A Confession and fun...

I confess.......I DON'T IRON!!! I hate ironing! I am terrible at it! Things look worse when I get through ironing them than they did to begin with. If you can't put it in the dryer with a damp towel to get the wrinkles out of it ... you don't need to wear it!  A few months ago I got a wild hair and decided to iron one of Gracie's skirts and my shirt for little Emily's blessing. Emily's mom (my sister Stephanie) irons  EVERYTHING!!!  I think she might even iron her underclothes but I can't be sure! HAHA jk Steph! Anyway, I thought I'd try my best to look nice...BIG mistake!!! Gracie's skirt turned out perfect which is amazing but then I burned a whole in my shirt. My BEST and most FAVORITE shirt! My only shirt I really felt like was stylish, cute, and nice enough to wear to church or nice places. It was white and had cute, girly, short sleeves and cuteness on the front that made it so cute! And it went with EVERYTHING! It looked especially adorable with my cute black, white, and red skirt that I LOVE! And..it was FREE! Last year a friend in our ward in Salem brought us bags of clothes she was planning to take to the clothing exchange. They fit our family perfectly and were WAY cute! And that shirt came from her. Brian is the ironer in our family and I just should have let him do it instead of trying to be all domestic and stuff. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! 

So last night Brian saw the iron cooling on the washing machine and said, Did you actually iron something today?  I said, why, yes, yes I did iron something.  This....

It's really the only thing I should be trusted to touch with an iron!!!

OUR SATURDAY DRIVE

As I mentioned in a previous post, a couple weeks ago we had a free weekend. We caught up on a bunch of things that desperately needed attention around our house and yard and then Saturday afternoon Brian suggested we take a drive up Huntington Canyon. We LOVE doing that! When my family first moved here this became one of our favorite places to be. We enjoyed just driving up for the day and picnicking and enjoying the beauty of everything about it. I remember many hours spent fishing, hiking, playing, and just relaxing and visiting.

When I was 8 months pregnant with Matthew my family decided that the family get together that summer was going to be a camp out at Old Folks Flat in Huntington Canyon. One of my favorites. Well, what 8 month pregnant woman in her right mind would want to go camping in a tent, in the woods, without a bathroom!! (Yes there is one in the campground but I'm also a chicken and would NOT be walking to a bathroom in the middle of the night thank you very much! I moaned and groaned about going but went anyway. I was in PURE HEAVEN!!! We didn't have air conditioning in our apartment and it was at least 20 degrees cooler in that canyon than it was in our house. And I slept so well because the air at night gets COLD in that canyon. It was glorious!!! We even stayed an extra night because it was just so wonderful!!! When we lived in Spanish Fork area we had Payson canyon we could escape to if we wanted to take a beautiful drive and "get away from it all" for a few hours. In Cedar City we loved taking drives to Cedar Breaks. What a spectacular drive and destination that is! We would picnic along the way and it was just wonderful. When we lived in Pleasant Grove I missed having a special place like that to escape to. I hear that American Fork canyon is beautiful but I also hear it's WAY crowded and you have to pay to drive through it. I missed our Huntington Canyon days so much!

I was so happy when Brian suggested we take a drive up there. It was so beautiful! The kids had never been except Zack when he was 3 years old and they had such a great time! I was sure to point out how brown and beautiful it was when we drove through Emery County on the way to the canyon and then pointed out how green and beautiful it is in the canyon once we were up there. WOW what a contrast!!! We let them wade around in the lake a bit. We all had fun skipping rocks. We drove through the camp grounds showing them the fun places there are to camp up there. We drove up to Mammoth Lake and got out and walked the little path to where the display of information is about how the Mammoth was discovered and how they extracted it. It was so interesting to the boys. 

Once we left the canyon we drove on over to Castle Dale and visited the Zebra farm and the long horn steers. 

We had such a wonderful day and enjoyed spending time together and being in such a gorgeous place. So glad we live close to Huntington Canyon now and can share our love for it with our little family.

 

Yes I look freaky, deaky! I didn't put makeup on that day. And, yes, I'm fat!! But it's rare for us to have pictures with us in them, especially together, so I thought I'd throw it in...

The zebra farm..I'm glad we went that day because zebras are Zack's favorite and there weren't any at the zoo when we went.

Camping

My parents decided it would be fun to take our kids camping last weekend. The kids were so excited! I couldn't bring myself to let them take Max with them. He is one wild and crazy boy that hasn't learned to listen and I didn't want to put that kind of strain on my parents!! My sister Steph invited him to come to her house and play with Josh while they went camping. He LOVED it!! They all had so much fun! I enjoyed being able to relax a bit! The first night (Wednesday)  I made a delicious and super easy chicken scampi and Brian and I watched Better Off Dead. We hadn't seen it in years and got a good laugh out of it.  I even painted my toenails and fingernails!! Thursday night Brian, Gracie, and I went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Spanish Fork. We slept over at my parents since Brian had a delivery in Wahweep Friday. My parents and the boys came back to Spanish Fork Friday morning and they took us all to Hogle Zoo. Steph, Josh, Emily, and KayTee met us there. We hadn't been in a couple years and it was a lot of fun! We always have a great time at the zoo! Our most favorite part was the adorable baby elephant that followed it's momma around and played with it's own trunk trying to figure out how it works. It was adorable! It was 100 + and we were hot but I wasn't complaining because I was just so happy it isn't snowing anymore!!! There were a few freaks that had their poor little kids dressed in fleece hooded jackets or long sleeves and long pants or can you believe...SNOW BOOTS!!! Seriously!!!  Other than that everyone was so nice!

After the zoo we headed to Wendy's for lunch and then back to mom's for a few hours then we went back to the campground in Hobble Creek and camped for 2 more nights. The kids had a lot of fun going for walks, swimming in the creek, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, eating smores, getting dirty, and spending time with grandma and grandpa. We got up bright and early on Sunday and drove back home for church but missed getting here in time. We had good intentions! We had a lot of fun camping. We don't camp nearly enough because I hate tent camping but my parents took their camp trailer so it was great! We NEED a trailer and a truck so we can do super fun things like that!

The misting fan!!! Gotta love those in 100 degree weather!!!

This is a group shot! Mr. "I'm not afraid of anything, Max" was terrified on this! He's a funny kid! Josh was simply adorable with his "yee haw's" as his hippo went up and down! He is so dang cute! Sorry Steph! I know you aren't a big fan of having your picture on my blog but you look GREAT!!! Can you believe she just had a baby in March!!!

The water globe is always fun!

And of course the train is a must do!

Cute little Emily!!!

 

Gracie was so filthy and LOVED it!! She likes eating dirt. She and my cousin John would get along swimmingly! HEHEHE

Grandma and Grandpa set up a movie outside the camp trailer at night. Matty is behind Max in the picture. Gracie's poor stroller was brown at this point. I was afraid it would never be the same but after some stain spray and a good washing it is good as new!!!