Deer Hunt

I love the fact that my husband loves to hunt. It helps so that we can take a break from our every day lives and enjoy being together and also enjoying the mountains together. This past weekend, we went down to Gunnison for the muzzle loader hunt. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. The weather was wonderful and the mountains were beautiful. I got to see most of my family which is always wonderful.

This was a spot where we sat down and relaxed a little bit.


Chris and I were hiking out on this point and the scenery was spectacular, so we stopped and took some pictures.


This next picture didn't turn out like I hoped. There is an awesome black line at the bottom of the picture from my camera bag. So sorry about that. My dad, me, Chris, my nephew Seth, and my brother Derek are in this picture.



Again, another picture of the pretty mountains.

Random Weekend

Last weekend was a little random. My brother Greg and his wife Megan invited us to go water skiing last Friday night. Just Kelli and I went with their family. It was so much fun. I sat in the raft with Kelli and her cousin Katelyn. Kelli was a little scared, so I sat her on my lap. You can barely see Katelyn's head sticking out above the raft.


Here is a picture of Kelli and Katelyn. They are such cute girls.


After a while of playing on the raft and jumping in the water a thousand times, Greg asked me if I would like to water ski. I said, "sure!" I couldn't pass up something like that.



Thanks so much Greg and Megan. That was such a blast. Kelli and I had a great time.

That Friday night, when Kelli and I got home, we got a call from my brother Wade. He invited us down to help out with his sprinkler system the next day. We thought it would be a great idea to head down to Gunnison and help out with the sprinkler system and then do some fishing after wards. So the next morning, after I taught my yoga class, we headed down to Gunnison. Chris did the hard part, working with my dad and brothers on the sprinkler system, while I hung out with my mom and visited my Grandma and cousins. Hey, I offered to help, but my dad told me no. After several hours, my dad and Chris quit working on the sprinklers and I headed up with them in the mountains. My mom was very kind to watch Kelli for me.

I just love fishing in the mountains where I grew up. It is so relaxing up there. We brought our fly rods and fished a little beaver pong. Here are a few pictures of our little adventure. We caught lots of fish. It was so much fun.

Chris fishing.


My dad fishing.


Pretty scenery.


Me and my dad.



Me and my good lookin' husband.


After we were done fishing, we decided to put up Chris' trail cam. He recently bought it and we thought we would try it out. With just a little bit of sun light left, we hiked up a hill and found a spot where we felt lots of animals came through and we set it up. In a few weeks, we will check it out and see if the trail cam got any pictures of deer or other wildlife.

Kelli Has Bangs

Today, I was thinking, Kelli would probably look cute with bangs. She has a bunch of new hair that always comes out any time I do her hair. Then her hair looks like a terrible mess half way through the day. I thought that maybe bangs would help that. I was so nervous cutting her bangs. I probably examined her hair for a half an hour before I finally started to cut. I was worried that I would do a terrible job or that I would miss her hair all in one length.

Here is the finishing touch. I actually quite like it.


When I finished cutting her hair, I started to get ready and I let her sit on our bathroom counter top. She kept looking in the mirror. Then she said to me, "Thanks for cutting me bangs."

Sorry and It's Just Fine

Kelli is in this funny new phase where she apologizes for everything and almost everything is just fine. Sometimes I get after Kelli and I tell her not to do something, she will say, "I'm sorry mommy." Sometimes when she is in big trouble and I put her in time out, she will sit in the corner crying and yelling, "I'm just sorry mommy!" She repeats it over and over. It's kind of sad. I just want to immediately take her out of time out and tell her it's ok, but it probably won't teach her anything.

Also, a lot of times Kelli will run up to something she is not supposed to play with or do something she knows she is not supposed to do. I tell her not to play with that and she says back to me, "It's just fine." Then I say, trying not to laugh, "It's not just fine. We shouldn't play with that." She will just repeat back, "It's just fine."

In a way, she taught me a lesson that sometimes it really is "just fine." I feel that a lot of times in my life I get really worked up and stressed or worried. I just need to sit back, breathe, and say to myself, "It's just fine." Anyway, that is my random thought for the day.

Hiking Day

On last Thursday, I decided to go on a little hike. I practically live in the mountains, and there are a lot of trails around here. I put Kelli in the kid carrying pack, packed some food and water, and headed off over the hills. We hiked for a ways, and climbed the top of a hill. Once we got to the top, the scenery was spectacular. I could see the Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley from where I was standing along with the huge mountains surrounding us. The skies were also gorgeous with all the big, puffy clouds. Here are some pictures of our little adventure.

Here is a picture of Kelli and me with the mountains behind us.


Here is a picture of Kelli and me with Utah Valley behind us.



Mount Timpanogos in the background.


Utah Valley.


The Salt Lake Valley.


Once we got to the top of the hill, we sat down together and ate our lunch which consisted of cold pizza, grapes and applesauce. It was quite good. Food always tastes better when your hiking or camping.

Here are just a few other pictures.

Trip to Texas

We had the opportunity to go to Houston, Texas. Chris' parents, Kory and Darlene just moved there and invited us to come out. We flew out on the 24th and loved every minute there. The day after we got there, we went to cirque du soleil. For those of you who have never heard of that, it is kind of like the circus, but with acrobat stuff. It was amazing. Cameras are not allowed, so unfortunately I was unable to take any pictures. I couldn't believe some of the things they would do, like catching each other with their feet and doing flips from one pole to another and balancing on top of each other. It is hard to believe that a human being can do such things.

We also spent a lot of time in Kory and Darlene's pool. We played in the pool almost every day, especially because Kelli loves to swim.


Kory took us fishing. We went out into the Gulf. It was such a beautiful day. We saw some dolphins, and some sharks swimming around on the surface of the water. We also saw a big sea turtle that came up to the surface. We caught several fish, like a King Mackerel and a bunch of sea trout. Chris had a huge fish on his line, but it broke it off. Here is a picture of Chris hanging out in the back of the boat.I think we had a King Mackerel on the line right here. I think this one got off the line right when we got it to the boat, so I didn't get a picture of it.


Chris caught a shark in this picture. It isn't super big, but it's a shark.


On another day, Kory and Darlene took us boating. There is a lake not too far from where they live, so we drove to that lake and had some fun. Here is a picture of Kelli in the boat. She really liked riding in the boat.



We got to do some water skiing, slalem, wake boarding and tubing.

Chris water skiing.


Here is a picture of Chris, Kelli and me on the tube. Kelli kept saying that she wanted to ski, so this was the best thing we could do for her. As soon as we were out in the water on the tube, she started to whine and wanted to get back in the boat.


On the day before we left, we went to the zoo. The Houston Zoo is a nice zoo. The day was very hot and humid. We were practically wet by the time we left. Here is a picture of Kelli and her daddy at the zoo.


Just the guys.



This next picture was kind of cool because the tube that Kelli and Matthew are in goes through an aquarium.


I just love clown fish. Kelli loved this too, because it's Nemo and Dori.


Here is Kelli with her grandma and grandpa Judd. The giraffes were right next to the window. They are a lot bigger than I thought.


Here is Kelli and me in front of a baby elephant.


Kelli asked me to take a picture of her in front of the iguana, I believe.


We also did some other things like hang out at the mall, went out to eat, went to the Harry Potter movie and relaxed. Thanks Kory and Darlene for such a fun trip. We sure enjoyed it!

Ghosts

So last night was quite the night trying to get Kelli ready for bed. It took Chris and me over an hour to get her to sleep because there was a ghost in her drawers. Kelli was very upset and crying about it. She really believed there was a ghost in her drawer. We tried everything we could think of to acting out a puppet show with her stuffed animals telling her that they needed her to help them to get to sleep, to getting out a picture of Jesus, to telling Kelli that it is just her and Jesus and that Jesus is here to make her feel better, to singing primary songs, to saying a prayer, to having Kelli check out her drawers to see if there was a ghost, to have her growl at the ghost, to turning a night light on, to just telling her that there are no ghosts, to pretending that the ghost's name was George and saying to George, "get out of here." Finally, I just didn't know what to do anymore. Kelli just kept saying that there was a ghost in her drawer, so I finally decided that I was going to take Kelli's drawers out of her room. That made her even more upset and she told me that she would go to sleep. And she finally did. I have no idea where she got the ghost thing from. Do any of you have suggestions on what to do to get your kids to not be scared at night, just in case the "taking the drawers out of Kelli's room idea" doesn't work next time?