Memorial Day Weekend

Finally, here is the scoop! We took the trailer and bikes out to Five Mile for the entire weekend. The kids were so excited to go camping for the whole weekend. They were in shock that we were going to miss church though. Here is our campsite. Normally we go to Strawberry for this weekend, but with the weather on the cool side, we stayed closer to home. My little brother, Justin, from Reno, NV, met us out there. He spent the entire week prior in Elko, NV, so the 3 hours to be with us was a no brainer. I am so glad that he made the extra effort to come and see us. The kids love him and his crazy riding. They call him Uncle "Bustin" because that is what I call him. When he was younger, he was always "bustin" up things! This is Justin with Katie, Kelli and their friend, Sydnee.Saturday, our friends, the Douglas, joined us. Before the big boys went out on a ride, all of us watched them jump the road. My brother is crazy! He had his bike pinned in 4th gear and totally clearing this little bump in the road. This is Justin clearing the jump over 8 kids-3 of them mine, 3 of the Douglas kids and 2 onlookers!Cory tried his hand at jumping. He was a little nervous about the whole thing. He doesn't jump, he just rides hard and fast and crashes, a lot! So the jumping thing is new to him. He caught the jumping bug though, and got better as the weekend went on. Here is one of his better jumps. He didn't get the air that Justin got, but at least he got some!And of course, Tim had to try the jump too!The "big boy" ride ended up in our friend, Mike Douglas, spending a couple of nights in the hospital. Towards the end of the ride, he went off a jump wrong, and landed badly. He came down on his right side, breaking a bone in his hand, breaking three ribs and collasping his lung. So while his wife took him to the ER, Cory and I watched 3 of their kids. This is when we had rattlesnake with our dinner. The kids spent the night with us, so we had 10 in our trailer. Cory and Justin were going to sleep outside, then it started raining on us, HARD! So, we all crammed inside for the night. It was a long night! This is Mak and her friend Haylee. Aren't they just the cutest? They entertained the little girls for us and puttered around camp on their bikes. Sunday, my brother left to get back to Reno. He had to work Monday, or so he said. Tim and Mak's friends stayed with us another night, while Kelli and Katie's friend went home. Early afternoon, we all went out for a ride and ended up at an old quarry pit watching a guy drive his Rhino through the mud!Ended up, we knew the driver from our ward, so he gave all the older kids a ride through the mud! They loved it so much, that they got 2 rides. After, they were so dirty, that we let them play in the mud pond, even the twins. WOW! Here they are after the experience!When we finally got back to camp, Cory started our dinner while I washed the kids off. This is how we ran out of water. Washing off six very muddy kids takes a lot of water! And, we should have filled the tank on a flat surface, not a slanted one! Lesson learned! Our dutch oven chicken just finished cooking when the biggest storm of the weekend hit. We had hail, thunder, lightening, and rain for the rest of the night. Our fire was gone, so we headed inside to play games and watch a movie. Then the battery went dead and I wasn't about to run the truck for 2 hours just to watch a movie. So, we went to bed, by 9:30!
Monday morning, we cleaned up camp, then went back to the pit so the kids could ride around. Don't worry, we didn't let them go back through the mud. We were home by 3 and cleaned up by 6. All in all, it was a great weekend with lots of fun memories. Copper went with us and had a good time. He got bit by some ants, got muddy and got to eat a hotdog! Good times for us all!

BBQ Snake

Over Memorial Day Weekend, we BBQed the snake and ate it. Like I said, it was over the weekend when we went camping, so anything tasted good! Actually, it wasn't bad at all. Cory put a rub on it and some BBQ sauce then put in on the grill. It was a little rubbery, but for the most part, "tasted like chicken." The kids loved it! They were begging for more. Cory couldn't pull the meat away from the bones fast enough for them. Here is what the snake looked like just before we took it off the grill. Yum, yummy!More about the weekend will come. We had a lot of fun, even though we got rained out, lost power to the trailer and used up all our water Sunday night! Good memories though:)

Taylor Swift

Last night, Taylor Swift came to Salt Lake City and Mak went with her Dad! Cory got Mak tickets to the concert for her 8th Birthday. She was so excited all day. She actually came home from school, got her homework done, practiced her piano, read and did some chores all before she left. Her and Cory went out to dinner before the concert as well. Here is Mak before the concert!The word is that the concert was awesome! Cory and Mak didn't get home til almost 11. Mak was lit up and couldn't stop dancing around and singing! She had to show me her new t-shirt and all the little things that were handed out! Cory has a positive attitude towards Taylor now. He said that she is really quite talented! Did you know that the boys' names in her songs have not been changed? I thought that was interesting and awesome. Some teenager out there is wishing he had paid Taylor some more attention right about now:) This is Mak after the concert! She had a great time. Hopefully she will always remember her first concert! I do-Tiffany!!I added Taylor's newest song to my playlist. Check it out, it's fun! I could relate to it somewhat when I was in high school. I think everyone can relate to this song!

Preschool Graduation

Last Wednesday, Kelli and Katie had a "graduation" for their preschool. Don't freak out, the girls are not going to kindergarten next year. I repeat, the twins are not going to kindergarten in the fall. Although I wish they were, they miss the cut off by 24 days. Yep, you heard right, 24 days. So, they will go to preschool another year, then kindergarten. Graduation was cute. The kids got caps and walked in to the graduation march. Miss Shyann went over what the kids did each month and had the kids recite different things. They said and spelled their names, said the alphabet, counted, said the days of week and months of the year. We even got to watch a video of the school year. The kids were cute sitting up front laughing and screeching at every picture. Then we had yummy Costco cake and that was that. The girls will be going to Miss Shyann next year. Lots of things will be repeated, but there is nothing wrong with repetition! Thanks Shyann for the great job this past year. The girls loved you and learned a ton!

Rattle Snake!

A quick disclaimer before you start: If you are a bit squeamish over blood and guts, DO NOT continue!

Yesterday, the family went motorcycle riding at Five Mile. Cory went out for a solo ride and when he got back, he threw his camelback down next to this rattle snake! He grabbed the broom from the trailer and proceeded to pin the snake down so we could move the snake away from the kids and dog. Cory finally succeeded!After pinning the snake down, Cory got to thinking that relocating the snake was a bad idea since other families were out riding with kids running around like ours were. So, he decided that killing it would be the best idea. He held the snake down, while I cut the head off with an axe! We buried the head, then took the body over to a table where Cory skinned it and took out all the guts. The snake was about 3 feet long. Good size snake!Cory is going to get online and find a recipe to BBQ the meat! We will let you know if rattle snake really tastes like chicken or not. We will probably try it out this weekend when we are out for Memorial Day and are so hungry that anything tastes good.We kept the skin and rattle from the adventure. If anyone is interesting in seeing them, let us know. Tim is so excited about the whole thing! And for those of you who go out to Five Mile, be very careful. We saw another rattler later just laying in the road!

So Cal

Last weekend, Cory and I got away to Southern California! Just the two of us! Thursday, I met Cory in LA. We stayed the night in Long Beach in a hotel that overlooks the bay. Here's a picture of the view from our room. There's a lot going on, but the big ship to the left is the Queen Mary. It stays at port, however, one can take tours of the ship, have a meal, do some shopping and even stay the night. Pretty cool! Friday morning, we headed south to San Diego! We went down to the Embarcadero on the bay. We decided to go aboard the USS Midway! Wow. The ship is so big and so outdated. But was still pretty cool. It held up to 60 fighter planes at one time. That's a lot of planes in one little area. Here is a picture of Cory looking up at the ship. He was in his glory learning about the ship and how the planes took off and landed. I admit, I was quite impressed too!After the Midway, we drove around for awhile and found ourselves at Imperial Beach, about 30 miles from the Mexico border. The wind was blowing like crazy. Surfers were out with parachutes catching air on the waves. It was pretty cool to watch for awhile. Then we headed up to La Jolla for the night. Our room was right on the beach! Take a look-
That night, we ate pizza at a little place in La Jolla: Sammy's Woodfire Pizza. It was so good! We stuffed ourselves with salad, pizza, cheesecake and Coke! Then we went back to our room and went for a walk on the beach. There are firepits all along the beach, and all were being used. It was fun to see the different groups gathered and to listen to all the different music. Some people were even out looking for fish to wash up on the shore. This time of year is the only time this happens. We tried to find some fish, but had no luck.
Saturday morning, we got up and went to the San Diego Temple. We attended a very full session. Good thing we didn't have too many plans for the day! The Temple is so beautiful! And where it is located is breathtaking. It is right along I-5 in La Jolla. You come around a bend, and there it is. It reminds me a lot of Space Mountain at Disneyland. No matter, it is one of kind and stunning!! After, we rushed as fast as we could to meet some friends for lunch. Eric and Katie Gillis lived in our ward in West Jordan and we were always doing things together. They moved to Palm Springs a while back and and recently OC. Now, they are headed back to Texas were they are both from. So, the get together was perfect. It was great to catch up and see their 3 beautiful and fun kids. Thanks guys for the enjoyable couple of hours. Good luck with the new job and Texas!After lunch, we headed back to LA. What a mistake. Traffic was terrible! It took was 2 hours to go about 25 miles. We decided to get off the interstate and take some back roads to Hollywood. Wow, we ended up in little Mexico. Very interesting!! Our hotel was right next to the Chinese Theatre off Hollywood Blvd! The picture above is the view from our room! That night, we walked down the Blvd with all the other tourists and CA freaks. We ended up going through Ripley's Believe It or Not, Guinese World Record and The Wax Museums. Some interesting and weird stuff. The Wax museum was by far the best. Here is Cory with the Terminator. Some of the statues were awesome, others, not so much.Sunday morning, we were up early, and out the door. We headed west on Santa Monica Blvd to the coast. We drove through Beverly Hills and saw the famous signs and Rodeo Drive. We ended up on the Santa Monica Pier! It reminded me of a State Fair, for those of you who have been to a State Fair. We enjoyed strolling for awhile, watch people fish from the pier and smelling the BBQ cook-off on the beach. Here is a picture of me on the pier.After our quick visit to the pier, we headed south to LAX to fly home. We had a great time. So nice to get away for awhile and see so many things. Next time though, we will stay in one place so we don't have to fight the traffic and we can enjoy sights a little more!

Mak's Baptism

Last Saturday, Makayla was baptized by Cory. What a day! We had family from Idaho and Montana stay with us Friday night, so Saturday morning was a zoo with 3 extra adults and 3 extra kids to get ready. Makayla was the only girl out of 6 kids to get baptized that day. She had to be "dunked" twice! Part of a hand didn't go completely under. After, we had a little get together at the house for family and friends. About 20 people came over to congratulate Mak and to catch up with Cory and I. By 3pm, the house was cleaned up, the kids were playing and the adults were napping! It was exhausting, but a beautiful day despite the rain. Makayla was beautiful in white and she couldn't stop smiling all day! Congrats Mak!!