Hogle Zoo

I love the zoo!  Lachelle and Ben came down to visit this weekend.  We had so much fun with the main attraction being a day at the Hogle Zoo.

Macey being eaten by the lion water fountain.

3 monkeys checking out the monkeys.

Huge bats that you were really 3 feet from.

Being monkeys.

That is one cute gorilla girl!

No zoo trip would be complete without the train ride.

Family photo on the rhino.

The carousel was beautiful.  Check out the praying mantis to my left!  Cool huh...

Todd, Macey, and Courtney (my cousin)

Being a prairie dog!

Henry loves to be on his dad's shoulders.  Her grabs his ear to hold on with one hand and pats his head over and over again with the other.

You know you've had a good day when this is what you get after 2 minutes in the car!

Thanks for coming Lachelle and Ben!  We had so much fun and Macey keeps asking when we are going to your house.

Pet for a Day

I looked out the window to find this!  I was a little nervous and ran outside, but Henry sure didn't seem to mind the visitor.  I'm ok with an occasional pet I don't have to care for.  It's the only way to do it really.

My Montra

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.  I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.  I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children.  I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.  I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.  I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." - Marjorie Pay Hinkley

Kitchen

Isn't my new kitchen cute?

Are you kidding?

Dear Utah Weather,

Is this some kind of joke?  Snow on May 24... My flowers and tomatoes don't appreciate it and frankly, nor do I.  

Sunday Distractions

I'm sure I'm not the first mom to lament about going to church at 1 in the afternoon...Church starts right when my kids are both in their beds every other day of the week.  Not only is it in the middle of nap time, the morning seems so long!  So we've been trying to keep busy and still be Sabbath appropriate.  

We visited John and Ranelle who just got home from their mission in Michigan!  

Last week we went to the Provo temple to walk around.  Thomas saw a friend from Orderville there!

                                      Macey and her little girl loved each other.  I was surprised no one fell in the water.

Today we went on a long walk.

But let's be honest, I can't wait until our time changes for church in January...

To Lachelle:

I'd like to dedicate this one to you sista-

The Game

On Tuesday we finally made it to the last home baseball game of the year!  It was pretty fun and we stayed for 2 whole innings... :).  Macey liked the music they played and Henry liked his funny sister.  Here is Macey "dancing".

Tailgating minus the Game

Thomas and I took the kiddos to a tailgate party for the BYU baseball team.  A few dollars got us J Dawgs for lunch, games, prizes, Cosmo the Cougar,and tickets to a baseball game!  A fun day indeed.

"That cougar scary"

After all this fun before the game we were too tired to actually GO to the game... don't worry the tickets were good for another game too.  Tailgating without going to the game is the way to go!

Friends

I planned to have a few old friends over this week.  The party deadline was the goal to get things whipped into shape after moving!  It worked well... we are feeling more homey and loving the backyard.   Here are a few pictures of our yard and the party!

The food was pretty good and the company was excellent.  I see lots more parties in the near summer months!

Under Attack

Here is a little story for the future.

The day we moved in I noticed a few flying ants in the laundry room.  Yuck.  So I dusted outside the window with Antbegone and sprayed Raid all over.  We left the next day to go to Orderville.  When we came home the next day I found lots of dead ants!  Eeeww.  I vacuumed them up and went on with my day.  Later in the day I started noticing more live ants in the laundry room.  Then I started to see them in the bathroom.  Then I started to see them in the kitchen.  I am not normally too squeamish about bugs but it was starting to get out of hand!  I was really getting annoyed and grossed out.  I finally noticed that they seemed to be coming out of the furnace vent on the floor.  Weird.  I told Thomas what I thought, so he took the vent cover off and sure enough there are hundreds in there.  He starts looking around.

The ants are living in our laundry room and being BLOWN THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE THROUGH OUR FURNANCE.  Can you think of anything more disgusting?  Thomas is a dream and stayed up until 3am taking the furnace apart to get to the ants.  He sprayed, cleaned, and got rid of them.  We are going to laugh about this for a long time.

Orderville

Thomas is always busy busy when we go to Orderville!  Terry is always working on a project or 10.  Last week they worked on tearing off the brick of the Starlite so that they can stucco it one day.

Under a layer they found an old painted sign from its glory days.

We went to Sugar Knoll

See the white mountain in the back?  It looks like a big pile of sugar from further away...

We roasted dogs there.

Henry ate and ate and ate.

And then he took a bath in the sink and loved it.

We went to St. George for TJ's graduation. We stopped by this little water area downtown before we had to be at Dixie.  It was SO fun and so cute!  Macey did not want to leave!

This is just downtown and free... there is another big fountain that kids can play in too!  Check it out!  I'm trying to convince Thomas that we need this in our backyard at the Shanty.

Macey loved this at Dixie College.