Bell's Canyon..

Sometimes our children have to be bribed to hike with us! So we took Jackson, Blaze, and his friend, Camden to Cold Stone one evening. These two hang out almost everyday, and Camden is a great influence on Jackson! 

We tried out our new inflatable kayaks at our reservoir as soon as we could before it closes as it seems to do every summer because of algae. 

Blaze and Jackson hike to Bell's Canyon waterfall, and I'm amazed every year at how lush and green it is here! 

Blaze was a trooper and made it with some encouragement. It' s a hard hike for a little kid, I was proud of him! 

Paul's 14th birthday!

I can't believe this kid is 14!! He keeps us laughing with his jokes and is such a hard worker! It seems like he has a talent for knowing how to jump in and be helpful at the right time! We started the day with pancakes, his breakfast favorite. 

Some of the Perkins came to visit, and Grandma Ce Ce and Poppy gave him a cool gadget that will help him locate his wallet when he misplaces it! We are so happy that Andrew and Alex are going to stay in Utah for a bit! 

We are still dealing with COVID19 and practicing social distancing to an extent. We had dinner with pizza from the PIE, and invited Kasen and the Peirce family over to celebrate with us!

Paul chose a malt cake from a popular blog. He loved it! 

Lane's birthday 2020!

One evening Lane and Brita came over to collect Jocelyn, and I had just made a recipe for "very chewy oatmeal butterscotch cookies". The blogger said she loved them because you could literally fold them in half to eat them! Lane is a super picky eater, but he does love butterscotch, so I offered him a cookie. He ate it and then asked "who made these cookies". I told him I did! He said "these cookies are a little runny. James, don't you think these cookies are runny?" James said he prefers soft cookies, and I explained that's how the cookies are supposed to turn out. I couldn't stop laughing at the description of "runny cookies" though! He could have said gooey, or soft, or under baked! You don't use a word associated with bowel movement to describe cookies! 

So that is the explanation for the "runny" cookie wearing a diaper with poop cookies surrounding him! We dropped by and they invited us to stay for dinner and games. It was a fun time had by all! We love the Peirces! 

Visit to the cabin...

Grandpa Joe and Grandma Leslie were in town for a few days to visit, so we got to go hang out at the cabin one evening. The kids hadn't seen their cousins for a while because of COVID19 restrictions, so it was pretty exciting! 

Horsetail Falls...

Part of our "at home church" was a hike to enjoy Heavenly Father's beautiful creations around Horsetail Falls! I had been a couple times, but it was a first for the boys. Alanna didn't want to join us, and Paul was still crippled.We had fun watching these cows and bulls at the beginning of the hike. 

There was quite a bit of water flowing, and it felt so nice to feel the mist because it was super hot outside! Blaze was a trooper and persevered to the end with much encouragement from me and passers by! I was really proud of him! 

Andrew's 37th Birthday!

Andrew and Alex have been in town for a couple of months because Alex's mom was sick and passed away. Because of COVID19, we haven't been able to see them until now since restrictions are easing up. We had a really fun birthday celebration for Andrew with dinner, chocolate cake, and games. We played Telestrations, perfect for our artistic guests, and I haven't laughed so hard in a while. Andrew drew some real masterpieces that were hard to erase, so I took pictures of them first. 

Above, Andrew drew a scene from a video game he and the boys are familiar with. Alex guess it was a "plant pollinating a cat". We laughed about that one for a while! 

I love Blaze's drawings, and he is pretty creative in expressing his ideas. This was a tuba player. 

Ghostbusters

Backyard Jenga

Andrew and Alex seemed a little concerned that we put real Sparklers on the cake. Andrew couldn't blow them out and just had to let them burn down! This chocolate mousse cake was devoured! The 8 of us ate all but one piece which Andrew and Alex said they ate for breakfast the next morning. I love making cakes!

Flash Mob!

The other day, Heidi found out that her foot has not healed as expected, and she might need surgery. Understandably, she was pretty upset. We decided to cheer her up by getting a group of fitness friends together for an entertaining "performance" of "I'm Still Standing". It's my least favorite high fitness song, but it was fitting for the ocassion, and we all had so much fun dressing up in 80's fashion. Jud, in the gold suit, stole the show! This was the first time in a couple of month we had been together in person to do a high routine due to the stay at home orders. It's just not the same doing it online, although I am SO grateful that our instructors are teaching us everyday for free! They are amazing and are helping to keep us all sane, physically, mentally, and emotionally! 

Lake Mary Winter Wonderland!

The Peirce's came over with Duke to hang out in the backyard since we hadn't visited in a couple of months. Paul got a brand new cast, so Brita wanted to sign it with a joke! It was fun to feel a little bit normal again and watch the kids run around and play. 

Michelle had this crazy idea to hike up to lake Mary because she had seen beautiful pictures from other hikers online. I though it would be cool to get another snowshoe hike in, so we went for it. The reviews from previous hikers were varied with some saying they needed snowshoes, some said you'd be fine without them, some just had spikes. We really didn't know what we were getting into! And for once, we followed the GPS to try to stay on the trail, but on the way back we determined that we actually went the most treacherous way possible! Of course, we always have an adventure! It was a very steep climb and completely exhausting even with snowshoes. We almost gave up the further we went and the harder it got. But when I got to the top of the hill and spotted the lake, I yelled to Michelle that we had made it and it was everything we had hoped it would be! The lake looks like glacial runoff I saw when I was in Switzerland! This scene is entirely different from what we have seen in the fall or the summer time. The snow was so deep on the way up that the trail marker was buried up to the top of the sign. My legs ached all day from that 2.5 mile hike, and it is probably the toughest 2.5 mile hike I've done! We ended up leaving the trail on the way down to just walk under the ski lift, and thank goodness, it was so much easier than what we would have faced going down on the trail! 

Mother's Day Weekend 2020...

Kasen has been nice enough to hang out with gimpy Paul and play video games or card games. I'm so glad he has one friend that we can have over and widen our circle a little bit! We had crepes one afternoon with strawberries and Nutella. I tricked Jackson by putting a blog of Veggiemite in the middle of one of his crepes. The look on his face was hilarious! He never passes up sugar, even if it's covered in salt I guess, because he ate it up! 

We got Jackson and Blaze to go on a 7 mile hike through the neighborhood hills. This section of the hike cracks me up because it reminds me of the creepy forest in The Return to Oz that is barren, desolate, and dead! 

I witnessed a beautiful sunset when I was up really early for work. 

James made a delicious Mother's day dinner of baked salmon, broccoli, and spinach, apple, and crasin salad! We went up to Layton to take mom some flowers on Saturday, and we ended up going inside to visit with them and Luke and Andrew. It was the first time I'd seen them since Gran's funeral in February, because we have all been staying at home due to COVID19. Caleb and Lauren invited the kids to spend the night, so James and I had a night to ourselves!

Horsetail Falls!

Our first hike outside of the neighborhood was to Horsetail falls where the falls were raging and beautiful! We went earlier in the morning this time, and the hike was much easier without the sun beating down on us. 

This is what it looked like 2 years ago when we hiked it with much less water flow. 

 We had a bit of excitement on our hike back when we though we were hearing a rockfall, and then a tree in front of us slowly cracked and toppled down onto the trail! It gave plenty of warning, so it wasn't like we were in danger. It was really cool to watch the natural act happen right before our eyes! 

Cinco de Mayo!

Here's a glimpse of Alanna's dance lesson done via Zoom. I have loved not having to drive her to the dance studio, and it's fun to see what her lessons are usually like. She gets really embarrassed when we watch her, so I had to secretly snap this picture when her head was up. 

Paul has been sleeping on the couch in the front room, and it look like he takes after James and wants a soft blankie on his face while he sleeps! 

For Cinco de Mayo, we finally ordered some take out and got Café Rio. The thought of getting food prepared by strangers has been unappetizing lately, so it took a lot of brain work to convince myself that it would be okay for us to eat take out! Everyone loved it, and I was glad I didn't have to cook. 

We had key lime pie for dessert, which James says does not go with Mexican food and he wanted chocolate cream pie (he always wants chocolate cream pie). But, this was the best recipe I've tried yet and I really loved the pie!