Zoe's 9th Birthday

Lucky girl got to open one present before school.

She is so animated when opening gifts.

Ready for school! 

After going to Jesterz a couple weeks before and hearing you get in for free on your birthday this is all she wanted to do! If you can't tell they had a great time! 

Chase and Zoe won tickets to come back. 

They won thumb wars. 

Because it was Maeley and Zoe's birthday they got to come up on stage a be apart of a skit. 

One Jester describes what is happening in the "picture". 

It was a great day to celebrate Zoe's birthday. 

She really is the sweetest and most sincere girl. She loves art, Lego's, and soccer. She has some great friends. She's a great hiker and loves the outdoors. She always wants to do whats right.

We love you sweet Zoe! 

Bearizona

The beginning of fall break the kids and I went to Bearizona with some of my friends and their kids.

10 kids came between the 4 of us. 

Me, Shannon, Carly and Elizabeth

We haven't all gotten together in years so it was so fun being together and having our kids get to know each other. 

We went of the bus so all the kids could be together. 

The Raptor show was really cool. The birds flying so low over us was amazing. Zoe said the owl grazed the top of her head.

Avery and Maeley had a great time! 

None of us had been there before. We all had a great time. It was a short trip but totally worth it!

Family campout with friends

We missed our ward camp out because of a flag football game so instead we planned a camp out with Stacy's family. We camped at the same camp spot I did for all the ward camp outs and father daughter camp outs growing up. So many good memories have been made there. Loved having my family there to share it with.

We cooked a delicious veggie soup that everyone seemed to love. The kids enjoyed just playing together and being outside. I was relieved when the wind died down at sunset. We even went to bed at a reasonable time.

The next morning after roaming around the campsite and eating another delicious meal we walked to the creek. At  the road there were already lots of people fishing so we hiked up the creek until the end of the road. Stacy and I wanted to rock hop down as that's what we did as kids. Seeing how many people were fishing at the bottom I had the idea to rock hop higher up. That was great as far of not getting caught in fishing line or them getting mad at us for scaring the fish away. However higher up the vegetation was over grown and some spots were hard to maneuver. 

This is a great example of how overgrown everything was. The kids did great. Poor Fluffy fell in so Stacy ended up caring her for awhile. Then Steve took Fluffy and took the trail to the bottom to meet up with us. 

We did eventually make it to the end. I'm not much of a camper but my husband and kids had a wonderful time so I just might do it again. 

September 22-23, 2017

Canyon Creek

Chase Flag football

Chase joined the schools flag football team. It was a short season but its extra fun to play with school friends. There is no doubt that this kid loves all things football. He loves the Seattle Seahawks which Derek loves to harass him for because that is one of the teams Derek hates. 

See Canyon Trail hike

My friend Stacy and I planned another hike for our families to do together. We have such a great time each time we hike. While we were extra careful to not hike in a rain storm this time, apparently we should check to see if there are bears near by.

We pulled up to see this posted. Not gonna lie it freaked a bunch of us out. Later we heard from another hiker that there was a black bear about 3-4 years old that they were trying to catch and relocate.  

Loved when we were hiking near the stream.

Derek is always making someone laugh. 

Cool hollowed out tree. Couldn't help but go inside. 

August 26, 2017

Near Christopher Creek

Denver

At the end of July through the beginning of August Derek took off work and we spent over a week helping his brother remodel his kitchen. I wish I had the before pictures but regardless Derek worked his tail off. I did so much painting and helping when I could but some stuff Derek and Phil had to tackle. Derek's parents watched the kids most of that time and my parents watched them the last few days when Derek's parents also came out to Denver with the truck loaded with cabinets.

When we arrived the demo had already been done. The wall separating the kitchen from the formal dining was removed and in some places it was down to the studs. They had already raised the ceiling in the kitchen to match the height of the dining room. 

Katherine, Emma and I took a hike at Dinosaur Ridge. What we thought was a quick hike up the mountain ended up being much longer than expected. Emma did great and it was a beautiful hike. 

I absolutely love Denver! 

I was terrible at taking progress pictures. This is what it looked like when we had to fly home. After spending 9 days straight we were exhausted. Well Derek more than me.  

While we were there we decided it would be better to expand the tile into the living room. I did lots of painting and poor Derek and Phil did so much tiling. Barely got the tiling done before we left. 

Took another beautiful hike the day we left. This time at Redrocks. Such a pretty place. This time it was Katherine, Emma, Parker, Marylee and myself. Short easy hike but a great way to get the kids outside.

This post wouldn't be complete without some pictures of Mingus. We clicked right away. He is a huge dog but is so sweet! 

What he was doing when I'd come upstairs from the basement. 

We should have taken a picture of all of us. It was so much work of course but it was also a great trip. We got to get to know Katherine and Emma quite well and have a good time with their family. Derek and Emma had fun bond. So many wonderful memories were made.