Sister's Fling - April 11-12, 2014

Friday - April 11, 2014
I got to go on a Sister's Fling with my sisters in Roger's family.  They did a sister's fling once before, but it was either right before Roger and I were married or I my kiddos were really little and I couldn't or didn't want to leave them.  Anyway.... we decided to start having a sister's fling every April from now on.
So, I got the kids off to school in the morning, then I quickly gathered my things and Roger drove me to meet Caroline at the Maverick near the freeway.  I loaded my stuff into Caroline's car, Roger headed home, and Caroline and I went on our way to start our fun weekend sister's Fling.  Before we met everybody, we stopped at a french restaurant.  Caroline bought a treat that she wanted to share with everyone.  Then we headed to a different french restaurant to meet everyone and have breakfast.  The food was really yummy and we had a lot of fun talking.  After breakfast, we had to find things to do for a little while before we headed to Park City where we were going to stay the night.  The Van Bibber's told us about a fun store in Draper, called Pirate-Os.  We spent a while there.  I bought the kids some fun stuff for Easter and a funny gift to give to Roger for Father's day.  When we finished there we went to IFA to look at the baby chicks.

 Caroline and I had a fun time trying to find where we were supposed to meet everyone when we go to Park City.  We had a GPS with us, but I was talking and not paying close attention and Caroline is used to having Scott with her navigating where she is going.  We missed our exit and had to head back.  Then we couldn't figure out where we were supposed to meet at the hotel.  It took us a while, but eventually, we figured it out.  We got all checked in.  Cindi was ready to get the food started cooking.  Caroline needed to buy some of the food that we needed for our dinner, so we went out to find a store.  there was a store in the hotel.  On our way to find that store, we passed a relaxation pool that was not full of kids and looked so inviting.  We decided that we would go swimming there instead of the big pool outside.  The store in the hotel was too small and too expensive.  They didn't have what we needed, so we had to find another place.  Melissa remembered a 7-Eleven that was just a Gondola ride away.  So, we headed out to find it.  When we got there, we learned that the Gondola costs money, to ride, but the Cabriolet is free.  So, we rode that down.  It dropped us off right by the store.  We bought what we needed and headed back up to the hotel.  It was really fun to ride on that thing.

 While dinner was cooking, we decided to go swimming.  We looked funny in our robes and Caroline with her shower cap on, so of course, we had to take a picture.

 When we finished swimming, Missy and I sat in the Sauna to dry off.  It felt so nice!  I didn't want to get out.  when we finally did get out, I couldn't cool down.  We got back to the hotel and I took a cold shower then I sat with a cold rag on my head.  Nothing was working!  My face was still red and I was still feeling hot after all of that.  So, I went to sit outside with my cold rag and a glass of cold water to see if that would help.  I took a picture of myself while I was sitting out there.  It was so crazy that it took me sooo.... long to cool down.

We ate our dinner then spent the rest of the evening playing games and talking.  The VanBibber's made up a funny game using plastic Easter eggs.  It was like truth or dare.  We had to pick an egg and read what the paper in the egg said.  One of the eggs had Melissa and Joyce arm wrestling.  That was pretty funny.  Joyce won.  Missy said, "Go" and Joyce won before we even had time to realize what had happened.  One of the eggs let Melissa choose someone to sing a love song out on the balcony.  I got stuck doing that one.  It was embarrassing, because the pool was right below us and there were lots of people out.  I picked an egg that asked if there was something that I could do that nobody else in the room could do and show them if possible.  I had a hard time thinking of something.  The thing that came to my mind is that I can talk with a Minnesota accent.  Nobody else could do that, so that  was fun.  And they all got a good laugh at how I talked.  They asked how I learned.  It's funny how I learned.  My friends and I, when we were in high school, went to see a movie called 'Drop Dead Gorgeous'.  It was a good dumb funny movie that took place in Minnesota.  When the movie ended and we were walking out of the theater, I turned to my friends to say something and it came out in a Minnesota accent.  I was so surprised!  I said, "Oh my gosh! I can't stop talking with a Minnesota accent."  My friends thought it was fun.  From that point on we talked with Minnesota accents a lot when we were around each other.  We still do it when we get together.  It's funny.

Saturday - April 12, 2014
We had a nice relaxing morning.  When it was time to check out, we loaded all our stuff out into the cars and headed to main street for breakfast.  Here is a picture of Missy and I on our walk to the restaurant.

 I can't remember the name of the restaurant.  The food tasted alright, but not great, and it was overpriced.  The waitress didn't come around much and became horrible at the end.  She put all our orders on the same ticket, then got fussy with us when we told her we needed them separated.  Then she added her gratuity onto the check, so she got a much larger tip than she deserved.  I probably wouldn't have left her anything because of her bad attitude at the end.  So, that was a little frustrating.

 After breakfast we walked to a candy store that was super expensive.  I paid too much money for some yummy treats.  Only one of the things I bought was worth it.  After that we decided to ride on the trolley while we decided what to do or where to go next.

 We decided to go to some other stores, but we needed to drive there.  so we got off the trolley and headed to our cars.  On the way we passed this bear and had Melissa Pose with it.  Tyler and her were going to go to a fancy dinner with Tyler's boss, so she wore her curlers, so she could get ready quickly when we were done.

 Jeanne, Melissa, and I had to leave at 3:00, so Melissa could get home and get ready for her dinner.  Roger met me at Tyler and Melissa'a house.  We left their house and went to a bowling alley in Draper where we were able to pick up our pass of all passes.  We thought we would bowl, but it wasn't covered with our passes, so we decided to find something else to do.
One day when the kids were complaining about the walk to the bus stop, Roger told them about how easy they had it compared to the walk Roger had to take.  Not only is their walk shorter, they don't have to walk it alone, like Roger did a lot of the time.  He told them that one day he would take us to his childhood home and we could walk the path that he took to go to school, so they could see how good they have it.  We decided that since we couldn't go bowling, maybe this would be a good time to take our walk.  The kids thought it would be fun and that way we could spend some time playing on the playground when we got to the school.  The walk wasn't that bad and the weather was nice, so we all enjoyed it.  Plus, Roger told us stories of his childhood and pointed out all of the places he used to play.  It was a lot of fun to hear his stories.  The kids had fun playing on the playground.  Then we found a ball and we all played four square for a while.  As we walked through Roger's old neighborhood, I couldn't help but feel jealous.  There were so many trees.  I love trees!  The neighborhood was so beautiful because of all the greenery around.  Tremonton hardly has any trees.  It should have more trees.  Especially since Tremonton starts out with the tree sound.  I'm just sayin'.  Also, I think snowville should be a beautiful town with lots of trees and it should have lots of snow.  That's all.

The Pinewood Derby - April 10, 2014

Thursday - April 10, 2014
Today is the Pinewood Derby.  This was Parker's first, since he wasn't able to go last year.  He ended up getting really sick.  He was so bummed.  This was my first time of ever going to a pinewood derby also.  I didn't realize that they race the cars so many times.  I was a little nervous about how Parker's car would do.  Roger and Parker were much more nervous than I was.  But, it turns out, we had nothing to worry about.  Parker's car won every race!  It was so fun to win the pinewood derby.  Parker and Roger deserved this win.  Here's Parker showing off his car before the race.

 The race didn't start until 6:00pm.  Alissa and Brinley went to activity days, while we finished up Parker's car and got all our stuff ready for the race.  The picture below, is when they came home.  Brinley and her friend Sierra were telling ma about all the fun princess stuff they did.  It was a 'Frozen' themed Party.  They had a lot of fun.

 After Alissa and Brinley came home, we got ready and headed to the church.  We went a little early, so we'd have time to figure out if we needed more or less weights on the car.  It was a good thing we were early.  Because the car was way under weight.  Roger drove home really fast to find some weights we could use.  We duct taped the weights to the top of the car and called it good.  We were worried that they way we had the weights taped on would slow down the car.  Here's Parker running to see his car and right after his first race.  He won!  We were so excited!

 Each race started with his car just a little bit a head at the start of the race, then shortly after getting on the flat part, his car would speed ahead of the rest.  He won most races by a car or two lengths distance.  The pictures below are from one of the races where one of the cars fell off the track.  Parker thought it was kind of cool.  He wanted to be able to show and tell his teacher about the pinewood derby, so I told him I would print up a picture or two for him to show her.  He chose one of him holding his trophy and the other one he chose was the one where the car comes off the track.

Go Parker!  He is our winner, winner, chicken dinner!

 When we got home from the race, Parker informed me that they were doing an egg drop at his school tomorrow and he was supposed to bring an egg to drop off the roof.  It was already past their bedtime and we were tired, but we did our best to make something we thought would protect the egg when it dropped.  This is what we made.  I thought it would work for sure, but I was wrong.  The egg broke.

As soon as we finished making this, I got all the kids in bed, then I had to hurry and get as much of my packing for the sister's fling done as I could.  I was going to be leaving first thing in the morning, so I wouldn't have a lot of time the next day.  I did as much as I could, then went to sleep.  I was exhausted, so I fell asleep quickly.

Jeanne Steven's Park - April 6, 2014

Sunday - April 6, 2014
I was desperate to just get out of the house and get some fresh air, so Roger took us to Jeanne Steven's Park to play.  We brought the football, water, and some snacks.  We tossed the football back and forth for a little while, then we all played on the playground.  Roger was so funny playing on the playground.  He makes me laugh.  I can't go on that thing he was playing on.  It spins around and makes me so sick.  Before we headed home, we walked around on the walking trail.  The kids looked for golf balls, then we threw or bounced them as hard as we could.  We all had fun and it was so nice to get some fresh air.

April Fool's Day

Tuesday - April 1, 2014
Happy April Fool's Day! I had fun fooling the kids this year.  Parker was the first one to wake up.  He woke up at 3:00 am and came running into my room, to tell me that something was wrong.  There was toilet paper all over his room and he didn't understand how that could happen.  In a tired fog, I told him, "April Fool's!  I toilet papered your room."  He said, "Ohhh... okay."  Then went back to bed.  I woke the kids up at 5:00 am. They came downstairs to see a Christmas Tree set up with presents under it.  They were so excited!  I was going to wrap not so nice presents, like stinky socks, but I was too tired last night to go and find anything, so I just wrapped up some of their toys that were sitting close by.  I bought each of them a return bouncy ball from the dollar store.  They were excited about that. They loved all of the fun surprises I did for them.  After they opened the gifts, they ran around the house looking for the other tricks that I played on them.  They knew to look for the colored milk, because I've done that before.  They were surprised when they went to get their cereal and discovered that the bags were in the wrong boxes.  Then they couldn't find the silverware.  When they went to get their shoes on, they discovered that their shoes had toilet paper in them and their backpacks were all turned inside out.  They thought it was a fun morning.

While the kids were at school, I put up these funny signs on the door to fool them and see how long it would take them to get inside the house.  It didn't work.  None of the kids fell for it.  Parker and Brinley stopped and thought about it for a bit, but then remembered that it was April Fool's Day, so they came right in.

I told the kids I had a yummy new drink for them to try for after school snack.  It was Jello in cups with straws, so it looked like a drink.  It was funny watching them try and figure that out.  Then they were all nice enough to keep trying their drinks so I could take their pictures.

After Roger went to work, Alissa's friend, Sydney came over.  Alissa made me promise to save one prank to do when Sydney was over.  What I did was, I swabbed food coloring on to the faucets, so when they turned on the water, it would come out colored.  I made a treat for the kids, then I told them all to go wash their hands so they could have some.  Alissa washed her hands in the kitchen sink.  She didn't put her hands in it, she stared at it for a second, then said, "Mom? What's happening?"  I was laughing at Alissa's reaction, when I realized Brinley had gone in the bathroom to wash her hands in that sink.  I quickly ran in their to see her reaction.  When I got in their, Brinley had quickly pulled her hands out of the water when she noticed the color and she was staring at them with a confused and disgusted look on her face.  The color I used on both sinks was red, so she might have thought it was blood at first.  It was funny!  I love pranking the kids on April Fool's Day.  I'm not a fan of mean or embarrassing jokes, just funny and weird.  It was a fun day!

Preparing for April Fool's Day - March 31, 2014

Monday - March 31, 2014
It's amazing how fast technology changes.  We bought our last computer four years ago and it just wasn't cutting it anymore.  So, we traded it in for a new one.  This is a picture of Roger and our new computer when he went to pick it up.  We are soooo... excited for our new computer.  It will be so nice to play the Sims and not have the computer freeze up on us.

I stayed up late tonight preparing April Fool's Day jokes to surprise the kids in the morning.  I started out by turning all of the pictures on the walls upside down.

The big one that I wanted to do was, I wanted to switch the living room and kitchen furniture.  I thought it would be a fun surprise and just something different, but Roger didn't like that idea.  He thought it was too much work plus he was going to be home and awake all night and he didn't like the idea of not having the couch in the living room.  So, I decided to put up a small Christmas tree instead.  I bought a $5.00 tree at Walmart when everything was on sale after Christmas.  It set up really quickly and was easy to quickly decorate.  I found some boxes and put small toys in each one, then wrapped them and placed them under the tree.  I thought the kids would be so surprised when they came downstairs and I yelled, "Merry Christmas!"  I stuffed toilet paper in the kids' shoes, I turned their backpacks inside out, I colored the milk, and I switched the bags of cereal from one box to another, so they would grab one kind of cereal, but when they poured it, a different cereal would come out.  I moved the silverware to the drawer underneath it and the drawer underneath it up to the silverware drawer, then I made Jello in cups and added straws, so they looked like drinks.  They I put them in the fridge to thicken up overnight.  The last prank that I did was, I toilet papered the kids' rooms.  This was the first time I ever toilet papered anybody in my life.  It was fun!

I was exhausted after setting up all of those pranks.  I'm hoping to wake the kids up an hour earlier than normal, so they have time to enjoy all of the craziness before school.

Shelley's Birthday - March 27, 2014

Thursday - March 27, 2014

Playing at Bothwell Park - March 22, 2014

Saturday - March 22, 2014
The kids are enjoying their spring break weekend.  Roger has to work overtime, so we can't really go anywhere.  We are trying to think of fun things to do to pass the time, but we are not having an easy time coming up with ideas.  One idea was to go have a picnic at Bothwell Park.  It's a little cold out still and we didn't have any bread for sandwiches.  We ate our lunch at home, then went to the park to play.  Sydney came with us.  The kids had fun.  We ended up staying at the park for two hours.

Blowing Bubbles - March 21, 2014

Friday - March 21, 2014
I made a bubble mixture that is not supposed to pop as easy as most.  We tried a lot of different tools for blowing the bubbles.  I think our favorite was a sock.  It made a snake of bubbles.  Then they had the idea to blow the snake bubbles into a cup and it looks like ice cream.  It was good fun.

Downtown St. George - March 17, 2014

Monday - March 17, 2014

Today, I spent the day cleaning my dad's house.  I really enjoy cleaning.... I know... weird, right?  Anyway, while I cleaned Roger, my dad, and the kids went to play at the splash pad in downtown St.George.  They all had a lot of fun.  We decided that from now on, we will be going to St.George at least once every 6 months to play and to clean my dad's house.  I've avoided going to St.George since my mom passed away.  I went once, to help go through her things, but that is the only time I had been until now.  I feel bad for avoiding it for so long.  I'm glad I came and that we had fun.  I thought it would be too hard and sad to be here with out my mom, but it turned out to be okay and I realized that my dad needs us to come and visit.  I think it helps to make it easier for him to stay in his house, which is what I'm pretty sure he wants to do.  He also really needs me to come and deep clean his house for him every 6 months or so.

Zion National Park - March 16, 2014

Sunday - March 16, 2014
We spent the day at Zion National Park.  It was really busy because it was spring break for a lot of people.  We had a hard time finding a spot to park.  We ended up parking in a pull-out area off the side of the road.  We thought we would hike over to the place we had wanted to go.  We wanted to go see were the start of the hike through the narrows was, but it was too crowded.  We didn't plan to hike the narrows.  We want to do that sometime, but we weren't prepared to do it today.  Anyway, so we found a trail near the spot where we parked and began to hike.  We hiked over to the next little pull out area and we sat for a little while.  While we were resting, I took a lot of pictures of the kids.  They wanted me to take a picture of them looking like they were going to fall, then photoshop it onto a picture of the tall mountain behind them, so it would look like they were going to fall off of a cliff.  We had fun taking their pictures.

After our break, Grandpa decided that he didn't want to finish the hike with us.  So, he stayed there, while we hiked.  We didn't go too much farther before the brush started to get too thick and we turned around.  My dad ended up being able to see us from the road for most of the hike, so he followed us that way.  When we decided to turn around, we just headed up to the road and hiked back to the sitting area.  Roger, the kids, and I decided to go back on the hiking trail at this point.  Hiking on the road made me too nervous that one of us would get run over.  My dad stayed on the road, since the thought of hiking down to the trail was not very appealing to him.

After our hike, we got back in the truck and headed for a short drive so we could go through one of the tunnels.  Right after we got out of the tunnel, we noticed that there was a little parking lot, so we pulled in.  Then we noticed some steps across the street from the parking lot.  We couldn't resist going to see what it was.  Brinley and my dad didn't want to come with us, so they stayed with the truck.  We thought it was probably just a little over look, but it turned out to be a hike.  It was a really fun and pretty hike.

The hike took us to a look out.  Someone there, took a pictures of us.

 On our way back down, we ran into Brinley and Grandpa.  They came to find us since we were taking so long.  We hiked back a little ways with them, then we turned around and headed back to the truck.

 On the way back to Grandpa's house, we stopped to see a ghost town - Grafton, Utah.  The movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was filmed here.  Grafton was settled in 1859, but the town was nearly destroyed during the great flood of 1862.  The residents all moved a mile upstream on the Virgin Rover and built a new town they named Grafton, after Grafton, Mass.
In 1866, Utah was in the midst of the Black Hawk War and Grafton was one of the many remote settlements that were abandoned for fear of Indian attacks.  People began returning on 1868, but flooding from the notoriously volatile Virgin River again became a major threat to the town's safety.  By the early 1900s, most of the residents had moved away and only a few families remained.
The Grafton Heritage Partnership restored and protects the town's remaining structures.

 The school house was built in 1886 and is one of the most photographed ghost town buildings in the American west.

On the way home from Grafton, we passed through Rockville.  Rockville was in the news in December.  Here is a link to the story.  A boulder fell from the mountain in the night and smashed a house.  The two residents who lived there were killed when it happened.  Anyway, we stopped to see what was left as we drove by on our way to Grandpa's house.  This is what is there now.

 Here are some pictures from the news.  This is what it looked like before and what it looked like right after it happened.