Other happenings

Besides working on our yard the last couple weeks Cody and I also celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. This cake probably doesn't look like much and I know it's cheesy to drizzle chocolate in a 7 on top, but it was delicious. I got the recipe from here. We had a relaxing day spent at church and home. We are counting our trip to Vegas as our getaway and our yard as our gift to each other. : )

Cole is now 15 months old and into the mischief stage. He loves to climb and this is one of his latest places to play. Sitting on the piano, scribbling on my sheet music. This morning I found him on the kitchen table eating Aubrey's breakfast. If things are left within his reach, he eats them, spills them, spreads them, throws them, etc. I took him in for his checkup and supposedly he's lost a pound and is now in the 6%. Yeah right. That kid is not in the 6%. The scale must be off. He can say Uh-oh, Daddy, bark like a dog and moo like a cow. Not a huge vocabulary yet, but I'm not worried.

This is what I woke up to Monday morning. We've never seen or heard of raccoons around here, so it must have been the deer. It's so fun picking up scattered garbage first thing in the morning.

Tucker and Aubrey are both taking swimming lessons this week and enjoying them. Cody is also participating with Dentistry from the Heart and doing a day of free dentistry at his office, Park City Dentistry, this Saturday. Two of his dental school buddies are coming to help him out. It should be great and a huge success. Cody was on Park City TV yesterday morning and will have write ups in the Wasatch Wave, Summit County paper and the Park Record this week. We're excited to see how everything goes.

Weekend in the yard

Last Wednesday Cody received a phone call at work. The Red Ledges Golf Course in Heber had just been put in and there was extra sod. Our friend was working at a site up there and was told he could have the grass if he wanted it. He knew we were putting our yard in and gave Cody a call. We just needed to figure out how to get the sod to our house. We called Cody's parents to bring up their truck, we rented a 16foot tilt trailer and arranged to have our friend bring over his bobcat to help us unload the sod. We now have 16 rolls of sod sitting out front that we got for FREE! We have been blessed through this whole yard process. The weather was not looking like it was going to cooperate over the weekend with cold temperatures and snow in the forecast. Friday and Saturday it didn't snow at all. We woke up to snow Sunday morning (our day of rest) and Monday the weather was good for Cody too.

Taking the rolls of sod off the trailer. It was an extremely heavy load. It took 3 men just to push one of the rolls into the bobcat.

Friday morning Cody went and picked up all our sprinkler supplies and my dad drove up to help. We also had our topsoil delivered. We had 8 truckloads, like the one shown below delivered to our house. 4 loads in the front, and 4 in the back. It was a ton of soil, but necessary to help level out our yard and raise it up to the cement.

Aubrey "helped" Cody out and followed him around as he cemented pipes in place.

A kids dreamland. Playing on top of a huge dirt pile.

Cody's dad also came up to help Friday afternoon/evening. They put the majority of the sprinklers in and then called it a day. Saturday morning we had our neighbor with the bobcat come back over to help us spread the topsoil. We also "hired" a couple of Cody's scouts to help us spread the soil around. All I have to say is thank goodness for friends with equipment. It would have taken FOREVER to move all that topsoil by wheelbarrow.

Yesterday Cody finished everything with the sprinklers and we finished smoothing out the topsoil. Tonight is "lay the sod" night. The men (Elders Quorum) in our neighborhood are coming over to help roll it, cut it and lay it out over our lawn. One of them is bringing his BBQ and we're providing hamburgers and hot dogs. Cross your fingers that everything goes smoothly and tomorrow I should have grass!

Operation - Get a Yard

We started our "get a yard" process last weekend and it's so exciting to think that in a week from today, we should have everything in. Last Thursday night, our friend drove over in his Kabota tractor and helped us clear a bunch of rocks and piles from our yard. Midway is famous for pot rock, and most people don't even have basements because of the cost to blast through it. Luckily our house does have a basement, but that means tons of pot rock piles around the house. I took some before shots of the yard so we can see the change when we are done.

Aubrey and Tucker were lucky enough to hitch a ride while the guys cleaned up the yard.

On Saturday we had my sister and her husband, Cody's parents and Cody's brother all up to help us. Carson and Cody traded off on trenching and we all moved rocks and planted trees. Cody and I both joined the Home Depot Garden Club in the past few weeks and were emailed coupons for buy 1 get 1 free on their trees. It's been awesome because we now have all the trees we wanted planted and ready to grow and get big! I'll be able to start a garden in May once it gets warmer at night.

Don't worry, I only helped out for about 30 minutes. I wish I could've done more, but lifting heavy rocks and working with machinery just isn't my forte!

This rock was huge and of course right in the line of our trench path. They think it weighed between 400-500lbs.

Taking a little break and checking out the sprinkler plans.

Aubrey doing a little dance on the massive rock.

Cole thought he could help as well and pulled out his shovel.

After we completed the trenching Cody and I took everyone to the Dairy Keen for dinner. It's the least we could do for all of their help.

Carson brought baby Aspen with him. This was our first time meeting her and the kids loved it. Tucker told us his favorite part of Saturday was meeting Aspen. Aubrey is excited to have a girl cousin on the Calderwood side.

This Friday Cody and his sister and Dad will put in the sprinklers. Saturday we will spread topsoil and next Monday we'll lay out the sod. This is going to be a fun summer!

Vegas Weekend

Cody and I "won" a trip to Las Vegas that we took last weekend. Sin City isn't our favorite place to vacation, it's been 7 years since we last went and that was with my clogging studio, but free is free, right?!! We headed out Friday morning after dropping our kids off with grandparents. We couldn't check in until 4, so we headed to the Las Vegas temple first and did a session. It has one of the most beautiful celestial rooms I've ever seen! We like to joke that we didn't help out Las Vegas that weekend because we started it off with a spiritual activity!

After the temple, we drove to our hotel, which happened to not be on the strip and was a bit ghetto. The reason we won the trip was because we went to one of those time share presentations a year ago and they gave us 2 trips. One to Vegas and our other is to Park City (just think, Cody could walk down the street to work! - Sorry for all of you that like to vacation in Park City, nothing wrong with it, just a bit different when that's where you work!) Anyway, we assumed we'd be staying in one of the timeshare places, since that's what they were trying to sell us. Nope! We stayed in a standard plain hotel. It was fine, we were just spoiled on our trip to Mexico with a really nice hotel.

Part of our trip was supposed to entail some perks, like tickets to a show. We had about 5 options to choose from, but they weren't really free and we knew nothing about them. They all had a minimum drink purchase of one per person at a $9.95 value (hello we don't drink and weren't going to spend $10 each on a coke!) We opted to not go to a show.

We walked the strip that evening and checked out all the free things to do. The Bellagio has this awesome botanical garden and of course their water show.

The next morning we drove to the other end of the strip and went to the MGM Grand to see their lions. The baby cubs were so cute!

We walked around a bit more then went back to our hotel to pick up the shuttle that was taking us to the Jockey Club where we had to sit through another 90 minute presentation on why we should buy their timeshare. BORING! We were also told that we would receive $300 in slot machine money, which we thought was pretty cool, until we found out how it was to be used. We assumed that we'd be able to do the penny or nickel slots and then cash out when we wanted to. Nope, we had to walk over to the Hooters Hotel, turn our vouchers in and then went to a roped off area where we had to play on the $5 machines. You couldn't cash out unless you won the jackpot - and I'm sure you can guess how often that happens. It's crazy, that within a matter of minutes, $300 was gone. It's unbelievable how much money people waste trying to win big.

We walked around some more after our big gambling moment, ate dinner at PF Changs and then headed back to our hotel. We'd both had enough of the billboards, Mexicans passing out nudy cards and the filth that lies all over. It was great to get down south and be around the warmth, it was in the upper 80s while we were there - oh and it was fun to be without the kids for a couple days, but unless you have lots of money to see the good shows and you drink, there just isn't that much to do.

Easter and Aubrey's Birthday Party

Last Saturday the kids and I boiled and dyed our Easter eggs. Cody received a fun Easter egg kit from a specialist at work that kept us entertained.

Sunday morning Tucker woke up Aubrey and Cole so that they could begin their Easter Egg hunt. They each had a basket and found the eggs hidden around our house. Even Cole was in on the action. He crammed candy in his mouth and set off to find some eggs.

We celebrated Aubrey's 3rd birthday on Sunday with all of our extended family that lives in town. We had 21 people for Easter dinner and to celebrate! Aubrey was a doll and loved everything!

I asked her if I could take her picture and she told me that she wanted one with Grandpa!

Cole was getting flying lessons.

I'm making a family history scrapbook and needed an updated picture of Cody and I - not too shabby!

Aubrey was spoiled and had a great time opening all her gifts. Earlier in the week she told me that she wanted to open her presents all by herself - that translates to mean "No help from Tucker!"

The kids love Dora the Explorer and luckily I have a friend that lives close by that let us borrow her Dora cake pan. I'm glad I didn't have to shape her by myself. I had fun decorating her though. Of course, Aubrey noticed that her shorts weren't orange - I thought purple would match her pink shirt better - I mean come on Dora, you typically wear pink shirts, orange shorts and yellow socks? Not on my cake!

This is Aubrey and her cousin Halle. They are only 1 month apart and had fun playing with her new toys all evening.

And if you are blowing up the pictures and are noticing Aubrey's eye, yes - she does have a black eye. She literally ran into her friend Kate Thursday night.

Aubrey's real birthday was yesterday and we celebrating by eating at McDonald's last night. Every kids dream!

Daytrip to Logan

2 Saturdays ago we spent the day with my sister and her husband in Logan. They took us to a place in Idaho that Heather knows as the "Treehouse". Some guy built a series of walkways and treehouses all over his property and apparently doesn't care if you go visit. The tree bridges were pretty sketchy and reminded you of the movies where it could tumble to the ground or you would fall through, if you stepped in the wrong spot.

Dan and Cody wobbled their way through it while Heather and I watched with the kids. The walkways followed a stream that the kids thought was awesome. Stick throwing was had by all.

There was a rope swing that Cody tested out for us and we all took a turn swinging over the stream. Tucker was even brave enough to do it by himself.

We had a great time with Heather and Dan watching Basketball, buying Girl Scout Cookies, eating, riding bikes and playing games. Until next time!

Oh and I can't forget to post a picture of the turkeys that live by us on River Road. 2 male turkeys were strutting their stuff and chasing the females.

I want to ride my bicycle...

Tucker has been asking us for a couple weeks to take the training wheels off his bike. The weather has finally been warming up (can't you tell by the all the snow we still have - actually had, it's almost gone : ), so Cody took the extra wheels off on Friday and taught Tucker how to ride. Tucker amazed us by basically just taking off down the street. You'd think he'd been riding without training wheels for a couple months now by how good he is.

Aubrey used to try and ride Tucker's bike with the training wheels and since that option was gone, she only had a little tricycle to ride, so Cody brought her home a new pink bike on Tuesday after work. She loves it and is having fun playing outside with her brother. (It's sort of an early birthday present.)

Tucker loves his new found freedom. He can't wait until he's good enough to ride his bike to his friends house. We just need to work on some street safety.

Check out the smile on her face.

Just a random video of Cole. I don't really know what he was doing, but he was happy and seemed to be singing to himself.