A Rolling Stone Gathers.....No Moss

We reached the point in our summer where we realized that summertime was running out and we had not done all that we had hoped to do. One thing Karli wanted to do was see a waterfall - so we did!! We took the girls to Moss Ledge - up Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Here are the ladies at the beginning of our hike - Check out Karli's world conquest pose!! I spy...


For those of you who have not done this particular hike, you are hiking the stream bed and it is full of rocks. Jen and Steve have done this hike several times, but this was a first with the kids and I don't mind telling you, I did not realize how treacherous it was at times(loose rocks, cliffs, etc.)!!

Here are the troopers during a short rest - I say a short rest because they did not want to stop!!

WOO HOO - Little Hiker Butts drive me Nuts!!

Here are the Jen and Sage stopping for another SHORT rest - Notice Karli is not here?!? - Yeah, she kept going up the mountain....This day was a wonderful time to teach our girls about climbing safety. Like not hanging over cliff edges, not trying to run down the slick and slippery mountain side, and not jumping onto wobbly rocks when your life depends on it! Good stuff!

Well, we made it!! It was certainly all about the journey - not the destination on this day!! The girls did so great and we are so proud of them! It is fun to have such a fun, adventurous and brave family:).

A lovely "Selfie"

Here are Sage and Steve climbing back down the waterfall.


I'll end this post with just a few more photos of our journey to Moss Ledge. TTFN!!

salty sunset

After the Nash family reunion, we passed by the Great Salt Lake and decided to stop to play and catch a view of the sunset. There were so many clouds in the sky that we thought it should be a good one. This was one of the things we had wanted to do with the girls this summer.

When we started, you can see that the light was bright toward the west. We took a first picture of the horizon. Surprisingly enough, it didn't even stink too bad!

I sent Steve and the girls up ahead to capture this cool shot of them silhoueted against the darkening skies.


The girls( and Steve ) had a blast splashing around in the shin-deep water.

It was so funny! We had not pre-planned any of this so the girls were just splashing around in their regular clothes. Both the girls had to pee at the same time. What do you do? The problem with the GS lake is you can't just wade out there and act like nothin' is goin on while you do your business because you can never get to waist-deep water from the beach. So we told the girls to just go out there a ways and go. Well, details, details, details, Karli goes out there in water to her knees and pulls down her pants and undies in full view! We yelled out at her to pull up her pants and the water carried our voices to all of the other on-lookers on the beach! We laughed so hard!



What a gorgeous sunset! We think we will put some of these pics up in the new ocean bathroom that Steve surprised me with. What a fitting place to put the pictures of our memories of the girls trying to pee in the Great Salt Lake!

Nash Reunion

Saturday the 11th, We loaded up the kids on a pilgrimage to Tooele for the Nash family reunion. There were not a ton of people there and I was grateful for that. We were able to converse with those that did attend instead of just repeating the typical reunion banter. "Oh I remember you when you were....BLAh BLAh BLAH"! I took down a rude family tree starting with my Great Grandma (Amelia) and Great Grandpa (Joe) Nash (Duane Nash's folks)- more to follow on another post. Anyway, Karli found a friend named Hailey and they hit it off. All in all we had a good time. This is some of the folks that were there - Those with Nash blood will know everyone, I was there and I cannot remember the names of all of the players here - Sorry! - The one in yellow is Nina and I had a great time talking with her. She shared stories about mom and even recognized dad on a temple visit. The one in lavender is LaNieve. She would be Grandpa Nash's niece.

This is the Readicker family. CJ is standing in the blue shirt with his arm on Judy - his wife. Brad is their son and is sitting across from his wife. The gal standing is Madalyn (not a Readicker). CJ would be Grandpa Nash's nephew and Madalyn married Calvin J - another nephew.

These fellas would also be Grandpa Nash's nephews. The bearded one is Tom, the one in themiddle is Jerry, and the Hawaiian there is Calvin J. - Madalyn's husband.

These are the three twerps - Sage, Karli and Hailey. Hailey is LaNieve's granddaughter - See above. That would make Sage and Karli a fourteenth cousin to Hailey I believe.

To my sibs, if you did not know about this reunion, sorry. It was thrown together on very short notice and without a lot of planning. I have been nominated to aid in the planning for next year, so you will indeed be given ample opportunity to attend. Love you all!!

What a Great Daddy!

Steve decided to take off the training wheels to see what would happen this week. He ran his heart out keeping up with her as she road around the circle. She had it alone for a few of seconds at a time. This shot is just before her first crash. She did hurt her knees a bit (and her pants). Steve and I both looked at eachother as she cried and walked away from the bike. Steve said "Do you want to take a break now and we can try again another time? She said "No! (We both feared that she would have a distaste for the whole bike thing now.) "I gotta get back on and practice," she announces. She is so brave. We just love her adventurous spirit. She is so fun to have around. She is always up for a new experience and she is always such a trooper. I can't think of a better dad thing to do for Karli this week!

Look at the smile on Sage's face! She is so addicted to sweets. She was thrilled at Steve's Father's Day gift of a Costco size, hershey bar pack. Look Out Smores...here we come! Hooray! We are loving our fire pit on the patio. Who'd 'a thunk that camping at home could be so relaxing and feel like such a get-away!

We also had a Father's Day water fight today, that was reminiscent of the Father's Day with Randy a few back, where we let him open his mega water gun and we were all locked and loaded, ready to begin the water fight. I got a few of the water tubes that pull back and suck in the water and then you push it out with gusto. They really shoot water good and long and are easy to reload, which was great for the kids! We waited for a quick break in the thunder and downpouring. The sun was actually shining for a moment. I discouraged Steve from taking a shower, quite yet. He was thinking ("Oh great, she has something yucky for me to do in the yard.") We all stood watch behind the car and awaited our prey. We used our "daddy" call to lure him into our sights. When he approached we yelled out "enguard?" and proceeded to attack! In all fairness, I left a squirt tube for him near the door. What I failed to consider is that he was also the only one who was near the water bucket for reloading. Needless to say, we all were completely soaked and our smile muscles were aching, as well as a few of the neighbors, who now have more reasons to keep us on their crazy list.

We shared a nice (and quite windy) dinner on the patio with Bonnie. Guess who cooked dinner? Steve made cheese-stuffed grilled hamburgers (another Diners, Drive-thrus and Dives idea). Hey, I cooked fancy french toast for breakfast O.K.?

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful D.A.D! We love you! Happy day to all of you other dads out there!

WHAT an AWESOME WEEKEND!!!

We had a wonderful weekend! We are so grateful (and incredibly lucky) to have Tobie back! Our weekend could have turned out to be one of the worst ever if our "lost dog" story had had a different ending. BUT IT DIDN"T! So, we had a great time celebrating Steve's b-day (on the 19th) with his side of the family.


Angie made another amazing cake with real chocolate pudding for the frosting. It was cool and delicious (pudding is my absolute favorite!!!) It was hilarious because the breeze outside was such that I could not keep the candles lit long enough for Steve to blow them out. But, we think we got the "h.a.p.p.y" candles lit all at once and Steve had no trouble blowing them out to get his wish! Especially since it had already come true with Tobie!



Trish and Bentley drove down from Logan and brought our little puppy "nephews" , Gordan and Arnold, with them AND they brought their fire pit, yes you heard me their FIRE PIT! It was incredibly fun! We had the perfection of a campground under our patio. Trish and I even became silly enough (o.k. we had a little help getting silly) to sing old campfire songs "The Princess PAT" and such classics. I've decided that Trish has just a little bit of pyro in her after her eyes lit up each time she found something new to throw into the fire, like the pizza boxes, plates, napkins, wine box...etc. I think we all got some hair melted off of us...but no where near the amount of Gordon, who kept walking next to and under the fire pit...HELLO?



The other amazing thing was having Steve home for the weekend, the whole weekend! He is so stoked to be out of the retail world and into travel market sales, where his hours are reasonable and he is in charge of his own destiny! It has been wonderful and amazing having him home! We are such a great team and we are able to get such much accomplished together! We planted tons of flowers and the garden and finshed the cement for the sand box...I especially love all the cooking that he likes to do for us. He makes us this scrumptious breakfast called "The mess" we learned about it on diners, drive-ins and dives. Here he is showing off his "hot" mustache. His work had a mustache contest just for kicks. I am glad that it only lasted a week. Guys with mustaches have always kindof scared me. I mean look at him...hide your valuables and lock up your daughters!


Look at Trish's cute haircut!

Sweet kisses for mommy from Avery...we were sad that Dee was not able to join us because he had a migraine:(

We ended the weekend with a celebration meal with my folks. I cooked some cornish game hens (they were actually good) with stuffin and corn and potatus. mmmm mmmm! What a great time! Thanks everyone for staring Steve's b-day off so nicely...he is having a great time.

TOBIE CAME HOME!

TOBIE WALKED HOME!!! My mom was out making 150 more flyers and passing them out after we had been given some hope from two people who thought they had seen her recently. I was @ work and Karli and Sage saw her come limping slowly down the street!!! They ran and got her and my babysitter called me to tell me she was home! What an emotional rollercoaster! My mom was calling on the "murphy's law Gods" when she made tons of flyers. She really thought, if anything will bring her home, all these extra flyers will...sure enough!
Tobie is exhausted (as are we) and fairly traumatized, hiding out under the bed and laying on the guilt pretty heavily. She is also covered with an unidentified goo which makes me wonder of the adventures that she has experienced. We are so thankful and so grateful to all of you who have kept our spirits up and offered help and hope to us!
Thanks to the angels for their help too!

WE LOST TOBIE!!!

I am so sad. We can't find Tobie. It has been two days. She got out before I left for work and I didn't know she was out. the neighbors saw her hanging around the house for a while and then she was gone. We are trying everything we can think of to find her. Pray for us!

Awesome little Aubrey

I Love this baby! She has me in such a state of baby hunger that it just aint right! She has the sweetest little spirit and let me play with her and hold her and snuggle her...O.K. now I'm gonna cry. I loved visiting my sistah Nickie and her adorable family in Idaho! I went without the kids and it was a wonderful experience getting to know my amazing nieces and nephew without the distraction of my own kids. I had so much fun and Nickie taught me how to cook and make the most amazing sugar cookies (she is so superwoman--newborn, manicotti, designer hair-doos and jewelry making!)

Tink is an amazing tech wizard! She played the computer and practiced her letters all through the day! Check out her amazing Valentines Day heart-shaped pig tails. You thought I was exaggerating about the superwoman thing!

E-man and I had fun making up silly Star Wars mad libs--he is so funny! He tried to show me a thing or two about video games. But, alas I lack hand-eye coordination.

Thanks to Cris I have the strange and WAY funny tunes of Flight of the Conchords stuck in my head all the time...Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'? No, I'm thinkin' what I'm thinkin. Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'? No, cuz you're thinkin' that I'm thinkin' what you're thinkin' but I'm thinkin what I'm thinkin'.

I love you guys and miss you lots! I so wish we were neighbors!

whuss up? 2009

Karli's 6th Birthday was really COOL! She wanted to go ice skating! It was fun even after we found some ice skates! Nana made Karli this cute cake with a precious moment ice skating girl on it. So Cute! She thinks of everything...I swear.

Here we are @ the So Jordan ice skating rink, where you can only rent skates at night. We made the best of it for a while and headed over to the Olympic Oval for the real thing.

Here's Bonnie's "where in the world..."game. Anyone have a guess as to where we are here?

Spring Fever!!!

Anyone else out there with spring fever?