Spring Break

For Spring break we made a quick trip to Utah. My niece, Clara, was getting blessed and it was a perfect excuse to make a trip to see family. One afternoon, Rachel, David, Sarah, Clara, & I made a trip to temple square.

Here's the cute, precious Clara

David at the top floor of the Joseph Smith Building

Here's Rachel with the beautiful Salt Lake Temple in the back ground.

Rachel & David


I didn't really take very many pictures, but we had a fun week!

Bubba Gump Shrimp

In March we had the fun treat of Aaron's sister Amy, her husband Brian, and their two kids come visit us in Colorado. Brian has a favorite restaurant that he likes to visit when he travels. Since we rarely go up to Denver, we hadn't been there (or even heard of it). It's called Bubba Gump Shrimp and it's a theme restaurant about the movie Forrest Gump. This happens to be one of my favorite movies so it was fun to be there and see all the movie stuff all around.

Here's Emma enjoying coloring the menu.

Josh is having fun as well!

If you needed any thing, you just flipped the sign over to say "Stop Forrest Stop" and the servers would stop and help you.

The famous bench with the box of chocolates.

It was a fun outing!

The great "no desserts" challenge

For the past few weeks I've been participating in a health challenge with my sisters and some of their friends to make getting healthy a little more fun (and to motivate me with a little competition!). Anyway, there are weekly challenges which you get points for participating in. This week the challenge was to not eat any desserts or sweets. My kids were asking me about it and I was telling Rachel about this family I knew that gave their kids $100 if they didn't eat candy for a whole year (but things like cookies, cakes, etc. were okay - just no candy). Rachel said that she could do it and wanted to know if I would pay her $100 dollars if she gave up candy for a year. I started thinking about it and realized that my kids don't really eat candy that often - mostly for holidays. I asked her what she would feel like not getting any candy in her Easter basket and she suggested that I just make cookies or something instead of giving them candy for Easter, Valentines, etc. I started thinking that wasn't really a big sacrifice and I suggested that she give up all desserts, like I was doing. She didn't think she could do it for a whole year. There was a little negotiating, but this is what we settled on - no desserts (candy, soda, cookies, ice cream, cake, etc.) for 2 months and I would pay her $25. Surprisingly, the boys wanted in as well. Rachel wrote up a contract and everything and made me sign it. We are going to have to go with the honor system on this one, because I don't always know what goes on at school, but so far, so good. So, 3 of my kids (except Emma - she wanted no part in this) are giving up all treats for 2 months. This is coming from kids who think they deserve a treat after eating every meal. First week went great! David even said that he didn't even really feel like eating treats. He got a piece of candy at school for doing well on a test and he brought it home for his little sister. Josh didn't pick up chocolate milk at lunch time because he figured it was a treat. I think the first major test will be Valentines Day - I'm sure they'll have parties at school with treats galore. We'll see how they stick with it, but I'm quite proud of all of them.

I was looking for some recipes that would make good "non treat" snacks and this is what I found:

Chewy Granola Bars (from allrecipes, modified slightly by me)
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup honey
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup total cereal crushed
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup craisins

Mix all together well and press into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 325 for 18-22 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, cut into bars, wait until completely cooled to remove from pan. Makes about 20.

You could probably add any other ingredients that would sound good - coconut, raisins, nuts, sunflower seeds, etc. Hopefully they'll like them!

Summer Fun

We had a great summer this year. We started out the summer with Amanda and the kids taking a trip to Utah to see Amanda's family. We had a lot of fun visiting with family and going to Lagoon for some amusement park excitement. I think I must have forgotten my camera because sadly, I have no pictures.

Later on that month, we went down to New Mexico for the annual 24th of July celebration. The kids had fun at the parade.





And made sure to gather up lots of candy.


Ran in the foot races and played lots of games.



We sure had a nice time being with family this summer!

Trip to Utah

We left on the last day of school to make a quick trip to Utah. Aaron needed to help his sister move to Colorado and I got a chance to see my sister and her family that were visiting from Maryland.

We were able to play with cousins

blow bubbles

fly kites



picnic in the canyon





Go to a Bees Game


Ride the Frontrunner Train to Salt Lake




Visit the Planetarium



and walk around the Gateway


It was so nice to spend time with family and just relax.

Family History Idea

My sisters had a great idea for a mother's day gift for our mom. It's a family group sheet made with silhouettes of each family member. First, I took a profile shot of each member of our family (and each individual family did the same). Like this:


Then my sister Sarah did her magic in Photoshop to turn it into a silhouette and this is the final project:



My mom loved it and it is a beautiful addition to a family history wall.

Helen Hunt Falls

For the fourth of July this year we wanted to go somewhere fun and do something together as a family. We found out about a waterfall hike nearby and decided to check it out. We packed a lunch and some snacks and headed to the mountains.

Here are the kids at the bottom of the hike.


Some pictures of the falls.




Finishing up the hike.


The beautiful view.


Rachel by the falls.



We had a great time on the hike and hope to explore more of beautiful Colorado!

Our trip - part two.

The next leg of our journey was up to Fruit Heights, Utah to visit with my parents and sisters. The trip went pretty well. We just had a little bit of snow over Soldiers Summit, but it wasn't really that bad. We made the trip in 7 hours (hours of driving so far... 13) and had a very nice week with Grandparents. My parents had recently put in an endless pool, so that kept the kids entertained quite a bit.







We also had fun visiting my sister Sarah, going out to eat, and just relaxing. Rachel was very lucky and got to go to a David Archuleta concert with her grandpa. Sarah was very generous and offered to make the drive from Utah to Colorado Springs with me. Our plan was to leave on April 1. More to come...