After being married for over 10 years, we were finally able to take a vacation with Casey's dad and Curtis and his family. We headed to St. George to a time share that Ben was able to get. It was a beautiful place, but still being developed so there wasn't much around it except dirt. Jill is always good to bring along fun things for the kids to do. They painted ceramic bear banks, made wooden butterflies and cars, and put together hot pads. They loved it!

We went to a place called Anti-Gravity. They had several trampolines put together as well as up on the wall. They also had blow up slides for the little kids. You could play dodge ball on one set of the tramps and just jump around on the other set. I couldn't believe how many tramps were in the place.

We ended up having beautiful weather while we were there. Not only did we swim every day (which somehow I ended up not taking any pictures), but one hot day, we took the kids to a splash pad/stream in the middle of town. The kids loved getting wet.

Thanks for a great time Ben, Jill, Curtis, Kari, Brayden, Jake and Madison!

Preschool end of year

Zoey finished her first year of Preschool, so her class celebrated my going to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden. Poor Casey had to suffer and take all 3...hehehehe! The kids had fun, but I don't think Casey enjoyed himself quite as much!

My yard

I have been working like crazy to finish our backyard, somewhat re-do the front yard with more flower areas, and put in my garden. I must admit that it isn't perfect, but I am happy for now.

My garden is actually sprouting up, and most of my flowers are surviving in the front for living in the garage for over a month!
Garden...most of my sprouts you can't see in this picture, but all the rows have things popping up.

We also finished laying sod in the backyard.

The front has been a project since the area next to the house is where we cut out grass, planted plants, put down weed prevention fabric and covered in rocks. We also finally got our flag pole put in...we got it for Christmas about 5 years ago! :)

Easter 2011 with my kids is always entertaining, especially dying eggs. They all want to do everything quickly and without help. Needless to say, we survived the process without too much drama.
Here is Maizy with one of her eggs. We don't do the fancy eggs yet...dye and stickers are plenty for my young kids. We will get more technical as they get older!

Zoey was extremely proud of her green egg.

Zander really didn't care about any stickers, he just wanted to keep putting them in the dye.

here is our finished product. Since good 'ol mom (me) is the only one who eats boiled eggs, we try not to do too many and be wasteful.

The kids got new Easter clothes for church. They looked so cute, but they all take after their father and squint like crazy in the sun.

The Easter celebration at the Jones' is always entertaining. We were missing a few family members this year, so hopefully we can get them all next year.

The Wilde Easter party came a little late, but we were able to get a few shots of the kids together...what a cute little bunch!

I love traditions...for the most part. My Grandma always did an Easter egg hunt with our names on the eggs. It is fun for the kids to have to find their own eggs and try to keep the ones they do find that aren't theirs a secret.

My Journey: Part Seven...I think!

Well, I have made a few minor changed over the last little bit since I gained 5 pounds back even though I was still exercising. I am introducing that nasty four letter word that really should be a swear word in every language on the planet...DIET!!! Let's just say that I have good days (when I get enough sleep) and I have bad days (pretty much every Thursday when I don't really get to sleep after my night shift). I pretty much eat either oatmeal or yogurt/granola for breakfast instead of joining the kids with pancakes or waffles. For lunch, I am trying to do the light thing with veggies, boiled eggs, salads, etc. Then, for dinner, I join the family. It goes really well (lost 4 pounds) until we have leftovers. I am the type that absolutely hates to waste food. When we had leftovers before, I would eat them for lunch. I have been trying to not have as many leftovers, or have "leftover" dinners to cover that, but sometimes my lunch still consists of them since we have so many...so kill me! Hopefully this will get me back on the right weight loss plan with my exercising, just don't mention the word "diet" to me since I absolutely hate that word!

My Journey...part I can't remember

Trying to lose weight sucks! No more success to report...$%^&&#%!!!

Snow, snow, snow

It has been such an interesting winter here in Utah. We go from absolutely freezing temperatures dropping into negative numbers to warm enough to start melting the reservoir ice and snow. Although I do not like driving in it or shoveling it, I still have been loving the snow. It is so beautiful to see everything covered in clean, white snow. This winter has dumped quite a bit of snow a few times. Right before New Year, we had a couple days of solid snow fall. The piles that accumulated reminded me of the piles we used to have when we were kids...which we haven't seen that much snow in quite some time. I couldn't resist taking pictures of the piles in our front yard as well as a pile across the street that was taller than trucks that were passing by.

Even though it was only 11 degrees outside on New Years Day, we decided to take the kids sledding since we both had the day off. The girls loved it, but Zander wasn't so sure. We just took them up to the Elementary school here in Coalville that has a small hill that is perfect for little kids to go sledding on. They were worn out after a short period of time.

Even my mom joined us for the festivities. I love having my parents live so close. My kids absolutely adore both of them and my mom is always there for me when I need her. We would have dragged my dad along too, but as most of you know he was already enjoying snow higher up in the Uintahs on his snowmobile.

We snuck over the fence and played on the playground for a while. My kids just couldn't pass it up.