Camping & Bear Lake

Our friends the Davis's invited us up camping with them where they have some property in Sourdough, past Huntsville.  They have a nice big trailer, a paddle boat & 4 wheelers we got to play on.  I forgot our tent poles so we had to stay in their little 4 man tent, but it was nice and warm. Saturday morning we woke up to 2 moose right outside of our tent.  The bull looked in the window and circled the tent.  I should have been more afraid but I was just trying to find my camera. 

Kire has become quite the fisherman and caught 8 fish.  Jack even helped Erik catch one too.

We are not really into camping, and don't know jack, so it's fun to go with people who do.

2 Days later we went to Bear Lake for a couple of days.  We'd heard about a hike up to Bloomington Lake we decided to do.  No one told us how cold it was up there so we were unprepared with our flip flops and shorts.  We covered up with towels and blankets we had in the car.  The boys did great, but Erik ended up carrying them both on his shoulders and I got to snuggle Kael.  The lake was beautiful and worth the hike.

Most of our time was spent at the pools at our condo, but we went to the park and Bear Lake too.  I love going there, it's as close as you'll get to the beach in Utah.

Thompson Reunion

 Last weekend we had the Thompson reunion.  The festivities begin at the gravesite of Erik's grandparents in West Warren, UT.  From there each family member carries an olympic torch for a section of the road that leads to a park.

There are over 200 members of this family, and we each wear shirts with the number in which we joined the family.  Erik's grandparents are 1 & 2, then their 6 kids and in order.  Erik is #30, I'm 139, & I think Kael was #195.

 Once at the park each family (6 brothers and sisters) presented their family flag.

 Then the games begin.  Here is Jack & Kire doing the tug of war, boys against girls.

 Kire and Jack with their medals (canning lids).  Kire won several events in his age group: sprint, hurdles, and riding a tarp sled with 3 other kids while Erik & 2 other men pulled.

 The following day was filled with volleyball, water fights, carnival games, crafts, and more contests.

 Kire & Kael lounging on the porch.

 Hey Kael, are you the cutest little bug I ever saw?

All of this craziness was a little overwhelming when I first joined the family, now it's wonderful.  Who else can say they ran the olympic torch down the road, or leg wrestled, or cooked white mush for breakfast during their family reunion?

St. George 4th

We spent the week with my mom and sister Julia's family in St. George. My mom drove down with us and kept Kael fed and the boys busy.  I gave in and let Jack sit in the back for a little while. FYI:  Did you know babies are supposed to sit rear-facing until 2 now !?  That'll be fun.

Here are the boys hiking the slot canyon.  This is their very favorite place to hike.  They can fit through these tiny cracks and love to go off the trails and explore. 

Kire caught his first fish (outside of a trout farm).  They were so excited.  It was on his first cast into this little pond and he reeled in a blue gill.  Erik cut his hand on the spiky fins and they didn't catch anything the rest of the trip, but Kire was so thrilled.

Kire is a funny little kid.  He's pretty mellow and easy going.  He's going to be quit the outdoors man.  He'd rather sit and fish for hours or hike & camp than play sports.  Erik & I didn't grow up doing much camping or fishing, so we are learning together now.

Jack is crazy.  He has no fear.  He started doing flips off of the rocks into the pool.  We're in trouble with him.

I freakin love Kaels shark body suit.

Here's the boys at the splash pad.  It was so funny to see the boys personalities shine through while we were there.  Jack will run through the fountains and get drenched, while Kire just kind of tiptoes around the water.  And Kael's already climbing over rocks and trying to follow his brothers.

 Julia & Trevor had to take us to their favorite place Irmitas.  The owner started talking to me in Spanish, I'm pretty sure she thought Jack was Mexican.

Short little trip but it was great to have Erik around and spend all day at the pool together.

NYC

Erik's brother Bryant just graduated with his PHD from South Carolina and got a job as a professor at West Point Military Academy in New York.  He asked Erik to fly out and help them move across the country, so we decided to make a trip of it.

West Point Academy campus

I flew out Wednesday with Kael.  They live North of the city in a beautiful little town near Cornwall, west of the Hudson.  Kael was awesome, I was worried how he'd do on the plane.
Thursday we left Kael and went into the city and saw a Yankee's game.  Erik's dad has connections and got us $300 a seat tickets for FREE!  We were 16 rows behind the Yankee's dugout.  We could see faces and hear the players, it was the highlight of the trip for me, and I don't even care about baseball.

Erik & Bry

Friday Erik & I took Kael into the city and did some tours.  We went to the Top of the Rock, a beautiful look out ontop of the Rockefeller building.  I would have loved to take a tour of NBC studios and see where 30 Rock & SNL are filmed, and see Jimmy Fallon live, but we couldn't take Kael.

Time Square

Top of the Rock

Saturday we took the train back out to the city & took a boat tour out to see the city & the statue of Liberty.  That was well worth it.  We went through Central Park & China town and all of the famous areas.

       

Sunday we took a drive upstate towards Cold Spring.  We went hiking and stopped by some beautiful old churches.

This is one of the churches we stopped by.  It was so cool and looked straight out of a movie with all of the tilted gravestones, some of which were from the 1700's.

 This is the veiw off of his brother's back porch.  I never thought of New York as being so green and beautiful, but once you get out of the city it is gorgeous.

I had been to New York about 15 years ago with my dad, but Erik had never been, so it was fun to go again.  Everything is really interesting, but I decided I would rather sit on a beach than spend time in a busy city.  It was so good for Erik & I to spend time together and to spend time with  Bry & Teresa and their 3 boys.

Being mom

Yesterday I scrubbed the kitchen floor, counters, cabinets, everything.  Today it looks like a shit hole again, excuse my language.  I am so exhausted, sick of cleaning, only to find my work to be undone in one afternoon.  I'm sure most moms feel the same.  I love my little butt faces, and my life would be a bore without them, but I feel like I am not even enjoying them right now because my work load is so large.

I try to keep in mind the poem about how cobwebs can wait because children grow up fast.  I'm not setting unrealistic expectations.  I am trying to just keep up with the necessary things, like laundry, the kitchen and just toys cluttering my floor.  If I even think about all of the things that I need to get to sometime (like cleaning the storage, sorting the boys clothes, dusting the tops of my counters, cleaning the garage, painting my dresser, cleaning out the cupboards) I get overwhelmed thinking of the thousand things I'd like to do.

But I am grateful to have a home to clean, and a yard to mow, and kids to drag all their crap through my hard work.

Happy mother's day.

St. George

Last weekend we went to St. George so Erik could run a race and so we could enjoy some nice weather. The boys cannot get enough of the water. Kire is such a great swimmer and Jack is fearless. Jack just jumps in, he doesn't care that he can't swim.

Our family has been participating in the St. George triathlon for 3 years now. Our brother in law Brad was in the air force and was killed in a place crash a week before he was going to be doing this race. So now we all try to participate to honor him. Erik's team won first place in the relays.
And in other news, we cut Jacks darling curly hair into a mohawk that fits his wild personality.

Anual girls trip 2011

Alicia, Lindsey & me

Me and my girlfriends took a much needed trip away from our kids last weekend to the sunny St. George. It was so wonderful to relax shop, eat, talk and enjoy some sunshine. I am so grateful to have good girlfriends.

Here we are hiking Zions. I was impressed with my 7 mo pregnant self.

I love my boys more than anything and taking some time away always makes me appreciate them more. Erik is such a great dad, so they had fun while I was gone, but they were excited to see me.

When I got home on Monday I asked Jack what he wanted for dinner and he said, "broccoli." I think they lived on mac n cheese and pizza, so I was glad Jack was excited for something healthy.

Disneyland

Erik and I hadn't been to Disneyland since we were little kids, so I was so excited to go and take the boys. We went for 2 days, and that was perfect. We were able to do everything we wanted in that time. Disneyland was fun, but I think we're like a once every 5 years kind of family. The atmosphere was fun and the kids liked the rides, but it's crowded and we've been on much faster/funner rides at other parks. So I'm glad we went, but I prefer the beach.

Kire rode every ride, even Space mountain and the other roller coasters. I was surprised but he lOVEd the big rides best.

San Diego

Last Thursday we headed down to San Diego. It's our favorite place. We love the beach and have gone just about every year. Erik just finished up the football season so we were ready for a trip together.

We went to Legoland the first day we were there. It was a fun place, and I got cheap tickets, but I wouldn't recommend it. Kire loves legos so he had fun, but there weren't any adult rides and Jack couldn't go on anything.

The next couple of days we spent going to the beach and Old town. We went to La Jolla and saw tons of sea lions right on the rocks in front of us.

Sunday was beautiful, 80 degrees, so we spent most of the day at Coronado beach. The sand is so great there and it's wonderful for families. The water was cold but the boys played in the sand and we saw dolphins a few yards out.

Island Park

This weekend we went to Island Park, ID with my mom and siblings for a little getaway. It was nice to leave home and spend time with my familiy. Erik has started his football season and doesn't get home until late, late during the week and even on weekends he's so pre-occupied with drawing up plays and meetings that it doesn't feel like he's home. We stayed at a friends cabin and just relaxed.

Saturday evening I took Kire with me to Robin Hood, a little play at Mack's Inn. It was totally cheesy, but it was fun and I laughed out loud.

Here's me with my mom and sisters Amy & Julia

On Sunday we drove to Yellowstone. It was windy and both of the boys fell asleep so we just drove around (I think Old Faithful's over-rated anyways). Then we went swimming at the lodge, had a nice dinner and watched Date Night.

It was a short trip and a long drive but I know that if we would have been home we would have just cleaned, so I'm glad we went so we could spend some time together; the boys LOVE spending time with grandma Melanie and their aunts and uncles.

BTW The Northridge Football team is 3-0 so far this season! THe boys love going to games and rolling down the grass field.

Bear Lake

We just returned from Bear Lake, the last of our summer vacations. We rented a cabin with Erik's parents and siblings with all our kids and spent 3 days together. It was the first time we'd done it, but I hope it will be a yearly tradition.

We went to Minnetonka cave and hiked the 900 stairs. Kire did awesome and walked the whole way himself.

Erik's brother Bryant, Teresa, Bry & Sam and Erik's sister Jenny & Sophie

Then we spent a day at the beach where the kids made a river and had water gun fights.

Kire & Tyler

The rest of our time was spent playing ping-pong, horse, games and eating of course.

How is it that I can work my butt off for a month and lose 2 pounds, then gain 4 in one weekend?

So now the football season has officially began and I will not see much of Erik until November, but we had a busy, fun summer together. I still haven't found another job, but haven't been trying because we've been gone so much during the last 2 months. So if you hear of a hygiene position still think of me.

steamboat springs road trip.

1 of my best friends from college, Alicia, lives just outside of steamboat springs, CO in a Podunk town called Kremling. Luckily I was laid off a couple weeks ago, haha, and was able to take a trip with some friends and go visit her this week. I wasn't quite sick of my kids yet, since Erik & I left them just a month ago, but it was still a nice break.

Steamboat is a cute little ski town, like park city. It was BEAUTIFUL. I don't think I'd ever been to Colorado before. We drove there on Sunday, and relaxed in our condo & hot tub.

Monday we woke up and went hiking up to a waterfall.

Tuesday we went for a 6 mile run along a river trail then spent the day at the pool. We didn't realize how white we were, and spent a little too much time in the sun.

And in the evenings we went shopping down town and ate...a lot.

Scarlett, double chin, Lindsey, Alicia

At the top of the mountain

Alicia's flat butt was always hanging out so I couldn't resist talking this on our ride home

-I was able to expose them to some 30 Rock, which I'm sure they'll be eternally grateful for.

-Also, thanks to Scarlett, we were hit on more than once. Too bad they were toothless, redneck construction workers on most occasions.

Florida

Erik & I have never taken a trip together without the kids so last week we took off to Florida. We spent 2 days in Orlando and visited Universal Studios and did a zip-lining safari.

I wanted to go to universal because I've heard it's more for adults and we both like roller coasters. We were lucky to go on a day when we didn't have to wait in lines. It was a Thursday and we could run right up to the front of most of the lines and go on the rides as much as we wanted. The new Islands of Adventure was awesome.

This is us on the new spider man ride

Then Friday I made reservations at an ecological reserve for us to do some zip-lining. It was so fun, something different than neither of us had done before. It was about 4 hours long and we drove through swampland and saw alligators and did a series of 7 zip-lines.


Then we drove to Daytona Beach and stayed in a beautiful resort on the beach for 3 days. There really isn't much to do in Daytona, so if we hadn't been in this resort it wouldn't have been as fun. We were right on the beach and next to a movie theater (I took Erik to see Date Night) and a bunch of restaurants. On Saturday we both got fried, so on Sunday we took a scenic drive up the coast, to avoid the sun, and went to a little town called St. Augustine.

This picture doesn't do him justice, he was red as a lobster. And I got pinched by a crab in the ocean and was afraid to go back in.

St. Augustine is the oldest town in the US and it was fun to walk through and see the old architecture.

It was great to get away, but we missed our boys too so we were glad to be back. Poor Jack was sick while we were gone and they had some miserable snowy, rainy weather so our parents stayed pretty busy with the boys. But they were awesome and we appreciate it so much!

If you go there, make sure you have lots of change for toll roads. After we left the airport we hit 2 toll roads before we got to our hotel. We rounded up all of our change and passed the first one, but then at the second toll we had 4 cents left. They don't take credit cards and the lady just took our 4 cents and let us pass, but we felt like idiots.