Our next stop Hemet, CA

From St. George we made our way 6 hour drive to Uncle Sam, Aunt Carrie, Corey, Wyatt, Keegan, and Makensi Stevenson's house in Hemet, CA. It was superbowl sunday and of course the boys tuned into the game on the big TV. The kids didn't mind and took advantage of once again being without seatbelt restrants and jumped on the tramp and played with the dog... Daisy.
Keegan posed with the kids before heading off to school on monday morning. All the cousins were great in entertaining the kids with their toys and of course Daisy took the initiative to entertain to. Kirsten is playing tug of war in this shot.
Caleb never quite warmed up to Daisy even though Daisy tried her best to look small and nice. Caleb would shriek every time she came with in a foot of him. The other kids thought this was funny.
Zach and Kirsten almost stayed with Daisy and skipped the rest of the vacation.
Kirsten loved Daisy the most of course. She wants or has wanted to be a vet for as long as I can remember... although being a teacher is still in the running.

St. George, UT

We left on Saturday January 30, 2009 and stopped in St. George to visit Grandpa & Grandma Stevenson. Even though the kids had only been in the car for 3.5 hours, they enjoyed a walk around the housing park and ended up at the club house and the pond/ rocks drew their attention.
The movie Sound of Music has a song that says, " Climb every mountain." Zach's song is "climb every rock form..."
Caleb added his lerics to that song of Zach's with a "me too, me too."
Grandma likes to make everything look nice and so when the kids were exploring she started weeding. Before long she had some helpers. Grandma would pull a chunk of weeds and then hand them to Caleb and he would put them in the garbage can. He loved to help.
We enjoyed our visit to St. George. We had a yummy pizza factory dinner with Grandma fabulous salad and then a short game of the famous Mexican Train game. We were tired out from our many sleepless nights of flood control and didn't get to play long, but we loved every minute. We want a rematch! Before out grandparents left for church on Sunday morning we all posed for a group shot. Thanks for letting us stay with you guys! See you soon.

The Flood!

I came home from time out for women relaxed . The crawlspace where I put my emptied suitcase was dry. Not so after church the next day. 8 1/2 inches were in the crawlspace we use as a playroom and the other side we use as storage were mini swimming pools.
We used cups, then bowls, then garbage can to bail out the water to no avail. Then we called the professionals.
This industrial size put that was putting the water out through the living room window and then in the street broke, so the company rented a smaller one to get the rest of the water out.

By Tuesday morning at 6:30 am were were able to turn off the pump and could see the cement with little water on them.

Weekend fun! Utah Flash Game

The Utah Flash Game!
On the 23rd I went for a girls weekend with Aubrey, Camille, and Rachel to a Time out for Women in Ogden. It was amazing and I highly recommend it. The kids got to spend time with dad and went to a Utah Flash game at the Community College. The Elementary school gave us 4 tickets. Free is fabulous! The kids had a good time mostly just running after the mascot up and down the stairs.
Kirsten's friend Devanie was there too.

2nd Grade Artic Opera!

Kirsten's 2nd grade class did an opera on artic animals. They did research on the animals habitat, activities, food, etc first, then decided who was going to be what, costumes and set. Then they made up songs for their parts. In summary: the individual animals were all in the snow and ice when fire came, but they loved the snow and cold.
Their were wolves, seals, hare (kirsten), fire breathing dragons, polar bears (fishing poles) and fox. Kirsten and two others (Celeste and Brooklyn) would sing "we love to burrow, dig, dig hop." It was pretty impressive and cute! You did a great job Kirsten!
After the performance we got a few pictures of the cast and the extras. Zach, Caleb, Kirsten, Celeste, and Natasha.
Natasha, Phoebe, and Kirsten.
Aleena and Kirsten!

Snow, Friends, and Fun

Our good friends and neighbors, the Laing Family, called one night and asked to come see the igloo. We were willingly enticed to go out and play.
It is always good to make sure a structure is sound before entering. Caleb is the safety inspector.
What is the fun in slow if you can't emerge yourself entirely!
How many people can fit in one igloo... Kirsten, Zach, Addie, Sophie, Caleb, Brayden...
Colby was a good sport through it all and sat in the wagon with warmed up rice bags to keep from turning into a cute ice cube.

Snow, Snow, more snow

With all the snow shoveling that we had done nathan made an igloo for the kids.
One day it snowed and snowed and snowed, I found nathan outside forming the entrance to the igloo. He was getting more use out of the igloo than the kids. Are we not all kids at heart?
The snow, would just not stop. Here's a picture of our backyard for depth.
And the igloo grows....
One night after dinner we decided to let the kids go out and place in "Mt. Stitt" as the neighborhood called the igloo. The Laing family came over to see the igloo and we decided to join them. It was a bit cold at 6:30pm but the kids didn't seem to mind.