RMR Part 2

Andrey and I used our last set of tickets for the season at Rockey Mountain Raceways. We were excited to see a lot of the midget cars-they were so stinkin' fast, it was crazy to see them topple over, smash into each other, and hear the screeching tires. I told Andrey that I had another thing to add to my list of things I had to do before I died: race a really fast car....Maybe that one will go on the bottom of the list below sky diving because I may just die while racing-I kinda like speed....

The weather was crazy windy, so I had the program in front of my face the whole time (since I forgot my glasses) and Andrey, not being a gentleman, enjoyed the game with his (we'll give him more time to learn how to be kind... j/k).
The mascot came out throwing baseballs and shirts and the adrenaline started pumping through my veins as I stood up and started screaming my head off, when pow! I got a baseball. YEAH!!!! Okay, so it's this foamy thing that wasn't worth much, but Emma thinks I'm a nice mom again for giving it to her, and we got some fun pictures of all the excitement from that night.
My favorite part (besides seeing the fastsest cars ever) was watching the figure eight train racing. What is this, you ask? They get three cars (junkers) and connect them with the front car only having the gas peddle and the back one with only a break. The middle car is gutted out and the racing begins in a figure eight formation. It was funny that all 10 sets withing the first round smashed into each other and one had to roll the cars behind to get unstuck. It was so funny to watch. Good times I tell ya!

I wish I was rich then I would watch the races every night...hey, if I was rich, I'd be building me a car to race right now.

Oh, and P.S., one of the younger racers that was there was a star racer in Talladega Nights (sp?) movie with Will Ferrell-so that was neat to see him race-he was amazing-great riding skills.

Napolean Dynamite Party

I don't even know if I spelt Napolean correctly. Anyway. Our good friends, Robyn and Roger, invited us to a N. D. party. It was a dress up party and we would be doing a lot of activities that went along with the movie.
Andrey and I dressed up a lot-more than anyone else-kindof embarassing-just a little though.
I tried to look like Deb when she and Napeloen were dancing at the school dance. I had the puffy sleeved pink dress on. The crimped hair pulled high up on my head, and the white socks with black heels. I even had the big jewelry. Andrey wore a vest over his church clothes and has his hair all spiffed up.
When we got there, we had "glamour shot" pictures taken of us...Andrey had a little too much fun with that part. Such a hottie he is! Ha, ha.
We then had a barbecue while we watched N.D. I have never been a fan and have only seen it once, but there were some funny parts, and I understood all the quotes everyone was saying and got them, after watching it.
We then chose our "skills" and then had to guess whos skill belonged to which person that was present at the party. Andrey had lumberjack skills and I had makeover skills (love to dress people up and do hair and makeup).
We then visited and ended the night with a game (which is on N.D.) where you draw two types and animals and have to draw them together. Your partner has to guess which animals they are. For example, lion and tiger= liger. It was fun to see that everyone didn't own the "drawing skill."
We had a lot of fun being able to go out and be with other friends-it's always nice to catch up and remember the old times. Thanks Andrey, for being my hot 80's date!
(pictures will be displayed later).

"E" for Elephant..."No, for Emma!"

Today Emma was excited to focus on letter "E." This is her favorite because it is the first letter of her name.

Emma was concentrating so hard

on her coloring today. That letter

"E" is so special to her. Ha, ha.

After the coloring, we talked about elephants and made an elephant puppet out of a small paper bag. Emma got to use the glue stick (which I never let her do) and we had a good time coloring and playing with the puppet. Ellie thought it was wierd that Emma's hand disappeared. She kept trying to figure out where her hand went.

We then sang our ABC song since that is Emma's favorite, while having the puppet sing along. I had to get video of it. I love Emma's version of the song. We then ate the cupcakes we made yesterday-you know, 'cause it starts with "E."

"EW! I TOUCHED IT!!!"

I was getting the girls in the tub and talking to my mom on the phone when I heard Emma scream, "EW! I touched it! Ew!!!" I ran in there and Emma is standing on the edge of the tub with a look of disgust while Ellie is screaming because Emma is (and really has no clue what is going on). I looked in the tub and there was a ton-and I mean a ton of poop floating around. Oh goodness.
This seriously happens like once a month with these girls-I don't get it. Just go on the stinkin' toilet!!! My mom asks why Emma is screaming and I say (hoping my mom will be supportive in this), "mom, get over here. They just pooped in the tub...get over here!" "Bye, hey, got to go now. Bye Holli." Thanks Mom. ha,ha.
I had to hurry and get them out and bleach and clean the tub and the toys...meanwhile, Emma is running naked around the house with her hands above her head screaming, "EW, I touched it!" She is my drama queen. I had to wash her hands about ten times before she would calm down.
Ugh! What a great start to my morning!

Drey's feeling better!!!

(oops, how did that picture get there??....)

I am so glad Andrey is feeling better after being food poisoned and in bed all day and most the night. We were able to get some work done for him-bids, letters sent off to a lawyer, and his partner, Mark, came over later and worked on another bid. I dont like when he's sick.

Oh, and a P.S. to this picture. Emma came up to the computer and yelled, while laughing at pointing at the picture, "Look, Daddy is wearing Mommy's boobs!!!" Oh my goodness. I was dying-it was so funny. That's Emma for you-she always has something funny to say.

Letter "D" Day

We had a lot of fun today! Our family loves music. We all love to sing, dance, and today we played drums. After coloring the "D" page and singing while doing so (teaching Emma the "D"ays of the week)...

(sorry the camera was turned the wrong way)

We went into the living room and made our own drum set. We used pots, pans, gallon bucket; and used spatulas and spoons to hit on the drums. Ellie had fun watching, then she decided to join in on the fun.

We played music in the background and the girls hit the drums along with the beat (er...they tried to anyway).



We then exercised moving around like "dogs" and "ducks" with the music. Ellie thought it was cool that we were crawling around like her since she is too lazy to start walking. ha, ha. She was laughing so hard watching us.
We didn't get to make cupcakes with "C" day since daddy was sick, so Emma helped me make some after our exercises. Now I'm ready for a treat...too bad it's not "C" day 'cause then we could have some chocolate. . . . .

Letter "C."

Emma was really excited for today's letter because she knew that the letter "C" was in the word chocolate. After the routine coloring of the ABC book and singing her alphabet we fingerpainted with chocolate pudding. Emma has never done this before so she didn't know what to do. I grabbed her hand and pushed it into the pudding and then put it on the paper...."Ew!!!" she said. She doesn't really like to get dirty unless it's at a park, so this was grossing her out. Within a half an hour though, she had both hands in it, doing all sorts of designs. She had more of it on her face than anything.

She decorated about 6 pages and then she said she was done. She ate a container of puffing while I read a book to her about the "C"ircus and we made the animal sounds and acted out some of the things they were doing in the Circus.


Andrey is really sick, so we didn't have as long of a "school" day as usual, so that is our letter "C" for ya. Oh, and we made cheese sandwiches because it started with the letter "C."

No Happily Ever After

After our fun barbecue last night, we thought all was well and it was successful. Well...dun,dun,dun....Andrey was up all night throwing up and "all that jazz." Hmm...I wonder how many other kids are sick.....to be continued....

Layne getting Dunked

Here is the video of Layne Crabtree, the second counselor in the bishopric, getting dunked into the pool by the boys.

Ym/Yw Barbecue

Every year it is a tradition to have an end of the summer barbecue with the youth in our ward. We had a lot of fun tonight with the swimming, playing pool, jumping on the trampolines, hitting the pinata, and eating lots of good food (thanks chef Andrey). We were in the Oliphant's backyard (they have ten kids, so they have the best toys).

The craziness began when the "Wally" boys (they are the bullies and everyone knows them by their last names) and some other guys started picking up people and throwing them into the swimming pool. Andrey, being the smart man that he is. Hurried and jumped in by himself-shoes and all. Then they went from person to person and dunked them in. At one point, a young woman came up and warned me that they were going to get me next, so I grabbed Ellie from Michele's arms (while Ellie is screaming because this stampede of huge guys is coming towards us) and held her up to me (bad mom, I know).

They left me alone the rest of the night but I got really tired after holding Ellie for an hour. The second counselor showed up about a half an hour before we were done and we all thought to warn him, but he's new to the bishopric and needed to be "broken" in to the youth program...within five minutes of being there, the stampede attacked and dunked him in-suit and all. He was a good sport and played along.

It was a fun night and I got to go home pretty much dry (well, one of the boys poured a bottle of water on me, but I didn't melt). We took some fun pictures and some great videos and will have to add that to our year's worth of movies for the youth. Thanks for all those that helped!

The Letter "B"

Emma and I were alone today in "Pre-School." We learned about the letter "B." We played with balloons and tried to keep them up in the air, while trying to stop Ellie from eating them. We colored our ABC Book while I read her books about "B"unnies, "B"ears, and another "B" names. Ellie loves the reading part the most. She likes to pretend that she is reading too-really cute to see.

We then got straws and colored bubble solution (tempera paint-powder) and blew bubbles on paper. When the bubbles popped, it made pretty colorful shapes. Emma had a fun time watching the bubbles and tried so hard not to pop them too soon.

We then went outside and blew bubbles while we ate bananas and blue suckers.

New car for Holli

Well, after getting my license plate stolen and driving around my junker car (which I loved when it was working... and I could go above 40MPH), I was really getting worried about getting a new car because we have noooooo money.

My dad called me last week and told me my grandma was selling her car. WHAT!? Yeah. He said we could get it for $2600. How perfect. Affordable, no real problems with the car (just tires and possibly the breaks). My grandma took care of it and it was so CLEAN. Now I have two kids, so none of our cars are really clean, but I was excited.

It's a white little Cadillac (sp?)- a 1997, so it's cute and little. I love small cars, as long as they have four doors.

Emma always says, "See that car. That's my car. I get to sit in it and it's mine..." so, do you think it's hers. ha,ha.

We are happy to have a dependable car, and the air conditioning works. HALLELUJAH!

"I Want To Go To School!"

"I want to go to school," says Emma last week. She was so jealous that all her aunts and cousins were starting school this Monday and she was stuck at home doing the routine things. BORING!!!
I talked to her (and was finally able to get her to take her backpack off) and told her that we would start pre-school when all the other kids began their school. She was ecstatic!
My friend Sonya and her daughter, Sadie (almost 3) came over and we learned about the letter "A." I made alphabet books for each of them and we colored the letter "A" and the picture of the apple underneath it...because, if you didn't know, apple starts with the letter "A." Ohhh. Ahhh!
We then cut an apple in half and showed them how if made a star shape. We got paint and stamped the apple into the paint and let them decorate apple and star shapes on paper. They then decided to lose the apple and just paint with paintbrushes (hey whatever...as long as they stay entertained).

We then went into the living room and read books about animals (which also starts with "A." Oh, really? Really!). We got to pet the different tectures of each animal and talk about that.
We then had a snack....you're right, APPLES!!!
We let the kids play and destroy the house, and then ....it was time to go to the library (it was too hot to take them on a walk). We picked out more books for the letter "A" and then some for tommorow's pre-school: the letter "B."
Emma has been singing her ABCs all day, excited to be in school.
Now she is ready to play with bubbles, balloons, and learn about the letter "B."
Now if she'll always be so enthusiastic about school and homework...ha,ha.

RMR First Timer

Andrey and I got some complimentary tickets to Rocky Mountain Raceways (as many of you around here may have also). It is my first time going but Andrey had been many times (mainly seeing the drag races, not oval racing), so I was a little out of the dark and didn't know what to expect. Now, I've seen the move "Cars" so I knew what to kindof expect....fast cars, loud noise, and lots of (hopefully) cool car rolling action (but not too much to hurt anyone).
We dropped the girls off at my parent's house while they went to a ward party, and headed to the raceway. We were a little late so we had to find a spot on the top of the bleachers. No problem, the higher the better; and with two of us it wasn't hard to find good seats. We got our snowcone and I had goosbumps (I know, i'm wierd) all over my arms from exciteent. It was so cool to see all those nice, fast, loud cars. I just watched with my jaw open. We watched a car start on fine (no one was seriously hurt), a car smash into a wall (I missed the action cause I was in line getting our free hotdogs, but Andrey caught me up on the excitement), and a few skid into each other and fly (literally) off the race track. I was crazy!!! My ears took a day to get back to normal, so we have to remember for next weekend's race, to bring the earplugs. This was a great date night-a little different than the usual, but I had a blast hanging out with my boyfriend.

Go BEES!!!!

Andrey and I got free tickets to the Bees game last night (thanks Jennifer). We took the girls and got us some dinner and sat back and watched the game. It was so much fun. Baseball has to be my most favorite sport to watch. Emma loved the atmpshere so she was clapping, screaming, and standing up in her seat along with the rest of the crowd. She would yell a good luck to each batter after I'd tell her his name, making the people around us laugh. She was a hoot (as my dad would say). Ellie got tired. The game went until about 10:20 P.M., so it was a long 3+hours for her. As long as we kept the drinks and ice comin' she was happy. When the sun went down all the bugs would come out and I mean they CAME OUT! They would bombard (sp?) all of us watching. Our hair, clothes, and faces were covered with them. Emma was trying to hold them, claiming the they were her pets and she wanted to take them home. Ewww! She would go around and brush them off people's backs-making friends along the way. She is so funny-not shy at all. Emma's favorite thing was the big mascot-the Bee, Bumble. She would scream and try to get his attention every time he came out giving out free shirts, bags, getting a reaction from the crowd, and she kept saying, "Mom, I want the Bee to hold my hand." Sadly though, he wouldn't ever get close enough (even though we were right behind the dugout).
Ellie, however, was terrified of the bee. He wa huge, orange and black, and kept getting too close for her comfort. She would shake, scream, and death grip around my neck. It was quite a sight to see. Since then she and I have both recovered.
We got an awesome parking spot, where you slide the money under the door (hoping we were parking legally and weren't getting a ticket later) and enjoyed the short walk it took to get to the Franklin Covey Stadium.
We had a fun night. The Bees won (sorry for those who maybe are big fans and taped the game), so we all left really happy!
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!

"Avon Calling!"

AVON CALLING!!!!


I am getting some info. out about Avon. I am a Representative, so if any of you are interested in purchasing anything, let me know @ pixy_oak@hotmail.com. If it is easier to call and make your order that way, e-mail me and I'll give you my number (don't feel comfortable putting it here on the blog)... What do you need to know? You go to http://www.avon.com/ and shop around. Each item has a six digit number beneath it (with a dash inbetween two sets of three numbers). All you have to do is write down what you want and call or e-mail me and I will submit the order for you.
I submit an Avon order every two weeks. I just submitted one today (yeah, Sonya gets some fun toys and makeup!!!). It is the Wednesday that I submit it. I am on Campaign/Catalog 19 now. You can purchase things as far back as two catalogs (for example, If I'm on C-19, you can still get things from C-17 and C-18 for two more weeks). Why does it matter to be able to go back two campaigns? Well, I will tell you. Some items may be cheaper and you happened to miss it when I submitted my last order, so go ahead and get what you need.
I love Avon. The discount is great. If any of you are interested in selling it-and being your own boss, also let me know. Have a great day!!!

Stollen License Plate???

I had a creepy experience at Walmart today. I went to pick up a birthday gift for my husband's partner's son, and on the way out to the car, we met an interesting man. From the start, I was loading up the girls when a truck driver parked behind my car so I couldn't move and then he came around and asked how to get to the Valley Fair Mall. I was a little questionable at first, cause don't most truck drivers know where they are going? After letting him know, I walked over to my car to leave. An older man walked up to the truck and knocked on the door. He asked the truck driver (very young) some questions and then he left in a hurry making it possible for me to leave. As I finished buckling up the girls, I noticed the older man standing behind me. He then walked to the front of my car and I got this uncomfortable feeling. What was he doing? He was in a place where it was going to be hard for me to pull out...so I was kinda forced to listen to him. "Is that your husband? " he asked. "No..." hesitantly I answered. "Is it your boyfriend?" "Um, no...I really need to go." I responded. He made me fill a little wierd, so I thought, Ok, Holli, follow this feeling and get out of here. I locked my girl's doors and started climbing in when I saw him touching my car-an Oldsmobile. "So, are you married?" I gave him a shocked look. He must have noticed because he then said, "This is a really nice car...." Okay, sir, whoever you are...this is an Oldsmobile. It's dirty and I wouldn't consider it a "nice" car. What was he doing? Creepy!!! "I have to be going now." He asked me again if I was married and then commented some more on my "nice" car. I got in and started pulling out, letting him know that if he didn't move, he might get hurt. He just watched me leave and then all these thoughts went through my head. Did he know the truck driver and was the truck driver distracting me while the man did something to my car? Was that man just a creepy guy who was bored? Did he do something to my car? Where is my license plate in the front? I called Andrey and asked if I had one on the front. We couldn't remember, so I had to call the sheriff and report that I "thought" it might have been stolen. Better safe than sorry right? So, now, after being creeped out (which may be nothing at all-but I can't deny that warning feeling I had), I have to drive to the DMV and pay to get new plates!! Grrrrr. So, moral of this story. Don't talk to strangers and don't buy nice cars, like Oldsmobiles. Ha, ha. Oh, and maybe carry around a taser gun....

Potty Training...

Okay. I am really struggling. When Emma was two, we started putting her on the toilet and really trying to get her to go. She went every once in a while, but just didn't seem all that interested or really understand what was supposed to happen to her little body. I would try for a week and then not for a couple of months. We have been doing this for a year almost. She will be three next month and IS STILL NOT POTTY TRAINED! I set the timer every 15 minutes and when the timer goes off, she knows to run into the bathroom and sit on her princess toilet. She'll take a book with her and sit and sit and sit. She'll say, "All done." and then take off. She goes every once in a while, but she mostly gets frustrated and says, "Mom, I CAN'T do it." She'll really try. We have a toilet sticker chart for her to put stickers on when she sits on the toilet, and I took her shopping and she picked out some cheap toys and treats and we put it in the treat bucket, so when she actually goes in the toilet, she gets to pick something. This is great and all, but she is still not catching on. She will mess in her diaper and then want to run in the bathroom and sit on the toilet AFTER she has gone. I have been trying so hard, but don't know what to do. Everyone tells me to read the book about potty training a kid in a day, but I would really love to hear any other ideas that have worked with you. Thanks! I'm so tired of changing two girl's diapers all day...HELP!!!

New Truck..."vroom, vroom!"

Hip, hip, hooray. We no longer have to squish the four of us into that small Toyota Tacoma. Andrey's partner is switching over his truck to our family. I am so spoiled-you have no idea. This new truck is a white 2007 Toyota Tundra (we like Toyotas, can you tell...ha, ha). I went with Mark yesterday to do the long process of filling out all the paperwork and then finally, the keys were put into my hand and off I went enjoying the ride of being taller than anyone else. This ride was scary for me because I am not the best driver and I could just imagine myself plowing everyone over that was within a few yards of me. I made it home safely...phew.
This truck is so cool. Mark put a lot into it. There is a nice stereo, a DVD player so we can have the kids watch movies on our long rides, cause if your kids are anything like mine, 10 minutes is way too long to be in any vehicle, unless it pops out icecream every 10 minutes. LOL. My favorite thing about it is the space. We can fit the carseats behind us and not have our knees up to the dashboard or the steering wheel. We have bad backs now from sitting so far up in Andrey's old truck, so this is such a treat to be able to have leg space for once.
Well, that is my exciting news for the day. Join us again tomorrow....WHEN ANDREY COMES HOME!!!!

Withdrawls from Andrey

Andrey is gone. He left...he's "outahere!" He packed up his stuff and headed off to a half weeklong camp with the young men. I was excited for him to go to Boulder Mountain, by his grandparent's cabin. We went there for our honeymoon and it is so beautiful. I love being out in nature-the mountains and the beautiful rock formations and hiking spots. He left Wednesday morning and won't be back until Sat. afternoon. I though, "Oh good, we get a break from normal day things. Andrey doesn't have to work-he gets to swim (I forgot to pack his swimming suit...oops), fish, hike, sleep under the stars (and enjoy the snow/rain storm they get tomorrow). How am I doing between all this? you ask...well. The first ten minutes I walked around the house, bored out of my mind and then I stopped in the living room and got this achy, empty, sad feeling. Have you ever felt that? I get it every time Andrey leaves. I realized that I really really really love him. Even though he is gone a lot for work, I know I can count on him to come home and be there at night. I miss having him next to me-to help me feel better about the people that are trying to break into our house...cause I know that's what that sound is. ha,ha. I have realized that I have to keep myself busy. The girls and I wake up, get ready, eat, go to the park for lunch. We then go to the library, store, Grandma's house, or go on a walk. We will be going swimming and maybe visiting family. AND IT'S ONLY THE SECOND DAY THAT HE'S BEEN GONE!!!! There is one thing that we got to do that was fun. I got a gift card from Seagull Book and Tape, so we went there so I could get my Primary Children's Song Book and tada...right there in front of me (well, behind me and a little to the left) was what I was going to get him for our anniversary next month. I'd tell you but he may read this post and will find out. Our anniversary is September 17th. It will have been 4 years. Wow, I know. It went by so fast and I'm lovin' every minute of it.

Well, I think that I killed about 10 minutes by posting this, so now I have to keep my self busy for one day, 19 hours, and 25 minutes. Thanks!

Breaking Dawn

Ok, so I am a fan...I will admit. I think that Stephenie Meyer is a wonderful writer, very discriptive and wrote many great books. I am in the middle of reading The Host and Breaking Dawn and I am totally having a hard time at not ruining what going on-with my husband. I have read all of them (the first three) and am re-reading them, but outloud, to Andrey. We are almost done with the second book, but I can't hold in all the things that are shocking me, all the funny things, and ...AHHH!!! I just have to talk to someone! but Andrey won't let me ruin this fourth book for him. Well, I guess I will just have to call my sister, Bailee, and keep ruining it for her. hee,hee.

Happy 25th Birthday Holli!

What a fun, nice, and relaxing birthday I had. I realized that I love having my birthday on a Sunday. To have a little fun (doing something we can't do on a Sunday) we took my sister and Andrey and I dropped Emma off at a birthday party, and then we went bowling on Sat. night. I did really bad, only getting 79. Yikes, bad, I know. I usually try to get passed 100, but it wasn't my night-plus Ellie helped me a little. It was a nice night to be able to hang out with my sister, Robyn, since we don't see her all that often.

On Sunday, Andrey let me sleep in and went to Ward Council (he was called as the new Young Men's President), for me and I was able to have a nice morning, a boquet of beautiful red roses to greet me, and Emma singing "Happy Birthday" to me. We had great church meetings and the young women and the leaders made me some cards-that was sweet of them. We came home, had lunch and watched one of my favorite movies: The Jane Austen Book Club. I got to open presents from my little family, where I got a movie, clothes that I needed, and get this....Breaking Dawn...the fourth book from Stephenie Meyer. I was so excited, and I can't put it down (Sorry, Amber, I will eventually get to The Host). I was glad that I didn't have to stand in line for hours with ridiculous fans to get the book. Thanks Andrey!!!

Later, we went and had a barbecue at my parent's house. We had my aunts and uncles and sister and her husband and his mom come. We had dinner, brownies and icecream, and I got spoiled with more presents. I got a lot of scrapbooking things that I had run out of, some scrapbooking albums (yeah, the scrapbooking begins), my favorite movie right now-Enchanted (actually, we have watched it twice this morning ha,ha), summer shirts, a Willow Tree Doll (I am starting to collect those), a cute bag (I love bags and can't seem to get enough of them), oven mits (since I started mine on fire recently), and many other things. It was nice to visit with family and plan our Cherry Hill vacation next week. It was such a nice birthday and one that I will always remember. Thanks to everyone!!!

The first catch at Family Reunion

Sorry about the video being the wrong direction. . . .just turn your head as you watch it-you know, like sitting on the front row at the movie theater. . . .

Otter Creek and Bryce Canyon

We just got back from a fun family reunion at Otter Creek. We spent most of Wednesday at Bryce Canyon.

To begin our trip, we drove to Fillmore (the halfway mark) and stayed the night at a disgusting motel (but is was super cheap and the sheets were clean....as opposed to everything else...ex. poop on the floor)...I won't give away the name 'cause that's bad for business. ha,ha. Anyway. We left Monday morning after a delicious breakfast-thanks to Aunt Wendy and Family.

It was about a 2 hour drive to Otter Creek where we stayed in a beautiful cabin with TWO JETTED TUBS!!! (that was my favorite part).

We all unpacked, ate lunch and went fishing. Kaycee, my little sister, caught the first fish, but being the expert fisherladies that we aren't, we pulled on the line too hard and the fish got away. Poor Kaycee was almost in tears thinking of that poor fish (that I swear she almost names...she's so sweet) with a hook stuck in it's mouth. It's okay though, cause Andrey caught three more and then my mom caught one (with Emma's small Princess fishing pole even)-and one of those fish had two hooks in it's mouth.

We played pool, phase ten, watched movies, went on nature walks where we saw lots of jack rabbits, what we thought were rattle snakes, deer, and other beautiful animals. We spent a lot of our freetime trying to catch more fish in the cute pond that was behind the cabin. I was lucky and caught a whole lot of sea-weed

Tuesday, after our family and the Greens made delicous crepes for breakfast, we made lunches and drove to Otter Creek where we got to try out the new boat we bought. We went on a tube where Andrey pulled us around going really fast, with our legs flying in the air and saw who could stay on the longest, and fished, sun-tanned, played in the sand (Emma's swimming diaper even brought home a sand-castle in itself), had lunch, rode the canoe around, and played on the inner-tubes. We had so much fun-minus the sunburns.

We were welcomed home with the jetted tubs where we left half the beach in it after our long bath. Ellie was terrified of the bubbles at first, but soon fell in love with the relaxing tub.

Wednesday we packed up lunches and headed over to Bryce Canyon-a first for many of us. Our travels were occupied with me reading aloud the Twilight series to Andrey who has been converted. My goal was for him to finish then before the fourth book comes out on the 2nd (the day before my birthday!!!! Happy Birthday to me!!!!), but we are only 3/4th of the way done with the second one. Maybe our new goal will be to finish then before the movie comes out...

We first stopped at the souvinier shops and bought icecream, apple beer, new t-shirts (we buy t-shirts every reunion), and other fun toys. Emma bought an "Emma Egg," or a beautiful rock/stone from Bryce Canyon. We had fun taking silly pictures (as seen above) with some family memebers for the memories. We then walked through the visitor's center and the museum at Bryce Canyon, and then split up into two groups-one that was going on the longer hike and the other that was sight seeing by driving to each spot. It was so beautiful to see all the different rock formations and to see all the different kind of people that were there-to hear all the different languages and accents. It was funny when a guy visiting the United States was video taping my parent's little dog instead of the National Park. We got a kick out of that.

After the heat got to us, we headed back where we bathed again in the jetted tub, ha,ha and hung out playing games and visiting.

Thursday a lot of family left, but the other half of us decided to go back to the resivour and go boating some more. We had a blast getting thrown around in the water, gulping a bit of the yummy green water (hopefully we don't have the runs for a week now...yuck). We relaxed, watching movies all night and got a good nights rest so we could clean up the cabin and endure a 4 hour drive back with the girls. We had a great time and made a lot of fun memories-getting a little closer to our family. Oh, how I miss that jetted tub!!!