DIXIE JAM

OK, so we headed for St. George for a Dixie Jam Dance competition. Mikes Dance company competed down there. We made a fun little trip out of it. The weather was perfect and Mom had all the food we could possibly eat! THANKS MOM! We got down there Friday night and ate tons of food right off the bat! We had crab salad, potato salad, relish trays, chips and salsa, chicken, orange chicken, fruit, and chips! Good stuff. The girls did a little swimming at the pool after we ate. We took Ash down with us. She is such a great person to have around! We all love her. After swimming everyone came back and showered and got ready for bed. Because we had Ash with us we had to improvise on our sleeping arrangements a bit, but we made it work. Me and Kurtis took the guest bedroom, Mike and Ash took the Den with the Hide-a-bed, and Steph and Sam used the eggshell mattress from on top of the hide-a-bed and slept in the living room. Hey they were so tired they could have slept in the bath tub and been fine. LOL. You can click on the pics to make them larger if they are hard to see.So we got up the next morning and I of course pulled out the chips and salsa for breakfast. Then john cooked everyone up a nice breakfast which he always does. He has my whole family hooked on turkey bacon. When we come down he knows to stock up on it! Then we got ready and headed on down to the Dixie Jam competition. Lots of people there, no seating (unless you wanted to watch the back of the dancers), and 170 dance teams. Mike had to be there at 10:45, then they danced around 1:00, then went back at 7:00 for the award ceremony. Her dance company took first place in their division. They did a great job!






They did alot more swimming in between competitions and after competitions. They gave the outdoor pool a whirl, but I think they decided the sun hadn't heated it up enough yet so they all went to the inside pool.


While the girls were swimming me and mom hung out in the exercises room showing off our grand muscles......ya right! LOL
One of my favorite things is to go down and play with my Moms moody cat Koda! That thing is so gosh darn cute that you want to love on it but he is not very lovable. But I keep trying! They just had him shaved. It's a good thing it got warm down there, cuz the poor cat was freezing without his fur!
We did alot of eating, relaxing and playing ball besides swimming when we could. Life was good! The weather was amazing!

We even got a chance to visit with Colby, Natalie and Trevin. That Trevin is such a character! He is so entertaining. He's sure growing up though! My favorite thing was how well he cleaned up the toys when him and Nat sang "clean up clean up". Natalie will you come and sing that with my girls and teach them how to clean up!
It was a good little trip and I'm glad we got the chance to go. It made me hungry though for warm weather up here! I hope the warm sticks around for a bit so we can all feel a nice change of the seasons. Got to love having four seasons don't ya! At least I do.

Sams Belated B-day Party

Talk about me be late with posting things, how about me be late at letting Sam have her friend B-day party. Well almost 2 months later we finally got around to planning it. So Friday night Sam, Holly, & Madisen went up north. We stopped and ate at La Casita in Springville and had my favorite....a Louie Special. It became the girls favorite too. It's just one great big tostada that everyone can share. Mom & John met us down there to eat also.

Then John went home and mom came with us and we dropped the girls off at Trafalga while we went shopping. So the girls went miniature golfing and played the arcade games for quite awhile. They came out of Trafalga with tons of prizes like vampire teeth, Slinky's and a basketball. Here they are sporting some of their prizes. They could become the next Twilight series. Ha Ha Ha. Nice teeth girls!

So then back to Grandma Kathy's house for the Sleepover Where they played pool, air hockey, pinball, and ate cake and ice cream.

Poor Sam always has to celebrate her B-day late. She is a Ute Stampede baby which makes for a busy time of year. But at least she got to stretch her B-day out for 2 months. Happy belated B-day Sam!

Family Olympics

Ok, So I am way late posting this information, but that seems to be how my life is amymore! Anyway a couple of weeks ago Sam planned a family home evening for us. It was FAMILY OLYMPICS. She made obstacle courses, games, and a object lesson for us. She started by having us all stand on a small piece of wood. That was to show us how we all had to hold on together to be able to stay on the wood. OBJECT: How to support everyone in the family. Good job Sam, now if we could all take it to heart! Anyhoo......then we did the relay races. We had teams. Each team had to run to a scooter, hop on the scooter, and ride in one way then the other way, then drop the scooter and run to the trailer and back to your team member so they could do it.

Then came Volley Ball. Me and Steph lost! I was not the most cordinated player!

Then we played some Tennis. Once again, I was very uncordinated!

Then we ate the Chocolate pudding that Sam prepared for us for our family home eveining treat.

After that Sam made us awards for different things that we did well at throughout the olympics. Of course I didn't win the most cordinated award.

Thanks Sam we had a lot of fun!

Girls Day and Campout Weekend

Well me and the girls finally got to have our girls weekend. We have been doing this for about 7 years now. We take a day when school gets out and spend it up the canyon doing all kinds of fun things. This year we got a bonus! We got to use our trailer for girls day. We had a lot of fun. We actually went up on a Thursday night after I got done with our enrichment meeting up the canyon and while I was at that meeting Kurtis took our trailer up and got it all set up. When my meeting was done we all went and stayed the night. Kurtis left for work at 4:30 in the morning from there and so when me and the girls woke up we started our girls day.

Here is our campsite.

We started off by doing magnets. We thought that would be fun to do so the girls could use them in their lockers for school.

While making our magnets (thanks to our enrichment meeting the night before) we played a game called family fun time. It kept us talking the whole time and laughing. (Thanks for the great idea Michelle!)

Then are legs were getting a little cramping from sitting there so we went on a little walk. It was so amazing and terrifying to see all the massive destruction from the fire just a year ago. But also such an awesome feeling to see all the greenery making its way back. Our campsite was one of the many that the fires ripped through.

Then of course after are little nature walk it was lunch time! Sandwiches and of course my all time favorite........chips and dip!

Then we worked on some picture frames, and easels. Some were painted and some were crafted with scrap paper.

Then came time for the girls most favorite thing.......PLAYING IN THE CREEK!

I told the girls that I would love to go sit in the creek! So....here is my idea of sitting in the creek! Although I did get sunburned knees.......not legs...just knees! Go figure.

This is Steph jumping in the water off a log. Look at Mike's face! I get a kick out of this one!

We decided we needed to be some sort of gang while up there so we called our self's the sun glass gang. Aren't we some cool chicks! HAHAHAHAHA

We had some great times in the water. It's amazing how much fun a creek holds. Expecially when Sam and Steph spotted a water snake. (I think I had the most fun watching them while they did all the screaming). But then our girls day had to end. We had to run Mike down the canyon to go to a party with some friends. So we left our site for a while until she got off to her party. (She didn't get back up to the campsite till after 12:00)

So the rest of us went back up the canyon (including Kurtis) to now just have a family camp out. We roasted hot dogs (cheating I might add) and ate .....yes my all time favorite chips and dip with the hot dogs. We left most of our hot dog sticks back home so we cooked them one at a time. Now that's a way to draw out the dinner.

Then after awhile Kurtis headed on back down into town to pick Mike up and bring her back (and to feed our poor lonely cat). While he did that me and the girls settled down for bed. In the morning when we are camping (usually on a Saturday) we always have what we call a BIG BREAKFAST. We cook hash browns, bacon, and scrambled eggs on our grill. It's not really a big breakfast, but it is when your used to cereal and such. (I'm not much of a cook unless I am camping, then I love too.) So here we are cooking our hash browns (which take forever). And by the time the whole breakfast is done, everything is usually cold......but hey..it sure tastes good!

Mike was wore out from her big party, so Sam and Steph enjoyed a game of life. It's funny to watch them play because they make up their own rules as they go along. So, while they enjoyed that I did something I swore I was not going to do.......I read "TWILIGHT" and yes I did enjoy it. I can't wait to read the next one. I finished this one in one day! Go figure.

Later that evening we did a dutch oven dinner. We did potatoes and yes of course...squash from the garden, and hamburger. It was good. I am beginning to think that we are not very healthy eaters when we are camping.......ahhhh but that's one of the joys of camping i think!

The girls headed back down to the creek while we were cooking dinner and tried to build a dam....well..they called it a waterfall....but .....I'll I could see was a little dam. But whatever it was they had fun building it and it was nice to see them work together for a change!

Then when it got dark we all settled down (girls in pj's) to watch a movie. We watched RV....that is until the generator ran out of gas...ooops.... sorry.... movie is over! Time to go to bed. So we did we went to bed.

We got up early the next morning and headed on down out of the canyon. We had a baby blessing to be to in Orem. It was sad to end the trip, but hopefully we can get a few more in before winter decides to visit us.