Alissa's 12th Birthday!!

Wednesday - August 13, 2014
I can't believe Alissa is 12 years old already!  Time is just going too fast.  All my little ones will be grown up in no time.  I can't handle that.  I love them being my little ones.  I can't imagine what it will be like when they are older.  I'm just going to live it up and enjoy every moment I have with them.
Missy, Brittany, Teresa, and Tyler spent the night, so they could be here for Alissa's birthday and we could go out and do more adventuring again today.  Normally, I decorate the living room and the kitchen for the kids' birthdays, but we were exhausted when we got home last night and it was too tricky to try and decorate around everybody sleeping in the living room.  I ended up just waking up early and quickly decorating the kitchen.  Since it would have been hard to travel with our cake and Alissa wants to have time to decorate her own cake, we decided to have donuts today, instead of cake.  We'll have cake another time (when Alissa has time to decorate it).  So, after Alissa woke up, Roger took her, her cousins, and Aunt Teresa to go get some yummy donuts for breakfast.  Roger made sure to buy a dozen doughnut holes.  We put a candle in each one and sang "Happy Birthday" to Alissa.  Then she blew out the candles.  This birthday was definitely different than she was used to, but it was still lots of fun.  We enjoyed our doughnuts, we let her open her gifts, then we packed up our stuff and headed to Lava Hot Springs to spend the day relaxing at the pool.  Alissa's gifts were very different from what she is used to also.  I normally try to get her a nice gift then a bunch of dinky, but fun gifts to fill in the gaps and make it look like she got a ton of presents.  This year, we just got her two gifts.  We spent more than we normally do on her birthday, but it looked like less, since the gifts she got were small sizes.  We got her her own set of scriptures with her name on the cover.  She's been wanting that for a long time.  So she was really excited about that.  The other gift we got her was a $30.00 gift card to Micheal's craft store.  She is super excited to go and use it.  I also got her some hair chalk that will color your hair for a little while and wash out really easily.  She was very happy with the gifts that she got.

I tried to take a picture of Alissa, Parker, and Brinley.  I could see each of their faces before I snapped the picture.  But as I pressed my finger down on the button to snap their picture, each one of them moved, jus perfectly enough for something to cover up each of their faces.  I just thought that was really funny and crazy how perfectly their timing was and how that worked out.

I asked Missy to video tape Alissa as we sang to her and while she blew out the candles.  She pointed the camera and hit the record button, but she couldn't figure out why she couldn't see anything.  We all had a good laugh when we looked over and saw the lens cap still on.  Silly Missy!

Here we are at Lava Hot Springs!

It was fun to stay over in the deep end and watch the people jumping off of the high dives.  There were two girls, standing on the highest platform, that were too afraid to go.  They kept walking to the edge, then backing away.  We watched them for a really long time before they finally got brave enough to jump.  

While we were watching, Missy informed us that this is where the you tube video of a girl falling from the platform took place.  I had never seen the video, but Teresa had seen it a lot.  When we all got out to eat lunch, I did a search for the video.  That is so scary!  Then I found the video in slow motion.

Anyway... so we all got out of the pool to eat some lunch.  I was going to take a picture of all of us when somebody walked by  and offered to take a picture with me in it also.  I was excited, because I don't usually get to be in the picture.  Here we all are!

Alissa wanted me to take a picture of her while she was standing on this floaty toy.  She kept trying to do it.  every time she successfully got on, I missed it.  So, she wanted me to keep snapping pictures until she finally did it.  I don't think I ever got the picture she was wanting me to take.

Tyler decided to go off the platforms.  So, I took pictures, of course.  This is him going off the first platform.

Alissa was really determined that she could stand on the floaty for a picture.  So, I just kept snapping away.

Tyler jumped off of the second platform.  This is the platform that the girl fell from.  He hesitated as he got to the edge, but still went for it.  It's hard to see the detail in the picture, but you can tell he was scared.  He refused to try the highest platform.  I can't blame him.  I won't even jump off of the lowest diving board.

 Here's more pictures of Alissa trying to do that trick still.

We had a lot of fun playing today.  Eventually, we got too tired.  Two days of being out in the sun swimming, was starting to take a toll on us all.  We left to head home around 4:00 pm.  We were exhausted!

Tony Grove and Bear Lake - August 12, 2014

Tuesday - August 12, 2014

 Missy VanBibber, Brittany Wilding, and Teresa and Tyler Moser all came to play.  We started our day by meeting them at the cheese factory in Logan.  We all got some yummy cheese then headed out on our way to Tony Grove and then Bear Lake.  We love Tony Grove because it is such a pretty place.  I especially love it because bigfoot has been spotted in that area.  It's always more exciting to go places where there are stories of a bigfoot, a haunting, or a UFO.  I just love that kind of crazy stuff.

Pictures of our handsome Parker.

 Our super silly Brinley

Our cute little 'lissa

 Aunt Teresa and Cousin Tyler

 We made it to Bear Lake!  We have been here a lot this summer.  It's been too much fun.  Missy brought a super fun island toy for us all to play on.  It had a hole in it.  They had patched it, but weren't sure how well the patch would work.  The patch didn't work well at all, but we still had a ton of fun playing on the island until it ran out of air.  Roger, Tyler, Missy, Brittany, Alissa, and I were all on it.  We decided to play a game where we would try to push each other off.  Because it was losing air, it was really hard to stay on the seats.  We had just divided into teams.  Roger, Brittany, and I were going to be on one team.  Right after we decided this, Brittany lost her balance and fell into the water.  It was too funny.  The island had shifted and she was reaching, trying to grab a hold of anything to keep from falling, but there was nothing to grasp.  We all had a good laugh, then waited for her to get back in.  I kept trying to think of a different game to play, but no good ideas game to my mind.  Eventually, we just decided to try and push each other off, but we weren't in teams.  It was just every man for himself.  It was really funny and a lot of fun to play.  We were all laughing so hard.  It's a bummer that the island is ruined.  There were too many holes and they just got worse the more we played on it.  Missy was planning to throw it away when we were done.

 After we all played out in the water for a while, we came back in to eat some lunch.  Some people in a van were having car trouble, so Roger and Tyler went over to help.  They weren't gone very long, I just thought it looked funny the way that Tyler rode on the back of the truck on the way over to them.

 Teresa wanted to see the birds so we threw some food for them.  Parker loves to feed the birds.  

 We could see that a storm was coming.  We gathered up our stuff and planned to stop at Missy's Grandparent's property, so she could show Tyler and Teresa, then we would go to a camp ground in Logan Canyon to have a fire and eat our dinner.  While we were at the VanBibber property, it was so nice, we decided to just stay there and have our fire.  It has such a pretty view of the lake. 

 A few days before this, I got an idea that it would be really cool to take a picture of lightening.  I had decided that the next time there was a lightening storm, I would try and take a lightening picture.  

Anyway, so we started seeing lightening and I remembered my idea.  I stood there for a while trying to get a picture of it, but it was too hard.  I'd see it strike, but I couldn't snap the picture fast enough.  The only way would be to continuously snap pictures.  I got frustrated and decided that I would not worry too much about it now, but I would try again another time. 

 After we had our s'mores, I noticed that Missy had her phone and looked like she was taking pictures.  She had decided that she was going to get a lightening picture.  I couldn't just sit back and let her get a lightening picture before me, so I had to try again.  I took a lot of pictures.  I set the camera to sport mode where it will just snap pictures over and over.  I took a lot of pictures!  Parker and Brinley came over and jumped in front of the camera a few times.

 After a super long time and a ton of pictures, I finally managed to catch the tail end of a lightening strike.  You barely see it, but that's okay.  That counts.  I did it!  I took a picture of lightening!

We hurried and left after I got my picture.  the storm got really bad and the first part of the drive home was kind of scary.  The rain was coming down really hard.  The road had been warm, so the rain landing on it caused a lot of steam to be rising up off of the ground.  So we had heavy rain, a foggy mist over the road, lightening flashes blinding us, and on top of that we had to watch out for dear crossing the road.  It was a little scary, but Roger and Missy are good drivers and we all made it home safely.

Huffaker Family Reunion Day 2 - August 9, 2014

Saturday - August 9, 2014

Roger took a picture of us first thing in the morning.  He's just funny.

 Melissa had brought glow sticks for all the kids to play with last night.  That was really fun.  When Parker found his this morning, he decided to wear it.  He is goofy, just like his dad.

 While they were waiting for breakfast they watched an episode of Rabbids on my phone.  They think that show is hilarious.

 We had pancakes and sausage for breakfast this morning, then we got ready, packed up our stuff, and headed to a park to enjoy the second day of our family reunion.  The kids were so excited when they saw this playground.  It looks soooo fun!  Eventually it got super crowded which made it a little less fun, but the kids still had a really good time.

 It was starting to get really hot, so the kids used the ice from the cooler to cool themselves off.

 Grandma played baseball with Parker for a little while.  He loved it!

 Then Parker played basketball with his cousin Atreyu.

 Here we all are enjoying our lunch together.

We ended up leaving after this.  We were so tired.  It was a relief to get home and be able to relax for a little bit.