Memorial Day Weekend 2009

We had such a fun weekend. We went up to my Grandpa's cabin and celebrated not only the holiday but my Mom and sister's birthdays as well. (It was also Cody's dad's b-day on the same day, but he was in Seattle for the weekend so we weren't able to see him). We were able to be with my whole family and had a great time riding horses, the gator, fishing, playing games, eating and relaxing! I love the colors in this photo. We did a couple short rain showers, but had fun nonetheless.


A kids dream to run free in a field of grass - with sticks!

Teaching Aubrey the song "Horsey horsey on our way..."

Happy Birthday Mom!

Cody cornered and caught a chipmunk that was hiding in the barn.

Wish you could have seen Cody riding the tractor. Full speed ahead!

Our cutie Cole! He just had his 4 month appointment on Tuesday and is 14.6lbs. He's right at the 50% for everything.

Aubrey helping to shuck corn for the big birthday dinner.

Fishing up at Smith and Morehouse Reservoir.

Friday night we were able to hangout with our good dental friends the Wades. This is Cassidy and Cole. They were born about a month apart. Amber did a cute post comparing Will and Aubrey and Cassidy and Cole. It's fun to go through pregnancies and other things with friends!

And lastly here's our little guy just hanging out sucking his johnny jumper. He's such a good baby!

desert flowers

Here are just a few of the flowers we saw in bloom. Spring time is definitely my favorite time to be in the desert.

Capitol Reef National Park

We went to Capitol Reef National Park this weekend to get out and do some camping and hiking. We drove down and met up with our friends the Jorgensons. I love being back in Utah where we are only a few hours away from the red rock and canyon country. It only took us 3.5 hours to get there. Nice! The scenery was amazing, and it felt so good to be down there again. It was the first time in 6 years that Lisa and I had been to the red rock region (since we went to Moab the summer we were married).
Here is a photo of Lisa and the kids with the Jorgensons overlooking the Goosenecks.

Lisa and Cole on our hike through the Capitol Gorge. The kids turned out to be great hikers and really enjoyed the trails that we took them on.

Tucker, Zach, Aubrey and Kate playing in a "cave".

Tucker playing in the sand where the tanks are. We were disappointed to find them dry and empty.

After hiking in the heat we decided to cool off in the Fremont river. The kids had a blast. Tucker, for some reason, felt the need to strip naked while playing in the water. I guess we're going to have to teach him to leave those clothes on!

Some petroglyphs found in the park.

Aubrey was playing in the dirt at our campsite and had a blast. This is what she looked like right before dinner.

Lisa and I went to sunset point Friday evening in hopes of taking some good pictures as the sun set. We were very fortunate to have timed it perfectly and to have had fantastic sunlight to show the beauty of the park. I love how they turned out. There are so many wonderful photos that we took, but I limited it to just three for the blog.

Here is our little photo we took ourselves. Man, we're good looking!

On Saturday morning we got up and went to hike Hickman Bridge. The kids again did fantastic on the hike and had a great time. Here is Aubrey posing in front of the arch.

And our whole family together for a fun photo.

Most Beautiful Girl in the World

Doesn't this picture make all you ladies wish you had red hair? I love how this photo accentuates her hair against the red rock country of Capitol Reef.

Camping Trip

Tomorrow we are going on our first camping trip since last summer. We are packing up the kids and heading to Capitol Reef for the weekend. Can't wait for tomorrow night.

Mother's Day weekend

We had a great long Mother's Day weekend. We kicked it off by having Cody's parents come up to our house for dinner Friday night. We gave Cody's mom a flowering plum tree that she loves. When Cody opened up our garage to show her, there were two trees standing there. He told his mom that the tree on the right was hers and I looked at him and asked, "Oh, well then who's tree is on the left?" He laughed and told me "Happy Mother's Day!". He gave me a blazing maple tree. It's awesome! Cerola played outside with Aubrey and her friend Kate. Aubrey now knows how to play hopscotch! I made homemade strawberry ice cream for the first time. We bought the ice cream maker from the Lintons last year before we moved from Maryland, but I never took the time to make anything. It was delicious! Nothing beats homemade ice cream!

Cody and his Dad went and bought a shovel (you can tell we are new homeowners because we own NOTHING for a yard), some potting soil and they planted my tree.

Saturday we drove up to Logan and helped my sister and her husband out at their house. They are moving into an older home that needs a bunch of work done on it and we did all the outside yard work.

Sunday morning at 6:00am we were woken up to a darn woodpecker pecking our rooftop. It likes to start at 6 every morning. Cody has to go outside and throw a rock at it to get it to shut up. We are borrowing a BB gun for the next time it comes (of course this morning it didn't make a noise). We did get to see this at 6 in the morning! I love our views!

Here's my little maple tree. Every year on Mother's Day I'm going to take a picture of my kids by it to see how big it grows.

I'm so blessed to be a mother to my 3 cute kids. They can drive me crazy at times, but I always love them at the end of the day.

Because Cody and I just moved into our house my grandparents decided that we should host a Mother's Day dinner for my dad's side of the family. It was so fun to have all my relatives that were in town come up for the afternoon. These are the great grandchildren from my Dad's family.
These are all my cousins, siblings and spouses that were able to come. Good times. : ) Unfortunately the lighting was horrible for all the pictures. We don't have blinds yet and you can obviously tell.
And here's my hardworking hubby who does so much for me. Thanks for making my Mother's Day special!
I'm so grateful for my Mom and Cody's Mom. They are both great and do so much for us! We love you!

On a side note...Tucker was able to go up with the primary for the first time yesterday and "sing" songs about mother's to us in sacrament meeting. Of course he didn't sing, but he smiled and waved at me a ton. Love that boy!

Moved In

We finally were able to start moving in to our house this past Friday. At 1:30 p.m. on Friday the lender finally released the funds (even though we closed on Wednesday), and it felt like all the stress was finally lifted off our shoulders.

Saturday morning we had some guys in our ward come help us to move the last of our stuff across the street to our new house. We only had the heavy stuff to move, like the fridge, washer and dryer, couches, beds and the piano. In true fashion it was raining while we moved our furniture. Here is a picture of us moving the piano in the rain, good times.

We owe a special thanks to all that helped us move in. They made the job go by very quickly. We love being in our house, and other than one big dramatic incident, the new house is being great to us.

That one dramatic incident is the problem we had with the sewer line. On Sunday we noticed that the water was backed up from the drain in the basement. When we called a plumber out to investigate the problem, he gave us some news we weren't too happy to receive. The new homes in the area have a "clean-out" pipe that is located in front of the house and allows plumbers access to the main sewer line. It appears that our contractors either never capped that pipe or the cap somehow came off. Either way, it allowed rocks to fall in that pipe and back up the sewer line. After showers, dishes and laundry on Saturday, the line was backed up and into our basement. The plumber quoted us a price of $2,400 to excavate and fix the problem. I wasn't too frustrated with the problem because we bought the home for so cheap, I could handle some issues. We wouldn't be able to hold the contractors or seller responsible though because the seller (the bank) sold us the house "as is", so we would have to cover all costs.

Luckily for us we live in a ward where most of the guys work in construction. Jake Jorgenson recommended that we ask our neighbor Shane if we could hire him to excavate it for us. On Monday morning he brought over the back-hoe from a company he works for and he and another guy dug a huge, 9 foot deep hole to access the main sewer line.

We removed the vertical portion of the pipe and got all the rocks out. We then verified that the main line out to the city line was not blocked. After we were satisfied that the line was clear we reattached the pipe and buried the hole.

Shane was a ton of help and bailed us out of a big mess. He was also able to do it for much, much cheaper than the plumber had quoted us, so luckily for us the big drama turned out to be not so expensive. I ran to the local hardware store and bought a cap for the pipe so as to avoid any future problems with the line.

On a really bright note, the pipe can serve a great purpose for us in the future. My dad mentioned that when we have a trailer or 5th wheel (or Dan's sweet Winnebago) we can use the pipe to empty the waste without having to pay to go to a dumping station. I instantly could picture myself out there on a cold morning in my bathrobe, kicking back a mountain dew while emptying out the 5th wheel septic tank. If any of the neighbors give me an odd look, I'll just hold my mountain dew can high, and say with pride, "The sh***er's full!" (reference to the greatest Christmas movie ever made. quote given by the best cousin-in-law imaginable)