

When you get to the top you get to go into the caves.  They are about 42 degrees so it felt so nice after the long, hot hike.  They were beautiful inside and did not dissapoint.  Aubrey and Jake and I LOVED them.  Weston gave the whole experience a 2 on a scale of 1through 10....so I think he was still too young to really enjoy it. 

 

 

 

The view from the top. Spencer was DONE and needed lunch at this point.

The worst part of the whole hike was only having one place to go to the bathroom and littles who "needed to go NOW!"  We took up lunches and ate and the hike down was a breeze. I enjoyed the whole experience and loved Jake even more than usual for being in shape enough to carry Spencer.  I don't know what I would have done without him.  I am still sore from this hike...but it was fun!

Temple Square

So this trip I was alone with the kids for 2 weeks...then Jake joined us for a week of fun.  We left Idaho a little earlier than planned so we could spend some time in Salt Lake City.  I haven't been there really since we were first married and we have never taken our kids.  So we left ID and spent most of the afternoon in Salt Lake.  It was a great day. We saw the temple, the Family History Museum, the Children's Museum...the Joseph Smith Building and the new Joseph Smith video.  My kids were so impressed with everything they saw and were in AWE that the "Mormons" made such a great city.  I cried at the end of the film when it talked about 70,000 pioneers making the long trek to UT to settle.  What a sacrifice our ancestors made to come and to have religious freedom. 

We ended the evening with a trip to the lovely city creek mall.  That night we stayed with Tonya and Casey in their new house in Saratoga Springs.  It was fun to stay with them and I enjoyed being in Lehi again (we lived there for about a year a few years back.) I always just love being in UT.  It is soooo pretty this time of year too.

This was Spencer's favorite thing in the world and he kept begging to go back and to fish.

Pulling a handcart.

Icecream from the BYU creamery.

 

The kids loved the creek.

 

 

 

City of Rocks, ID

One the the best things we did in ID this year was taking a day trip to the City of Rocks. In fact, this was Weston's "favorite thing" by a long shot he says. This is something I had remembered doing when I was a kid and LOVING it. It started out just being my little family, but by the time we were loading the car we had my parents, Traci and Ryan and Ty's family to join us.  On the way up the mountain we stopped at some Elk farm.  It was cool to see that many elk all in one place.
   

Some of the crew.

 Here they are on "practice rock" as Weston titled it.  We did this first.

 

Then we made the trek up Bathtub rock. It has holes that fill up with water and there are fish and tadpoles in it.  I think that is where it gets the name.  It is quite the rock and I wanted to climb it, but Jake was feeling like I am too pregnant to try...so I stayed down with Spencer and climbed smaller rocks. 

 

The view from above.

Chiling with my mom and baby Claire and Spencer.

 

After we hiked and climbed we had hotdogs and stayed for a bit.  There was a friendly chipmunk that had obviously been fed too much...but our kids had a blast feeding him some of their hotdog buns.  He came right up to them.

 

This is Bathtub rock...it is super big huh!  They hiked up the back of it and it isn't as straight up...and there are some metal type handles to help with the climb. Weston said that this was a "REAL ROCK...and you needed a parent to be safe." He is right! 

 

Everyday life.

To start out with I  absolutely HATE that I didn't take my NICE camera on this trip.  I just am sad I don't have GREAT pics to document the summer.  That being said I didn't take as many pics and I would have liked and the ones I do have are NOT any good.  Anyway, I wish I could show you the "booby traps" that Weston made, and the special fort the girls hung out in as they pretended to be Mermaids...the kittens, the horses, the geese, the moments that needed to be captured are not.....but I do have a few pictures of the everyday in Idaho. 
This is the kids (mostly boys) playing foursquare.  They took it very serious and play by the "real rules..." and it looked fun to me, but I really didn't play much. 

 

Here is some of the fun to be had.  My kids liked "chores" as much as anything and really love being on the farm.Jake and I made dinner one of the nights.  It was delish...I must say so myself. We made boneless chicken wings and salad.  Mom made homemade jam and rolls.  Simple and wonderful!! 

The HOT cook.   

A trip to Snoasis with Aubrey and her cousin Jacobie. 

Next we have a little breakdown close to our last day in Idaho...These seemed to happen due to lack of sleep.  My poor kids really didn't get enough sleep because I never wanted to take the time to put them to bed.  In all seriousness...the kids were absolutely wonderful 90% of the time.  I felt so happy to see cousins getting along and building memories. There were so few fights and quarrels.  Everyone seemed to have a friend. 

The annual trip to see Samantha in the Heyburn Cemetary.  I love that she is there. It feels like home. I love that she is placed at the foot of my Grandpa Peterson's grave.

 

 

 

 

Fun with the girls!

One of my favorite things about going to Idaho in the summer is catching up with dear friends.  This summer I got to go see Rachel Nibarger...but I didn't get a pic of us.  I also got to go see Jamie Page...one of my dearest friends from college and beyond.  It was great to see her as well as her whole family. 
 

Here is Susan...loving on Tina's newest addition Parks.

New friends

Then I went to lunch with Jaimee Orton.  Spencer tagged along and was actually really annoying...but it was week two with little sleep...so I let it slide. :) 

 

  And of course I consider my sister's and sister-in-laws some of my favorite friends of all.  We decided to do a girls night and it turned out that everyone could make it!!! First we had fro-yo...then painted glitter toes.  Great night with wonderful ladies.

We even talked Mom into coming.  She usually comes up with an excuse to work quietly in the background...but she came and we love her!