4th of July Vacation

I love the 4th of July. I love America. I love our founding fathers and all they did to make our country great. I graduated with a degree in History. I'm pretty sure since then, the 4th of July has been one of my top 3 favorite holidays.

This year my wonderful husband decided to make me the happiest woman alive by getting up at 6 am on Friday and taking the whole family to the balloon festival!!!

Alex couldn't get enough of it. Her reaction made the whole thing.

She LOVED all the big balloons.

Unfortunately they didn't let the balloons fly because of the weather, but it was amazing to see them inflate, deflate and just sit there. Wow.

Saturday we left early and headed to Star Valley, making sure to stop along the way and have some fun. My Mother's Dad's family was having a reunion so we decided to head to the prettiest place on earth and meet up with Mom and David for a mini vacation.

I'm pretty Sure everything is better in Star Valley....

The play grounds, the pictures, the temperatures,

the colors, the hot tubs, the cabins,

the slides,

the food, the trees, the bugs,

the swings, the creeks, the grass, the ice cream.

Here David is modeling the hat I sewed up for Alex. I love it so much I'm thinking of making one for myself (more on that later)

Here Heidi is modeling one of the matching 4th of July shirts I made up. I hate sewing ruffles.

We had lots of fun.

The weather was PERFECT. You could play outside without sweating, and at night it was chilly enough for a light jacket. I'm pretty sure our house is hotter in the middle of the night, than that entire valley was in the middle of the day.

Heidi got some much needed attention from Grandma, and loved being outside.

We tried to take a family picture....

But someone was always looking away from the camera.

Or making silly faces.

I tried to get a picture of the girls in their matching outfits.

But eventually had to settle with individual shots.

The smiles you get in response to a bribe, just aren't quite like the real thing.

This little girl is a lot of fun to be with.

We stayed in the most fantastic cabins. It was one of the best "hotel's" ever.
We all took a swim in the pool, but it started to get a bit chilly for Heidi,

so we moved the party inside.

Alex got to stay awake until 10 pm!!! We watched the fireworks shoot off while sitting in the grass next to main street, with a pine tree and an electrical pole blocking the view.

But I wasn't watching the fireworks very much anyway.

How could I with these two being so cute!!!

Eventually Alex collapsed from exhaustion.

The next day we decided to go on a hike to the worlds largest Intermittent spring (like a cold water geyser, sort of).

Tyler looked pretty hot in the awesome Moby sling my sweet Aunt Kathy had made for me. Heidi loves to be tied up in it, and it gives you the freedom of your hands, while still keeping the baby close. A must-have for any mother.

It was a beautiful hike, even though we didn't see the water stop due to the huge amount of spring run off. There was also an avalanche blocking the very last bit of trail (and I of course was only wearing sandals), so the boys went ahead...

and the girls played with rocks.

Tyler said it was the best tasting water he'd ever had.

We stopped by to have our picture taken by the worlds largest Elkhorn Arch. It made me pretty happy that Tyler was willing (although it seems I was the only one actually interested in getting a picture).

We finally got a pretty good family picture. Unfortunately Heidi got left in the car.

Afterwards we went to visit my Grandpa Sanderson.

Alex was more interested in climbing the fence,

and playing in the dirt, than meeting her great grandpa for the first time.

But he showed that they had similar interests, and she soon warmed up.

Squished on that couch is our 4 generations. Father, daughter, daughter, and daughters.
We went and saw my great grandmother's house in Freedom, WY, located exactly on the Wyoming/ Idaho border. The city is so named because the polygamists would live on main street with two houses, one on each side of the street, and therefore be able to escape when the law came for them by moving across the street.

On the left you have Idaho, on the right you have Wyoming.

Sadly the weekend ended and we had to go home. So we went the long way and hit bear lake on the way back.

The water was beautiful and warm.

It was windy, but Alex has so much fun she didn't want to leave.

Heidi didn't enjoy it as much. Tyler took a ton of great pictures, but sadly I'm not one of those people who look good in the wind.

Fortunately for Alex, she is.

After Bear Lake we visited one of my oldest (not in age, in length of friendship) friends, Gwen, and her Husband Dan and puppy Mick. Alex loved Mick, I loved seeing Gwen, and Tyler and Heidi loved being out of the car. It was getting late and we had aways to go so we barley got to visit at all before hitting the road again. It seems Heidi hates the stretch of road from Bountiful to Provo and cried the entire stretch again. It didn't help that due to some sort of wreck on the freeway we only moved about half a mile in a 45 minute stretch near Sandy, but Tyler and I enjoyed the people and car watching, and it was almost as fun as a date.

Traveling with 2 kids isn't always fun or easy, but this was one of the best vacations ever thanks to Tyler, his bright smile, energy and optimistic attitude. All the little troubles were worth it, even when you wake up in the morning and realize in your exhausted euphoria the night before, you forgot to take the stinky, full of diapers, trash out to the curb.

Balloon Fest

Family Adventure Evening

Once upon a time there were two cousins, who happened to also be friends. One day they decided to go on an adventure.

They were nice kids, so they brought their parents, and newest cousin/sister along too!

With the abundance water, rocks and dirt in this new place, it was hard to contain their excitement. It wasn't long before Archie, and everyone else, were left behind in the dust while Alex ran ahead to scout it out.

Not to be beat, Archie pulled out his "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" skills- and flew through the trees to catch up.

It was a long journey, but the friends had promised before it all began, that no man would get left behind.

Finally, they arrived!!!!

The water was ice cold, but that wouldn't stop anyone from having a good time. Numb legs or not.

Alex took some samples of the local geology.

Archie protested, but ultimately his care takers won the battle of the shoes.

The water was so appealing that it was hard to focus on ANYTHING else. Especially the camera.

Of course there was family bonding.

Archie and his father communicate through the medium of water.

There was lots of love shared.

The cousins made a pact to come back to that same place whenever the big people would let them.

When their legs had finally thawed out enough to be used, they ran along the yellow brick road of hopes and dreams, following it wherever it led.

It was the best family 'home' evening ever.

Oh what do you do in the summer time

With the end of Math class and the beginning of summer, I decided that I was going to make this the greatest summer ever for Alex. With the new baby and a chilly winter, it seems we have been stuck inside far to much lately.

We called up Archie and invited ourselves over for some fun. or so we thought.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you think you are the greatest mom ever, and then things go horribly awry?!

Our day started out with a popcorn picnic! I took our old fashioned hot air popcorn popper, filled it up with seeds and set it on a blanket in the middle of the living room so the kids could "really experience" the popcorn and watch it pop. This worked out great, the kids were laughing and jumping and loving it, for about 2 seconds. Thats when we discovered that the molten hot unpopped kernels were also flying out onto the blanket. The laughs turned into screams and tears as we tried to keep the kids AWAY from the popcorn. A few minor burns later, things were back under control.

Next up was finger painting in the driveway! We mixed up some flour, water, and food coloring and went at it.

The kids were loving the mess and having a blast, until a bee wandered into a puddle of yellow paint about 3 seconds before Archie stepped into the paint and onto the bee. The poor kid was more concerned about suddenly being removed from the fun and paint, than the stinger in his foot.

Hopefully everyone will just remember the fun parts the day.

Buckle up

The last few days I have been tearing up over nothing. First it was a friends happy birthday post to her daughter. Then it was this seatbelt commercial. I've always buckled up, but I'm more convinced now than ever........

It only shows 3/4 of the screen, so if you want to watch the whole thing go to... http://embracethis.co.uk// Apparently it was made by a guy who doesn't even work for the seatbelt campaign, he just really believed in the cause and made a commercial!