Hike to Babylon Arch...

Darryl Zitting invited our family on a little hike to Babylon Arch.  It starts in Leeds and hikes south to the Virgin River.  It's mostly sandstone and sand but was a fun little hike.  Jack was digging it.

Check out Julie:  She's totally annoyed with me.

Merril had some work to do afterwards so he met us to hike and then drove a the truck back to work and I took the kids home.  They all crashed on the way home.  Except for me.  Because I was driving.  #iwassleepytoo 

Disneyland...Oi

Merril totally surprised me and said he wanted to take the family to Disneyland over Spring Break.  Totally uncharacteristic of him.  We rented a little casita called The Mouse House.  We've decided it's the only way to go when you have a family of seven.  A little house was located near Disneyland and rented by biggest Disney nut I have ever met, and the sweetest woman.  She wanted names and ages of all our kids before we arrived.  As she showed us around the casita, she presented all of my children with gifts: little plush minnie and mickey mouse dolls and a minnie mouse tote for Maxine.  Then she gave a sign to us that read "Happily Ever After."  Then she took us into the kitchen and she had hot chocolate, mini donuts, and whipped cream stocked in the fridge.  Totally amazed by her.  Thumbs up!

We got there late and went to bed.  The next morning, Julie and Mikayla were soaking up the sun in the courtyard.  

We decided it would be better to split up and have the older kids go to Disneland and Merril and Mark stay back at The Mouse House.  It was a less busy Tuesday but that place was still a zoo. 

Took a picture and were off!

Maxine and Jack took off to go HyperSpace Mountain.  Julie, Mikayla and I waited in line for a ride called Astro Orbiter.  It was pretty long.  

Maxine and Jack weren't finished with Space Mountain so we wandered down Main Street and ran into Daisy Duck.  Mikayla totallly wanted her picture taken and was over the moon excited!

Then we ditched our stroller and headed back up on a carriage to see if we could find Maxine and Jack.  I guess the phone quit working and they were panicked they wouldn't be able to find us.  They ended up getting the phone to work and calling us to meet up but Jack was kinda mad. 

Somewhere in there, our fast passes for Space Tours was ready so we headed over and checked it out.  Jack really liked it.  Then we had lunch, and went on Pirates of the Caribbean.   Then we rode a carriage back to get our stroller.  It'd be a few hours and I was a little worried about it.  

Turns out my worrying was justified because someone took it.  :(  There wasn't anything in it and it was a crappy, half busted up cheap-O umbrella stroller so maybe they thought no one would miss it.  They thought wrong.  I was cheezed.  Mikayla was getting tired and wanted to ride around.  We checked out guest services, thinking it had been picked up, no dice.  So we got ice cream to feel better and I quietly scanned every red stroller that went by.

After that, Jack wanted to see the Superhero HQ.  We wanted over to Tomorrowland and I kept looking for our stroller.  I found a similar one and even asked a nice lady were she got it but upon closer inspection, knew it wasn't ours.  Inside Superhero HQ, there were lifesize Ironman suits, something Maxine and Jack were so jazzed about!

Coming out of Superhero HQ, Jack wanted to go to a Jedi training thing.  It was there that I spotted another stroller that could possibly be ours, parked and empty.  We ran down and it looked just like ours but I couldn't be 100% sure.  I didn't want to steal someone else's stroller and do to them what had been done to us.  Then I remembered that I had taken a picture of all the kids with Mikayla in the stroller at the beginning of the day.  We pulled it up on my phone and zoomed way in.  Our scratched stickers on the bars were an exact match. 

I totally loaded up Mikayla and high tailed it out of there.  I can just imagine the people coming back and saying, "Someone stole the stroller that we stole today!!"  What are the odds of finding our stolen stroller in Disneyland?

By then, it was time to meet up with Merril at the IHOP across the street for dinner.  We figured Mikayla would head back with Merril and I'd take the older 3 back into the park for last rides and fireworks.  After dinner, Juliet decided she was too tired to go back and I just took Jack and Max.

We rode It's a Small World and the Indiana Jones ride.  We watched the light parade and the fireworks and then were ready for Merril to come get us.  We were bushed.  We were there from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

The next day we went to the beach but I didn't snap any pics and I was grumpy and tired from being at Disneyland.  We played, everyone got sunburned but me, and then we came home.

Dr. Seuss week...

It was crazy hair day at school for Dr. Seuss week!  Juliet wanted this fun do.  There's a plastic cup in that ponytail.  And then leftover Halloween spray.  

We did another crazy hairdo the next day but I neglected to snap any pics.  She had tons of little twists that remind me of snakes.  When we took them out, she had crazy frizzy hair with tons of body.

And it's Leap Day!  I wish I could say that I took full advantage of an extra day in the year but it silently slipped away without any sort of spectacle or notice.  Sometimes that's just how it is.

It feels like Spring...

We are loving the warmer weather!  Mark and Mikayla want to play outside all day!

It feels like Spring because my apricot tree is starting to bloom!

We've also been doing yard work to get everything ready for Spring.  :)

Birthday week...

From Valentine's to my birthday has always been fun for me.  My birthday is usually pretty close to President's Day and I love having a day off from school and work around my birthday.  Lucky me!!  Merril surprised me with a night in Springdale for my birthday.

Merril's Dad came and watched the kids so we could spend a night away.  We got there at dinner but didn't want to eat until later so we decided to go on a little hike by the river while it was still light.

It was a pleasant hike and just the right amount of exercise.  Merril has decided to do the St. George IronMan in May so he's always up for some exercise.

As we finished the hike, the sun was just setting and we went to check into our hotel.  Merril worked on a machine and traded it for a night at the Flanigan's Inn.  The Tuesday after President's Day was dead.  We had the whole town to ourselves.

The hotel had a bidet!  (Which we used, I might add.)

We ate dinner at the Whiptail Grill across the street and then went back to the hotel to sit in the hot tub.  Merril also looked up a batch of questions that are supposed to make you fall in love.  We're already in love but they started some interesting conversations.  Like, "If you could wake up tomorrow with any ability, what would it be?"  I chose to be fluent in every possible language.  Wouldn't that be great for traveling??

We went to bed and woke up on my birthday and I opened presents.  I got some art, pictured below, new speakers for the Tahoe and an external hard drive.  Then Merril went for a long bike ride and I went for a short run.  After getting back, I went to a store to grab a breakfast snack and then sat in bed and watched whatever I wanted.  (That's a rarity in the mornings at my house.)  Then Merril came back and we got ready and went out to brunch.

We decided to get a famous Springdale bumbleberry pie for 'birthday cake.'  Unfortunately, they didn't have any whole pies ready, just one that they'd sold a slice out of.  We bought it anyway.

I got some silver candles at the store because that's the color that Mikayla wanted.  She really wanted a silver set that said, "29 again" but I objected because I'm proud to be 36 and don't feel the need to be stuck in the past.  

Some people like big crowds for their birthday but I'm better with just my little family.

Pie is way better than cake.

This is the picture series that Merril gave me.  I'd liked something similar on Facebook and it popped up on his feed.  Naturally, he knew the person.  She runs the place he goes and gets protein shakes.  He traded an afternoon of singing at her place for the pictures.  Hee hee.  I think it's splendid and wonderful to see any time of day.

What a great birthday!

Valentine's Day...

Valentine's Day landed on a Sunday.  That can end up being a little tricky because we can't go out to eat or celebrate in traditional ways.  Merril brought home flowers late on the 13th.  Purple orchids!  Gorgeous!  Those blooms last for at least a month so I'll have beautiful flowers to look at into March and April!  What a sweetie!

Merril got a new suit for Christmas and looks good in the slimmer style of newer suits.  These were our church outfits.  We didn't go anywhere for dinner except to my parent's house.  

May birthday week begin!

Not quite time for sprinklers...

I'm testing the sprinklers but to a child that means, "Go get on your swimsuit because it's time to get wet."  It was barely 70 degrees but Mikayla couldn't resist sprinkler testing.

Looks cold to me.

She loved it.

Part of me doesn't want to squash her adventurous spirit.  What do I care if she freezes her toes off by running through the sprinklers in February?  Whatever floats your boat, man.

Birthday #4 for Mikayla...

Can't believe she's 4.  She pronounces nightgown as night-gallon.  I secretly love it and don't even correct her.  Ha ha.  Maybe it's a way of trying to preserve her smallness.

Behold the cake!  It's strawberry on the inside and whipped cream on the outside.  The kids wanted to pipe designs on it.  I just let them do it, I didn't even help.

Mikayla loved it so that's all that matters.

I love blowing out candle faces.

And then it's time for presents!

Markers and paints were from Grandma Campbell.

The bean bag chair was from us.  Grandma Gordon got her a spirograph.  The older girls had fun playing with it.

Happy Birthday Mikayla!  Here's to many more!

Game night...

Merril made some new friends mountain biking and learned that they are also friends of our neighbors, the Chamberlains.  We were invited to a game night, something Merril and I were a little scared of because we're not real big board-game lovers.  The games turned out to be really fun, including this one were one tries to bounce ping pong balls into a tic-tac-toe pattern.  The opposing team is trying to do the same.  Our team lost but Merril and I celebrated personal victories because we both one.  My opposing team member didn't even land a ping pong ball in the water cups at all and I landed 6. 

 It was fun.

Afternoon tea...

Mikayla started preschool with lots of enthusiasm.  Now she's discovered that she has to do her work in order to go to recess and she doesn't like that.  Today she was crying because she really didn't want to go to preschool.  I told her that if she went, we could do something fun when she got home.  She requested a tea party on my real china.  Oi.  

But then I got over it and decided that it hardly gets used.  We might as well used it.  We had milk in the tea pot and pretzels and orange slices.  

She loved using the real tea cups and it was fun.  Nothing broke and we had some great buddy time.

Check out the snow!

We wished and hoped for snow at Christmas and it just didn't happen.  However, we finally got some now that it's February.  Mikayla just likes to eat the big snow balls.

Julie and Jack were attempting to make a snow forts.  It didn't really turn out.

Jack launched snowballs anyway.

Why don't you see Maxine?  Because Maxine cut her finger really bad while making her lunch.  It could've used some stitches but Merril just wrapped it up and she earned herself a day home from school.  She's just barely gotten over the whole sprained ankle thing.  I hope injuries don't come in threes.

 Mark's not out there because I don't have quite enough snow boots for both him and Mikayla.  She wears a 9 and he wears an 8 and I only have 1 set of boots that fit.  So he stayed inside and looked at the snow from the front door.

I let them play in the snow and then then drove them to school.

I probably could've let them stay home all day but feel that school is important and after playing for an hour and a half, they can head to school.