Celebrating the Utah Way

We had such a great trip to Utah! Lots of pictures ahead.


At Great-Grandma Chris's house.

At the Hinckley parade.

We were lucky enough to stay at Aunt Kelli's house for one of our nights.

Watching the parade

At the rodeo

Spencer was lucky and drew out to do the Mutton Bustin'. Here he is at the beginning.

And at the end...

We went to Kenlee's baby blessing. (And a pic of my new do)

Me and my cute dad.

Spencer and Grandma

We went boating one of the days. Here's Parker in the tube with dad. I took this picture from the shore- go camera zoom!

A bunch of us on this raft/floater thing on the lake. It was so fun to swim out to it and then hang out and try to push each other off.

Kyle and Brent on the tube.

Again.

Catching some air.

My parents.

Parker turned 2 while we were in Utah. We had a little party and then we went to the local swimming pool to celebrate.

The cute Nemo cake that Aunt Katie made for Parker.

Trying to figure out what we want him to do with those candles.

My family. It's been way over a year since we've all been together, so it called for a picture.

We had a lot of fun!

An Ordinary Day

Kyle's been working A LOT lately. It's no fun. But we are carrying on as usual. Here are some pictures of just an ordinary day in our home.



It actually rained a few drops on Wednesday and the kids have been dying to try out their new umbrellas/rain boots. So it didn't take much rain to fall before they got their gear out.

I love this picture. Spencer was trying to protect Parker from the rain. He's such a great big brother.

The kids got their 3D glasses from the movies out and we took out the lenses and they had a good time with them. Ah, the simple things!

Fourth, Fun, and Fairies

Just throwing this picture in because have you seen the movie The Tooth Fairy? Well we did and the next day, Spencer came out dressed like this and said he was the tooth fairy...

We went hiking up to the Sandia Crest today with the family. Here's a pic when we stopped for lunch.

Playing at our lunch spot.

Getting ready to start.

We tried these drinks for our Fourth of July dinner. All I can say is that the missionaries were impressed.

Lighting sparklers on the 3rd.

More Sparklers

We had our friends over for a 3rd of July party. We are so lucky that they live just down the street! We played games, made homemade ice cream and lit our fireworks. We had a lot of fun!

We also were really lucky that one of the cities north of ABQ, had a parade on the 3rd, so we got to go to it. We wondered how it was going to be, but it turned out really fun and the kids loved it!

Waiting for the parade to start.

We have had a really fun weekend! Last night we just laid in our backyard and watched all of the illegal fireworks that our neighbors lit. It was an awesome show!

Volcanoes

Kyle has today off of work (YAY!!) and Spencer has been asking us forever to go hike the Volcanoes. So, we went this morning.




At the top of one of the extinct volcanoes.

Carly posing.

Kyle and Spencer went to the top of this second volcano.

Some of the wildlife that we saw. (Thankfully we didn't see any snakes!)

At one of the little rest areas.

Good times.

Our Spelunking Adventure

We took a fast trip down to Carlsbad to go to Carlsbad Caverns. We got to see the hundreds of thousands of bats fly out of the cave the night before we went down into the Caverns. The kids were so worried at first, thinking that they'd see all the bats. But they quickly got over it and started loving the cave.

At the Natural Entrance, ready to start our journey.

We went with some good friends and had a great time. This is the start of the trail that goes 80 stories down into the cave.

Inside the cave looking up to the entrance. Our knees were shaky by this point because it was a pretty steep descent. I don't remember my legs being so shaky the last time we went... I must be getting old!

Inside.

Taking a rest. Kyle had Parker on his back for almost the whole time.

Eating some snacks down at the bottom of the cave.

Towards the end, the kids started getting tired. Obviously Parker couldn't fight it any longer and fell asleep.

And this is about 10 minutes after we left the caverns... Poor kids were exhausted.

It was a lot of fun though and while we were in the cave, Spencer kept saying that it was the best day of his life. :) So, I think that they had fun too.