Salsa!

Salsa Project 2010:

As you can see, salsa is alot of work! But ask anyone in our family and we would say it is worth it. It has become a tradition that we make salsa every Fall. Generally we make it on General Conference Saturday so that we can listen to uplifting messages while we wash, cut, chop, stir, boil, and cook. My favorite part is that everyone pitches in. That way, we get the work done faster and hopefully create some fun memories along the way.

Cabin Fever

Well here we are in Island Park, one of the most beautiful places in the world! This is one of our favorite places to visit and lucky for us, we visit here at least once a year and if we're lucky, twice. Look at that blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and green pine trees. It is definitely "God's country." I look at this picture above and think it is a perfect family picture of us (other than I'm missing, of course, but I actually kind of prefer that in pictures:) But I love family pictures that describe a family and what they love to do together. For us, that is four-wheeling. Now I will admit, it is not Maddy and mine's favorite thing to do, but we definitely enjoy it. There is nothing like being with family and enjoying the beautiful sights, sounds, and smells of nature. I love it! When we are out together, I feel like everything is "right" in my world. It also reminds me of my childhood growing up in that area so it makes for a nostalgic experience for me every summer.

This is Jeff & I, with Maddy, at Big Springs. We have to visit Big Springs every time we come here. It's just a short, little jaunt from our cabin and is beautiful. There's tons of fish to see and unfortunately, a lot of seagulls, too. They seem to be taking over the place and leaving quite a mess behind, if you know what I mean.

Me and Maddy. I hope we are always close as we are right now. :)

The guilty culprit that is taking over Big Springs.

The kids (well at least the boys) love to get a shot of them on their machines. As you can see, Josh is trying to give us his "cool" look.

I thought this was so cute of Maddy. She kind of looks like she's heading scuba diving.

And here is Jake on his machine. I used to be a nervous wreck about him driving himself but he has come so far! He is way better than me now and loves it almost as much as Josh.

Me and Jeff at Fishing Bridge...on a windy day, as you can see from my hair.

We also got to enjoy some time with part of Jeff's family at the cabin. Above is Tina (Jeff's sister) and her daughters, Thea and Gwen.

In addition to the beautiful scenery, our favorite part is the amazing wildlife we get to see each year. As you can see, we got quite lucky this year in capturing some good shots of great animals...

We saw several bears this year which is always a huge deal. We even got to see 2 bear cubs close up. They were SO cute!! Maddy and I wanted to bring them home with us, they look so fuzzy and cuddly.

This picture was taken right across from our cabin. As you can see, we are surrounded by aspen trees when we were there and I absolutely love it! It is so peaceful to hear their leaves rustling in the wind.

As you can see- we had a nice, relaxing week surrounded by the beauties of nature. Although there are times when we would like to enjoy a different summer vacation, I am so grateful that we have this peaceful retreat that we can go to and enjoy. It truly takes me "back to my roots" and makes me feel "at one with nature." Sometimes it just feels so good to sit back, relax, and slow down this crazy life we lead. It's amazing the joy and gratitude we can feel as we take time to enjoy all that Heavenly Father has given us. I feel so very blessed and am so thankful I was able to enjoy this time with my whole family. :)

On our way home, we stumbled on to an Air Show in Idaho Falls. Interesting, because we LOVE air shows! Every time the Thunderbirds come to HAFB, we're there! So it was especially fun to be able to enjoy this show of the Blue Angels. Pretty cool!

I know alot of these shots aren't great, but let me tell you, they are going SO FAST that it wasn't easy getting them on the camera at all, so I was quite proud of myself.

It's amazing what these planes (and pilots) can do...

And so beautiful to see them against the blue sky...

When I see them and hear them, it just makes me think of the wonderful freedoms we enjoy in this nation.

Wow!

It's weird to see the blue planes of the Navy. They never come to our area so we are used to seeing the white Thunderbirds of the Air Force.

Either way, I think it is a beautiful sight! Absolutely breathtaking!!

As you can see, we literally just pulled off the highway and watched from the truck. It was scorching hot but well worth it. It was a great way to end our trip.

Moonlight Bites

Last night was our annual "Moonlight Ride." This is a bike ride at Antelope Island that is held on the night of a full moon. It begins at 10PM so that you can enjoy the beauty of the full moon. Since Jeff worked at the county beginning in 1993, we have only missed this event twice. One was the night of his grandfather's viewing and the other was last year, when it was the only time we could squeeze in a 4-wheeling trip to the cabin before Josh left.

This year, with the release of the movie "Eclipse", the theme of the bike ride is "Moonlight Bites." The boys in our family serve as the mascots so this year, they got to dress up like Vampires. As you can imagine, we didn't have to twist any arms. Although they are not into the Twilight series, they all love vampire movies.

This shows a little of the preparation...

And the final product. Scary, huh?

Gotta love the purple hairspray to top it off. And man, that stuff stinks!

Here they are out at the Island. As you can see, the sun was pretty bright and it was hot!! We have to get there pretty early, like 6:30 PM, since we volunteer. It's hard to keep the make-up from melting off them when it's this hot. Luckily, that purple hairspray and some "special" gel of Josh's kept their hair slicked right back for the whole night. (More on that later)

Here is our family portrait- 1/2 vampires, 1/2 humans.

And here, we found Maddy a cape to go with her purple hair. She couldn't let her brothers use purple hairspray and not her!

She's too cute to be a vampire.

And last but not least, I had to show the bugs that Maddy and I endured to volunteer at Registration. I told her we were only going to there a couple of hours and we ended up staying until almost 11. And as you can see, it wasn't fun once we had to turn on the lights. There were bugs and mosquitoes everywhere! Maddy was a trooper, though. In the past, it has been our tradition to help out for a little while and then have a "Girl's Night." In the spirit of true volunteerism, Maddy got a little cheated this year. We still went home to watch a "chick flick" together but we both fell asleep before it was half way over. Oh well, we still had fun.

But the real story of the night didn't start until 2:00AM. As I mentioned above, we were worried about keeping the boys' hair slicked back all night. Josh offered his "special" gel. This is gel he found in Georgia that is made especially for African American hair. Josh's hair soaks up everything quickly (we used to call him "Grizzly Bear Hair") so this works really well for his gel. The key is that he only uses a teeny bit. Well they thought if a little bit worked, alot would be even better. Big mistake! After Jeff had washed his hair like 5 times to no avail, we realized we had a problem. Second, we tried Dawn dishsoap since it is supposed to "take grease out of the way." No go. Then Jeff had me bring in the GoJo out of the garage that is supposed to remove grease and oil off your hands. All it did for Jeff's hair was burn his scalp. Duh! I warned him. :)

Finally, after finding out that the ingredients consisted of petroleum jelly and fragrance, I started researching on the Internet. It was approximately 3AM at this point. They had several suggestions, including dishsoap, cornstarch, and olive oil. Jeff tried olive oil and dishsoap about 3 more times and it seemed to help. Luckily, that trick licked it for Jake. Jeff still had to go through that process about 3 more times the next morning but all is well now. Let's just say they shouldn't have to use conditioner for awhile. Funny side note: Josh said it came out of his hair in just a couple of washings. He must have used less than them. By the time that ordeal was over, we were so keyed up that Jake and I started a video at 4AM. I don't think my kids will forget this one for several years. Fun memories!

Memorial Day

These are a few pictures of our bowling adventures. This is about as exciting as today got. Jeff was too tired to go along so we invited my brother, Jeremy. You can tell how thrilled they all were that I brought my camera.

Josh, in action.

Maddy, in action. This shot was taken after she graduated from the "granny" shot to this.

And this is Jake, about to take off with a Strike.

But the winner was this guy - Uncle Jeremy. He told us he couldn't bowl but he had an awesome game! Overall, it was a nice relaxing cap to a nice 3-day weekend.

Go for the Gold

In honor of the 2010 Winter Games, we thought it would be fun to have an Olympic-themed Family Home Evening. After learning about doing our best, we held several winter events.

As hard as it is to see, this is Maddy racing up the stairs to begin the Obstacle course. (Okay, I know that is not a winter sport but we improvised.)

For this part of the course, they were required to do different "stunts" on their bed.

Jumping jacks in the hall were yet another part of the course. Mom was getting tired just following them around with the camera. Dad was in charge of the stop watch.


They had to finish the obstacle course with a scripture chase on "Faith." They both did awesome and had so much fun that they each wanted to try it twice. Interestingly, they both increased their times and improved their score, achieving their "personal best."

Other events included races, in which we had to "handicap" Jake so that we wouldn't have too much of an advantage. It also included the bobsled but that didn't go too well considering we have NO snow right now. Oh well, we tried. We also hope to go "figure" skating this weekend since neither Jake nor Maddy have ever been. Jake thinks it looks easy so that should be a fun event to video.

Although Family Night never goes as well as I envision in my mind, I think the kids had fun and it's one they will remember for a long time. Hey, at least we were together as a family, right?