Visit to Utah Fun with Family

We took a trip out to Utah to visit Happy and her family for spring break. It was a blast! The boys were soooo excited to get to ride an airplane and to see snow for the very first time. They loved looking out of the window of the plane and see the mountains. The last time we went out there Rett was almost 2 years old, so this was his first time that he could remember.

I sat in the row of seats with the boys and Anthony sat across the aisle from us. At first I thought that I had the better seat since I didn't have to sit next to strangers, but it quickly became apparent that Anthony had the best seat since he didn't have to manage the boys during the entire 4 1/2 hour flight!

As soon as we got to Happy's house, James quickly fell in love with their hoverboard and wanted to ride it around the house at all times.

He got pretty good at it!

Rett loved playing with his cousins, especially Teya. She was so sweet with him, taking him around the playground and playing on everything. Now that we are home, he still talks about wanting to go back and play with her.

We took a walk behind Happy's house and explored a little cave that is up the side of this hill? mountain? Everything seems like a mountain to us, but I'm pretty sure it was just a large hill :)

We made it to the top!

Look at that view!! Beautiful!

One afternoon we went to an indoor pool and played for hours. The kids never wanted to stop swimming!

Visiting the cousins' elementary school while we were checking them out to go have more fun!

Teya is an amazing self-taught ukulele player so we begged and pleaded with her to play us a song. Rett was feeling the music! 

Stopping for burgers after taking family pictures at the Mt. Timpanogos temple:

We went to a nickel arcade, which I was excited about because I thought each game would be a nickel...nope the games were 3-5 nickels each. Kind of a let down, but still fun!

Having so much fun takes it out of you!

Playing scattergories after the little kids went to bed:

We played "don't eat pete" with all the cousins. It was the boys first time playing it and they loved it! How could you not, it is basically just a fun excuse to eat candy :)

We went to Scheels (kind of like Bass Pro Shops) and rode the indoor ferris wheel. James and Rett both insisted that they weren't going to do it and that it was too scary for them. So we bribed them and said that we would buy them candy if they did it. James was really nervous for most of the ride and hid his head behind my back and wouldn't look when we got high up. I was surprised at how nervous it made me too! The car shaking back and forth was not my favorite. By the end of the ride James was less scared and started liking it. I don't know if I will ever get him on one again though.

We had fun walking around the store and exploring all their fun sections.

I mean come on! The views are insane! It is like living in a postcard.

The younger cousins playing memory:

Rett giving us snuggles:

One night we got a babysitter (the first non-family babysitter for our kids!) and went shopping at DI, got sushi for dinner, and then big ice cream shakes for dessert. It was heaven!

James loves exploring in the hills behind their house. He and Nolan came up with the idea to take hammers outside and bust open rocks to look for geodes. Then James started a collection of rocks he "had to keep" and take home with him.

Anthony was dying to find out what lived in these holes we kept seeing around, so he brought a shovel to see if he could dig it out. He never found anything, but the boys were fascinated with the prospect of discovering an animal in there.

We did find a lot of rabbit skeletons. James and Rett loved it and would grab them to get a closer look. The cousins were a little more hesitant, but give them more time with Anthony and they will be grabbing things like that in no time! 

Anthony found a black widow spider and had to get a closer look at it (!)

We came across a lot of tracks, but we weren't sure if they were from wild animals or from people walking their dogs.

We visited BYU for the first time! So many of our friends have gone to school there, so it was fun to experience it for ourselves. 

Showing me their cars:

We spent a lot of time in the bookstore looking around at the church books. Anthony found this reprint of a 1912 book of advice for husbands. It was hilarious!

A club had a booth out, so we played the game for some free candy.

They had this awesome section of modest clothes that I NEVER get to shop for at home, so while I was looking through the clothes, the kids came up with a game of searching for size stickers that had fallen on the floors. They decided that certain sizes were "rare" and more "valuable" and would try to find those and stick them on themselves. Such goofballs!

Then we went over to the natural history museum on campus. There were a lot of taxidermy and fun exhibits to look at.

You crawl through this tunnel and I think there is a bear or something hiding in the cave. Rett was really scared of it at first and would only go through with someone else.

We found a flamingo and had to send a picture to my mom!

Feeling different types of snake skin:

We had so much fun visiting with our family and exploring. We can't wait to go back!

Beginning of March

I saw this meme in a chicken group I'm a follower of on facebook and it was so funny because I had literally just gotten back from the feed store with 4 extra chicks..

I couldn't resist these adorable bantam chicks! I bought four of them, but only two survived the first week. Buying chicks from the store can be kind of depressing because a lot of the chicks don't survive all the traveling from the hatchery, to the store, then to your home.They are just too fragile :( The remaining two are looking great though, they even have most of their feathers already. I tried to put these chicks in with our others that we hatched but the mother hen wasn't happy. She kept pecking them and kicking them out of the nest, so we had to set them up in a separate area with a heat lamp.

The goats roaming the yard with Baymax on the watch. If the goats are out of their pen, we have to be really sneaky about going in and out of the house because they love to run inside the first chance they get and cause havoc jumping and running on top of everything!

We went to a city festival and Rett got to paint a rock at one of the tables. He covered it in glitter glue that takes forever to dry so I got to hold it for the rest of the day.

It is kind of hard to see in this picture, but those little rat looking things are piglets! We stopped at the feed store to get chicken feed and hay and they had a bunch of pigs with their babies in the back.

James went to a friend's birthday party and got to go fishing in their pond. He caught this fish using a piece of bread on a hook. I couldn't believe that worked!

We made a big trip to target to buy warm clothes for our trip to Utah since we hardly own anything with long sleeves or long pants. We stocked up on a bunch of clearance winter clothes because winter is mostly over already in Florida! After our marathon of clothes buying, we stopped for some popcorn before heading home to pack.

James wanted to spend the entire weekend as Harry Potter, so he got out a wand to play with and his glitter pens. He very carefully went to the mirror and drew on his own lighting scar and would reapply it throughout the day if he thought it got smudged. After having it on for almost two days straight I went to wipe it off before church and discovered that he must have had some kind of skin reaction to the glitter ink and he had an actual lighting bolt shaped mark on his forehead. He loved it! Random strangers would call him "Harry Potter" when we were out and about. Mission accomplished!

Someone found an abandoned baby bunny on the sidewalk outside of church. It was so adorable!! Everyone kept suggesting someone get us (since we are the animal people) but since we were about to go out of town, someone else took it home to take care of it.

Rett's soccer pictures came in. An actual smile this time!

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I don't know why, but even though he wasn't that much smaller than everyone else on the team the way they positioned him he looks really short :)

While we were in Utah, our friend Nick watched Baymax for us. He came up with some creative ways of keeping him in his yard and even taught him how to dance! He was sad to bring him back :)

After we got home from Utah, I had to do the rounds and check up on everyone to see how they were doing. Everyone was happy and accounted for!

Baymax was very happy to to be home and wouldn't leave Anthony's side all day.

This is an actual picture of me trying to get James to finish his spring break homework. The struggle is real.

Rett had his first soccer practice! It turns out that he is on the same team as the little brother of one of James' friends so he and James love to play while they are waiting for the brothers to practice. With two in soccer right now, we have every afternoon filled with practices or games. Busy, busy, busy!