Estes Lake and Movie Mania

We went to Estes Lake this morning to explore and walk around the lake. It said it was 3.75 miles around the whole lake. Before the walk even started, Alayna fell down a steep side by the river scraping both her knees and ripping off some skin on her back. Then about 15 minutes into the walk, Alayna started having problems breathing. When I started carrying her she started gasping for breath- that was really scary! And since there seems to be only one entrance into the trail, we were stuck. So, I carried her the remainder of the way on my back. Bob offered to take her, but apparently, according to Alayna he isn’t as “comfortable” as me. We didn’t make it the full way around the lake. We took a detour (around mile 3 I think?) to go to a playground and tennis courts. Thank goodness Missy came by in her car to pick up Alayna!

(Marisa with cousins Andrew, Ian and Jared)

(Kayla with cousins Abigail and Rachel)

(Not sure why Tyler looks like he is under arrest)

(Eating on the deck)

We came home for lunch and even got to eat on the deck. Then everyone split into their assigned groups to film movies. I took this as an opportunity to FINALLY relax so I spent the afternoon reading “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown and I am already half way done!! Man it feels so wonderful to just sit and read!! I hope I finish it soon because I have 6 more books in my luggage!!

(Kayla and Alayna with Jackson)

(Alayna with Abigail and Rachel)

We were in charge of the family activity tonight so we played many different mini-games as a family, ending with one that correlated with our scripture for the evening. It was an enjoyable evening except when Bob almost smacked Wendy in the face and then almost sat on her! Most of them are still downstairs playing. Its amazing how much everyone loves to play games.

(Thats Alayna- can you tell she is feeling better?)

(Marisa leading a game)

On an odd note:

This is a big beautiful house with only one drawback…The people who own this home are huge hunters. It’s a little creepy when you see how many dead animals are mounted around the house. (A vegetarians nightmare?)

I…can’t…breathe…

Ok it is DEFINITELY harder to breathe here. We are 7,800 feet above sea level! I can see why it would be advantageous to train here for a triathlon, because if you can do it here, you can do it anywhere!

(The view from the deck during the freak hailstorm that came out of nowhere and was gone a few minutes later)

(Kayla with cousin Jackson)

(Alayna playing dress-up)

We went on a really cool hike up above the house today. The following pictures were taken literally in the backyard. The mountain side was a bit steep, but at least none of us took any embarrassing falls!

(The view of the valley below)

We spent the day playing games like Mexican Train. This evening Missy’s family was in charge of the activity and we played a really neat game called “The Good Egg Game”. Clark’s mom had put 35 things you can find around a house into an actual egg shell and then taped it back together. We were given 15 minutes to come up with our list. Whoever had the most right-wins! Very fun and challenging game. Then we had this yummy dessert pizza Grandma made.

We ended the evening with a wonderful DVD of all old video clips that Hal had put together. All the way from when Bob was young to when the last grandchild was born. It was fun to see all our kids as babies again and who knew that at 16 Bob was so proud of his muscles??

(Marisa with cousin Samantha)

(Another breathtaking sunset)

“Are we there yet?” and a reenactment of “The Birds”

(Saying goodbye to Fluffy)

(saying goodbye to Panzer)

The entire day was spent traveling to Estes Park Colorado for the Hart reunion. It was what I would call the “stupidest travel day ever”! Most of that will include inside family jokes, which weren’t too funny during the actual travel. It was 10 hours of travel and that included about 2 hours through a rain storm that soaked our travel hitch. Everyone was tired and very crabby. We couldn’t decide on movies, music, or what sounds annoyed mom the most. By the time we got to the driveway, we were all screaming “Get me out of the car!” Ok, so it wasn’t THAT bad but it was a long day. Kayla summed it all up when she said, “Why cant we just teleport there??”

(Does this picture say it all or what?)

On a positive note, we stopped at a cool rest stop for lunch. At the end the kids wanted to feed the seagulls that were hanging around for food. Have any of you seen the movie The Birds? Well, that’s exactly what it reminded me of. See pictures for exhibit A and B.

(Take note of the sign)

(Trying to be pioneers…)

(Notice the clouds)

Estes Park is GORGEOUS! I am so excited to walk around Estes Lake every morning. This is totally MY kind of place. Remote and gorgeous. Doubt I could talk Bob into moving here though. We spent the evening playing games like “Would you rather?”, “Signs” and “King Elephant”.

(Beautiful sunset from the deck)

(Would you rather?)

(King Elephant)

Picnic, Pictures, and Pounders

This will be a quicker update since I’m tired! We picked up my wedding ring (all fixed and cleaned) and then went on a hunt for swimming suits. We scored Big time at Big 5 sporting goods! We got new awesome tennis shoes for fall for every kid and each pair was 65 % off!! Then we got 3 new suits for Kayla (since she starts on the HS swim team this year) and a new suit for Tyler since he is clearly outgrowing the other one.

We spent the afternoon with family up at Hyrum Reservoir. We had a picnic lunch and the kids got to swim for a while, even though the water level was really high because of recent rains.

(Tyler Kayla and Alayna in the lake)

We hit Jamba Juice on our way to our family photo shoot. My amazing sister-in-law, Brandi, is a photographer and she did them for us. She found this beautiful place that has a river, bridges, logs, benches, trees, railroad tracks, etc. I cant wait to see how these pictures turned out. Then mom showed us a neat food place called Pounders and we even got a picture with the food crew there! The food was amazing. Tomorrow we head to Colorado for the Hart reunion…

PS- Marisa leaned over to me today at the lake and said, “Mom, Look!  Its a pack of werewolves!!” Maybe a few of you will get the joke from my picture…

Racquetball, Tigers Blood, and a little too much sunshine

We started the day up at USU playing racquetball! My dad took us up, taught the kids the basics and we played for 1 ½ hours. We played cut-throat on 2 different courts and had such a great time. It was an adjustment for us tennis players, but it sure is cool to hit balls off of several walls.

(Marisa and Bob)

(Tyler serving)

(Kayla)

(Grandpa and Alayna)

My new nickname is “The -poster -child -for -why -you -should -always -wear -sunscreen -even -though -its -super -cloudy -outside -and -you -are -slightly -chilly -and -are -in -the -water -most -of -the -time”. This afternoon, we went with the family to the Logan aquatic center AKA pool! We spent almost 4 hours there. The kids went off the diving boards, and down the crazy slides. We did laps in the pool and tread water. We had fun snow cones and my favorite flavor was “Tigers Blood”. I know that sounds really weird but it was really quite tasty! Not sure how to describe it. Anyway, we all ended up a little red, but apparently the sun was mad at me for some reason and went all postal on me. Im more purple than red. Id like to think this will turn into an amazing tan (even though my legs are still white) , but Im not sure that will happen…I bet I will look like a giant beet for our family pictures.

(Kayla going off the high dive)

(Kayla doing a pike off the high dive)

(Alayna eating her snow cone)

(Tyler eating his snow cone)

(Marisa soaking up the sun)

This evening we went back to the theater to watch more wipeout. Once again, It is pretty awesome watching it on the big screen. The younger kids got flashlights and played “hide and seek” in the theater. Then we had yummy strawberry shortcake for dessert and played “Imaginiff” again for game night.

(Bench in front of the theater)

(Kayla in one of her new outfits)

(Watching Wipeout)

(Hide and Go Seek crew)

(Brooklyn LOVES having Alayna walk all over the theater with her)

On a funny note: Tyler has had mosquito bites out of control. I swear he emits some sort of sweet brownie fudge sundae smell or something? To make it worse, he is a little allergic and so each bite seems to swell up to the size of a baseball. Anyway, we found out today that he has named them all: Big Buddy, the Trouble Twins, USA and Australia (because they are located on opposite sides of his legs) and little John (cant remember the rest). What a goofball!

(Tyler with Brynnlee-the cousin, not one of his mosquito bites!)