Water Down Below

Brian and Joce Wikle came to visit just in time... to save us from our flood.
I was outside tinkering in the garage when lo and behold the Wikles from Texas pull up. It was good to see them and their adorable kids.

I was showing them the improvements on our house and when we were headed down to visit the basement we spotted water and mud at the bottom of the stairs. After much investigating found out we had a busted sprinkler and that morning's cycle and filled the basement window well and it had been trickling into the basement.


Unfortunately Brian and Joce had experience in flooding, but lucky for me they knew exactly what to do.

Brian got everything out of the wet rooms and we got the pad thrown away and the carpet up to dry. My VTs and neighbors had fans over in a jiffy and we were drying out. I was able to save the carpet with a lot of shopvaccing and fans.

The carpet guys came Monday and put it all back together Yeah!!

Random Summer Happenings

Every morning Katelyn asks me how many days are left until school begins. I guess I should love this time she is excited to go to school. IN between activities and chores the kids play funny things around the house. Here are a few more pictures I have discovered on our iPods.

Who knew 3-D glasses would provide so much entertainment!




Watched movies and then recreated the characters or remade the movie. Here is Amy as Nanny McPhee. We recommend seeing Nanny McPhee Returns.

Worked a lot on the house and kitchen.



We have gone swimming at the neighbor's new pool,the Rec Center and Amanda's pool.

Chase turkeys

Smurf Mania

The kids have been excited for the Smurf's movie to come to theatres.
They have been collecting the Happy Meal Smurf toys from McDonalds. Buying plush Smurfs. Watching the trailers on YouTube and playing "Smurfs". Katelyn was playing around with some game on the iPod and was excited about the pictures she created.

Church Art Museum 7.29.11

We heard there was a new exhibit down at the museum. It was so much fun!
There were so many beautiful, delicate quilts on display.

We learned about Lehi taking his family to the promised land and got to explore his ship and fish from it. We learned about temples that were built in ancient times.
We gave it a try at lifting the gold plates.

 

Amy tried her hand at translating the plates. They had lots of computer games and puzzles that were really fun. There was a section all about missionary work and about our friends from South America. For about an hour the kids dressed up in Mariachi outfits and practiced dancing.

 

We had a great time and as we always do when we are in downtown we stopped by for some lunch and slushies at Sonic

Love A Good Summer Rainstorm

Happy Pioneer Day!

We love pioneers and we love lots of candy so that's why we go to the 24th of July Parade!!

The boys liked the big noisy trucks and candy and the girls liked all the cheerleader and dancers and free handouts.

 

This year we had Eliza, Porter and Jesse join us for the festivties. Amanda and Robbie came to help us out too. Mike and I went early in the morning to get us a spot, but it turned out to be in the sun anyway. We had lots of liquid and water guns to cool us off, but it was still too hot!
After the parade we went up to Mueller Park for some dinner, "parkin'" and fireworks. It was a great day!

Kennecott Copper Mine Tour

For some more summer fun we headed out to see what that big, gi-normous pile of dirt was on the other side of the valley. Just recently having visited Gma & Gpa in CO we were way up on our mine terms and the size of this mine compared to the ones we had just visited in CO blew our minds!
So fascinating and educational!
If you have not visited Kennecott- it is a MUST SEE!

You park your car and then get on a tour bus and they take you up into the open pit mine. As you can see we were just so darn excited for the bus ride!

It was very windy so we went inside for shelter, the bathroom (literally ran into an old BYU/Clovis friend) and to watch a video made by Rio Tinto about Kennecott Mine and their other mines across the world.

We got the binoculars out to watch the huge trucks work. You can see the size of the tires on the trucks. Just amazing!

 

After the mine we saw a sign pointing to some horses and we thought "why not?"
Turned out it was the BLM's wild horse and burro place. There were many animals for us to love and feed. Jessie and I found a spot of shade while the others picked weed, grass and hay and fed the horses. Christian found some cool rocks to throw at the horses. Turns out they didn't like the rocks. The burros were not as friendly.
Then as I was begging the kids to get in the car to go when they spotted some darling kittens poking out of a drainage pipe. They spent the next little while trying to coax them out so we could give them a better home. I think those kittens were smart to stay deep in that drain pipe. I wouldn't want to live with 8 turkeys and 5 ducks either!

 

The Black Family

My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com


Too bad they didn't have a graphic for turkeys and ducks

July 4th in Park City

For the 4th of July we decided to try to go somewhere cooler....
I mean as in temperature!
(Yes, it is midnight and I am blogging instead of sleeping and my humor is LAME)

 

Mike got us a great deal on KSL for a timeshare up at the Marriott for the weekend. We loaded up the trailer with our bike and the van with our kids and set out for some adventures.
Lots of swimming! Our kids are fish- they could swim all day.
Our room looked out to the Alpine Slide so we watched as people came down. Brigham could hardly wait to ride the slide. Some of us went on the gliders and some rode the lift up and came down on the Alpine slide. It was a blast to go so fast!
There were many, many critter friends crawling around on the ground below and we could do a whole page on just their pictures- courtesy of Katelyn. They were fun to watch!

 

We did lots of bike riding! Lucky for us we have an amazing Dad that let us ride down the mountain and then he biked back up the mountain to retrieve the trailer while we all played at the cool park. Brigham was able to ride along this time on his new bike. He was a trooper. Jessie rode along in the bike wagon and was happy to. The air feels cleaner in Park City and the views of the mountains were just so pretty to look at.

 

We went to the parade in downtown Park City, watched the firework show the Canyon's Resort put on and hit the outlets on our way in.

We had a great weekend and came home to a personal firework show right in our circle put on by the Ericksens. With the legalization of the big fireworks this year the show was amazing and we couldn't have gotten any closer! The turkeys enjoyed it as well from the Ericksen's garage.

Tyler Update

In June, Tyler gained a diploma and lost a tooth.
Ty was sad to have Kindergarten over with, but excited to be a first grader.He will have the same 1st grade teacher Amy had. It was a very cute program with lots of music and silly movements. I was really impressed with Miss Merrill and in the end I think Tyler forgave her for having a tattoo.
Afterwards we took some pictures with his friends. It just so happens that Henry and Caleb are also on his T-ball team this summer. I had a couple of moms come up to me and tell me their daughters thought Tyler was so nice and cute. Tyler requested to have his picture taken with this girl (I can't remember her name and Tyler is asleep so I can't ask him). Ahhh young love.

 

This tooth was not ready to come out. At the end of May we all visited the dentist and Tyler just got it in his head it would be cool to lose a tooth. So he pushed and pulled and twisted until he got it pretty lose. The tooth still wasn't ready so Tyler endured a week or so and finally with Dad's help it gave up. I think next time he will let the tooth fall out when it is ready.
>

 

Tyler is the best hitter on the team. If they could have home runs- he would be the Homerun King!

 

After his last game his team went to dinner at the Pizza factory and the couch gave everyone a trophy
The coolest trophy ever!!