Deer Valley

My Mom's cousin was kind enough to let my family use her condo in deer valley for a few days last week. We had a great time relaxing and hangin with the Birds.

My brother Michael made it clear to me that he did not give me permission to take this picture. So I decided to publish it.
This is Maile. She was looking at the camera and being cute and as soon as I snapped the photo she looked away.
Typical.

That's better.

This was breakfast with everyone. The table actually fit everyone.

Maile playing on the bed. Nap times are pretty much non-existent anymore.

And yet we keep trying.

I know I have a lot of pictures of Maile, but she was being so funny. Russ dressed her up and she wanted to play football. How could I argue?

She definitely had fun torturing Mike and Erin.

Here is dinner with everyone. It was nice to spend a little time together without all the daily distractions.

I can't recall why I took this picture. Maybe it was because I felt so tall.

Kids in the tub is probably not the kind of photo my girls will appreciate, but they were getting along and no one was crying during bath time. This is a pretty rare thing and constitutes documentation.

Anniversary Get Away

Sometimes driving can take it's toll. Especially when it is through Idaho. No offense to all my wonderful friends from Idaho, but there are some parts of your state that are best driven in the dark. I am happy to say that we found one stretch of highway we could not get enough of.

This is me outside of Tetonia Idaho. I am trying to look sexy but it really looks like I am just tired. The truth is, I was.

See what I mean by pretty? When the sky finally clears up it is not a bad view.

This is the view over the Teton pass. That is Jackson Hole behind me. That was a pretty day.

What next?

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! LUCKY NUMBER 7

For our anniversary this year David and I stole away for a few days in Jackson Hole. We stayed at the Snake River Lodge and Spa in Teton village. It was a quick trip, but it was really nice to not have kids or responsibilities for a while.

We ate at a little BBQ place just outside the village. It was very laid back and the food was great. Plus we were STARVING!

The sunset outside Teton Village that night was gorgeous. The photo does not do justice.

This photo doesn't either. The sky was a bit stormy and we had some snow flurries, but the Tetons are great in all weather.

This was the view from the highway as you come out of Jackson

So of coarse we had to stop.

You really cannot beat the fall weather and the beauty of nature.

And you cannot go to Jackson Hole without taking a picture under the Antlers.

For David it was a right of passage.

We hung out at the Elk Preserve for a while to warm up. It was pretty chilly. In the low 50's and windy.

We did not see too many elk. It may have been a little early for the mass migration that is supposed to happen. But it was still nice.

We were almost the only people there and so we had to take turns taking pictures of eachother.

I had David take this one since his school mascot is the Silverwolf. I thought it was cute. He probably thought it was dorky.

We had a great lunch of Chicken Pesto pizza. Let's face it, everything just tastes better on vacation.

Several Months Shoved into one Blog!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Thanks to everyone who came to my birthday party. If you did not make it, we missed you. It was a lot of fun to see everyone and get together with friends and family. It took a lot of the sting out of turning 30!

Maile loved the balloons and carried them around pretty much the whole night. Parties are really for children anyway.
I think we had enough food! Everyone was so helpful and we had a lot of good food.
Thanks to David for helping keep everything organized and for lifting a lot of heavy things.
A huge thanks to Lane and Katie for pulling this whole thing off. I could not have done it without your grill and Slurpee machine! That made the whole party. You guys ROCK!

Bird Parties are always fun. This was a few weeks ago with my Dad's family at my Aunt's house. This is Maile and I with my Dad and my Grandpa. Four generations are the best.

Here is Erin dragging the girls around. They love her so much and can't get enough of her.
This is my dad's family. My uncle Dale was here visiting from Virgina. It was good to see everyone.

Maile being a stinker. But that is nothing new.

Darci was begging all night for someone to play with her. She did not care who, just someone. The problem was we all wanted to eat and talk. It is hard being a kid with adults.
DIVAS RULE!
Here is the fam posing with uncle Dale. Good times.


We took the girls to Red Butte Gardens one weekend. We hadn't been there before, but we had a great time and the gardens are beautiful. This is Mai and Darci riding a moose.

We had a game going on to see if we could find all the ponds. Lucky for us, there are a lot!
Maile was tired, but she did a great job being dragged every where that day

They have a children's garden for kids to play. So we played... And Played...
And played...




David and I went to the Greek Festival with our friends the Curnows. We had never been, but I would brave the crowds again just for the food. Of coarse I LOVE Greek food. But it was a lot of fun, especially with our friends.

Just ask them.


This was taken up Provo Canyon one afternoon when David and I both happened to have the day off.

We did a little walking and just enjoyed what was left of the summer.

We got to go visit Erin on her birthday.
It was really great to see her. She is the coolest.


On Labor Day we went to David's parents house for a BBQ and horse ride. The kids could not get enough of it. They wanted to go again and again and we finally had to stop when it got dark.

Girls Darci rode with everyone who would take her; this is her turn with Jessica.

And how can we not love a mama's girl?

It is easy when daddy is the one with the horse.

Or Jessica, or Grandpa or Kyle or Mike...

October is my favorite

If there is any doubt why I love the fall the best, let me enlighten you.
The colors, the cooler temps, the way everything feels new and interesting, (even though a lot of things are actually dying or preparing to hibernate) there is just something special about this time of year. I think I appreciate it all the more because I know winter is coming and that means a lot more indoor activities and cold and darkness. So in addition to not blogging, I am enjoying this great time of year and have some recent photos of my job at Timpanogos Cave.




Although I do not mean to brag, you really cannot beat the view from my "office" window. I snapped this pic yesterday morning just as the storm was clearing out.



This is just over the 1/2 way mark on the trail. The picture does not begin to do justice to the fall leaves, but it give a pretty good idea. If you have not been up the trail lately, it is not too late. We are open until Oct 19.

This has been a very busy and crazy season. What can I say?

Sometimes we snap.

When it rains, we get a lot of rock fall on the trail. This came down sometime Sunday morning. We guessed it weighed around 200 lbs, but I don't really know. I do know I couldn't even budge it. I am glad it just happened when we were closed. Things could have been bad.

This was near the top, just below the entrance of the cave. we cleared some of the rockfall, but you can see it is still covering almost 1/2 the trail. I am sure we'll get the rest cleared soon.

More pretty leaves. The camera makes them light, they were really a dark, lovely red.

Here is a great shot from the Exit trail. When the clouds cleared later in the day these peaks were covered with a thick layer of snow. I guess it was too much to ask fall to stick around forever.