Capitol Reef

Our first trip of the year!! This past weekend we enjoyed taking a trip to Capitol Reef. It was a nice weekend. It was pretty cold the first night and our heater in our trailer wasn't working. But we still had the shelter from the wind and once we got all cozy in our sleeping bags it wasn't too bad. The weather forecast was to have snow our first day. It was cool enough that we had to wear jackets the entire weekend, but there was no snow and very little rain.  We stayed in Fruita.

Our first day: After we arrived and got all set up and ate dinner, we went for a walk through Grand Wash.

This particular rock in the picture above looked like a turtle to us.  At least from this angle.  When you walk around the other side it looked nothing like a turtle.

The next day we went on a few more hikes.  We visited the old Fruita schoolhouse.

Saw some petroglyphs and went to the Hickman Bridge.  This bridge was pretty cool to see.

After the bridge we decided to go out of the park so the boys could do some shooting. We went along the Old Notom road and found a nice spot. It was here that Bryan shot a couple of unopened cans of Dr. Pepper. The first can shot the top clean off and it landed back behind the truck.It tore those cans to shred.

After that, we decided to drive to a town not too far and buy some ice for the cooler.  When we got to the place that the map said there should be a town, we found nothing.  So we drove to another town that was located on the map and still found nothing.  There were a few houses, but no little market or anything.  So we ended up going back towards Torrey where we knew there was a gas station.  The sign said open, but it was locked.  By now we are so frustrated because our day has gotten longer and the kids are hungry and now the wind is blowing extremely hard and cold.  Just behind the gas station was a motel.  We drove to that and one of the workers came down and opened the store so we could buy our ice.  Now that we have our ice, we headed back to our campsite and built our bonfire for the night.  We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.  This was the something the kids were looking forward to the entire trip.

The third day:  We had planned to take a nice long drive through the Cathedral Valley.  This was a 58 mile loop which began at the Fremont River.  We had to drive through the river for a short bit to get to the trail.  This was of course, one of the main highlights for Bryan.  We saw lots of neat rocks and had some nice hikes that took us to the top to look out over the valley.  One of the main highlights was the temples of the sun, moon, and stars.

The last picture above is the Gypsum sinkhole.  This sinkhole is 200 feet deep and 50 feet across.  Pretty neat hole.

We also found a spot outside of the park to shoot some more.  It was here that Daniel got to shoot a milk jug full of water.  He was pretty shocked that he actually hit it on the second shot.

We have really enjoyed being able to have a vehicle that can take us to places that are just not possible to get to on foot.  The truck got extremely dirty which makes Bryan very happy. Daniel says the best part of the weekend was when we went shooting.

Another tooth....

Daniel lost another tooth! I didn't expect teeth to fall out this close together. He also says he has another loose tooth. If he keeps this up, we'll have to buy baby food again so he can eat!

T-Ball

Daniel had his first T-Ball game this past weekend. He has been so excited for this. And he loves the fact that his dad is the coach. They have a total of 10 games. 2 down......8 more to go!

What a day for Daniel!

Yesterday morning I went to Daniel's school to watch him receive his "Climbing Higher" award.  Students are nominated by their teacher for doing excellent in something.  I think they do this each week.  Daniel received his award for his reading.  He has been doing a lot of reading lately and is doing a great job at it.  He is Climbing higher in his reading. This picture is Daniel with his reward and the principal.

This picture is all the kids who earned their "Climbing Higher" award for the week.

Later that day Daniel also lost his first tooth! It has been loose for awhile, but he now finally lost it. He was worried about it. He has a couple of friends that they have been talking about ways that they lost their teeth. One friend says he waits til it falls out on its own. Another has said that his dad pulls it out with a piece of string. When Daniel asked if it hurt, the friend said, "oh yah!" So Daniel has not wanted to venture there. However, he has been having a hard time eating because it's been hurting so much. So at lunch time I told Daniel how my dad pulled out my teeth. My dad would grab a hold and yank. It usually hurt especially when he had to do it a couple of times. However, it was quick pain and then it was gone and I didn't have to worry about it. I mentioned that when Bryan got home, Daniel could ask his dad if he could help him with that if that's what he wanted to do.

Daniel is definitely an eater. So to have pain and not be able to eat what he wants when we wants, is a punishment for him. Bryan came home and asked dad if he would pull it out. It took Bryan a couple of tries but finally it came out. I asked Daniel if it hurt. He said no and now he is happy because he can eat whatever, whenever once again.

A side note: At lunch when we were talking about having daddy pull the tooth and how my dad pulled the tooth and that his friend's dad pulled the tooth, he then asked, "why can't the mom's pull the tooth?" I didn't have much of a response past a little laugh. Definitely something a dad should do!!

Pictures

Tonight Daniel and Megan were able to go feed the ducks at their Great Grandma's house.  This is one thing they absolutely love to go and do.  Did I get any pictures?  Of course not.  I received a camera for Christmas that is more petite and can easily fit inside my purse.  I am so excited about this.  Since I don't carry a diaper bag anymore, my purse has not been big enough for me to carry the camera.  But now that I have the new camera, I figured I wouldn't be wishing I would have remembered the camera.  However, I have been reorganizing my recipe book.  I need to take pictures of every meal I make so that I can put my recipe book together.  My camera has not been making it back into my purse.  So what did I do tonight as I watched my children feed the ducks?  I was wishing I would have remembered to bring the camera.  Chrissy, did you get any good pictures of my children feeding the ducks?  If so, I would like some.  I guess we'll have to go back one day and let the kids feed the ducks again so that I can get some pictures.  Oh darn!!  I'm sure that will break their little hearts!

Scraplifters challenge

It's been awhile since I've posted the monthly scraplifter's challenge.  I was doing good for awhile and then life got in the way.  I've been wanting to scrapbook something for quite sometime but at the moment, I don't have anything.  I'm all caught up in the picture books and not much has happened this year....yet.  So I went through some file folders with photos that I didn't scrapbook digitally and found one that I thought would be a good one to do.  This is Daniel with his Great-Grandpa.  Daniel doesn't actually know his Great-Grandpa.  He died when Daniel was about 7 months old. It's one of the few pictures we have of Daniel with his Great-Grandpa. I believe Daniel is about one week old in this photo.

And another one.....What sweet children.

Ghosts

We've had a few ghosts roaming our house lately.  These ghosts are often known as "Not me" or "I didn't do it."  Today while I was cleaning the kids bathroom, Megan was brushing her teeth.  I was talking to her about the mess of the bathroom and mentioning that it is good to clean up after yourself when you splash water or get toothpaste on the counter.  The rest of the conversation went as follows:

Megan: "I didn't do it." 
Me: "That ghost must be back." 
Megan: "Maybe the ghost that made that mess is the devil.  He's a ghost." 
Me: "Maybe that ghost is wearing a blue and pink striped dress." (This is the dress Megan happened to be wearing today.)
Megan:  Pauses and thinks for a moment and then says, "I have a dress like that."

Aren't kids the greatest?