Boulder Mountain 2010

Casey & Cael spent last weekend on Boulder Mountain for the annual Smith Men's "Guy Only" camping trip. It was actually the start of the bow hunt and they spent the weekend road hunting and fishing with Casey's Dad and Uncles. Cael loves to go and it's a fun tradition. Because it's a guy's only weekend and Casey usually only has time to bow hunt one weekend a year, I have never been to Boulder Mountain. This year was different because at the first of the year Casey had decided not to re-sign up for the Dedicated Hunter Program. He has done the program for many years which entitles him to be able to hunt all three hunts, but he could only kill 2 deer in 3 years. They changed several of the rules which would of made him do more service hours and pay more money. After much deliberation and his dad and brother voting against doing it, he decided he would just put in for a regular tag.....he was going to teach the DWR a lesson! He ended up drawing an Archery tag so he planned on going down 2 weekends, since that would be the only deer hunting he would be allowed by the DWR....he sure showed them (ha ha)! Anyway, this year the women were allowed to go the 2ND weekend and my Mom and Dad tagged along too. The weather was really windy....I hate the wind! It did calm down enough that we were able to do some fishing at lower Bowns. Casey had told that the fishing was great and he wasn't kidding! I think between the group of us we caught over 15 fish with the kiddy pole's catching the most. Kensie caught her first fish and was so excited until it came out of the water. When she saw it she started to scream! It was so funny. My dad took a bunch of the fish back to camp to eat. I hate rainbow but he said he could cook it so I would like it. He spent several hours tending the fish and the kids had the best time watching and taste testing. Right before we were going to eat, my dad stepped away from the fish for a minute and when he got back the fish were fried...literally- they were black! All that work for nothing, he just laughed and said at least the kids got to taste it. The scenery was beautiful which make me want to go back, even though I thought the wind was going to blow the trailer over in the night!

Cael

Kaitlyn & Jakoye

This frog was too cute, I had to take a picture.

Cael & Grandpa Reid

Casey & Kensie

My Mom & Dad

Kaitlyn's first fish...she was so proud!

first day of kindergarten....

Cael was so excited for his first day at kindergarten. We started the morning off by making his favorite breakfast....scrambled eggs w/ ketchup. As it got closer to noon we started to get his clothes ready. He chose to wear his superman shirt and thought it was cool that Nathan Garrett wore the same one on the first day. He also packed his Batman backpack with his new folders, pencils, and erasers. I forgot that we were invited to send a present for the classroom, so at the last minute I hurried and threw some of the glue sticks that Grandma Linda had bought him in a bag. He wasn't happy about me giving his new glue sticks to his class and asks "why are you stealing from my grandma!?!" I told him that I wasn't stealing I just didn't have time to run to the store before class and as soon as he got home from school we would go to the store and replace them. When he got home I asked how it went and he told me it went good but all they did was listen and listen and listen.... I promised him that his teacher would spend a couple of days teaching the rules and then they would do more than just listen. He also told me that he made a new best friend but he couldn't remember his name. I love this age, you can be best friends with someone and not even know their name.

back to school night....:(

Cael & Mrs. Robison



I can't believe I have a child in Kindergarten! I'm getting so old. Cael was excited about going to back to school night, especially since the neighbor Ludlow kids had been on the count down for days. When we got there Cael had to go on a scavenger hunt around the class room to find different things. She said to have him find them, but Casey didn't listen very well and shouted out "Here it is Cael!" Hopefully Cael doesn't have his listening skills or we're going to be in trouble this year. He sits on a table with Jimmy Rosenbeck and Duncan Pay who are on our Soccer Team, so that made him excited. Cael also wanted to wear all his new school clothes to meet his teacher. He chose his Ninja Pizza shirt and insisted on wearing his new undies and socks too. I'm actually Ok with him going to school now after I saw how excited he was to start. Here's to a good year!

A Fair time

To be honest, I really wasn't into the fair this year, but we did make it down to some of the things.

Halle & Nala in the lead line. I might be a little bias, but I totally think they should have won.

ATV Rodeo

We also went to the derby on Saturday. It was entertaining as usual and the kids loved it. The best part was the powder puff when it came down to Nephi girls fighting for the title. Jaden Jackson won and it was fun to cheer her on! Maybe next year we'll be in the mood to get more involve....I said maybe!

Swimming Lessons 2010

The boys couldn't wait for swimming to start. We usually wait until the last session because everything is slowing down and the weather is usually really hot. They did have a couple of day that it was cold and the girls wanted to get out, but the weather did turn out to be pretty comfortable. We signed the girls up this year and I really didn't think Kensie would cooperated, but she surprised me by only hesitating for a minute and then jumped right in. She is not scared of the water at all, which scares me. The boys were a year older when we put them in for the first time and they were scared to death and wouldn't even go off the slide. I think Gavyn spent the whole first year not even getting his hair wet. I don't know if it's because the girls are younger and they don't have that sense of fear, but Kensie wanted to go off the diving boards after only being there a few minutes. The boys still didn't get up the courage to do that this year. The girls teachers were Jenny Dinkle and Kara Menlove and the boys had Delanee Hoog and Jared Menlove. They all did good and when it came time for them to pass off their skills the girls passed, but are too little to move on. I couldn't believe the girls passed, it took the boys 2 years to pass off that class. The boys will need to repeat the tadpole class too, but I knew they would probably have them do this class a couple of years.

Back float
Cael looks so muscly in this picture....future Phelps???

Jenny and Kensie

They did let the girls go off the diving boards until Halle decided to jump off with-out help. Scared us all to death including the life guard who couldn't catch her fast enough. The life guard in the water had to swim down and grab her. That pretty much ended that trick for the year.

the new additions...

These two are Coyote and ladybug our new hermit crabs that the kids bought at the craft show during the stampede. They are pretty much the lamest pets a person could own! The night we got them Coyote (Cael's blue one) climbed the cage and stayed in the same spot for days. Then he made his way back down to the bottom and I've not seen him move until today when he crawled into the water dish. I thought Oh that lazy crab is going to actual move. As the day went on I noticed that he started to come out of his shell. I thought he was taking a bath, but it turns out he was committing suicide and died in the water dish. I didn't want Cael to know since we've only had these creatures for 2 weeks so I had Casey throw the crab away and leave the shell. I'm sure he'll never notice since the dang things never moved anyway! Ladybug (Kensie red one) does not move at all, but is still alive. It's like having a rock garden. I shouldn't have mentioned garden because now I'm reminded of the meal I could have at the the Olive garden for what we paid for these stupid things! I knew I should have bought fish instead, at least they move!

Thousand Lakes Trip...

At the first of the summer we talked about going on a big family vacation, but after going over some different idea's we decided that the kids would have just as much fun going camping for a week. Casey said he could take off some extra day so that we could go longer than just a weekend. The original plan was to go to Beaver Mountain and leave on a Wednesday and come back Sunday or Monday. Beaver Mountain is my favorite place and I was looking forward to some cooler weather. The guys then decided it would be funner to go to Thousand lakes and take a ride over to the Henry's and look for deer. Now I was not happy about this one bit for many reasons. The first reason was I knew it would be hot. Thousand Lakes is right by Capital Reef (which is desert!) and they were wanting to go to the Henry's (also desert). Next reason was I wanted to camp not be driving all day in the heat to look for deer (it's not the deer hunt!). I used map quest and found out that The Henry's were 2.5 hours away from camp! I just pictured my kids in a truck for 5 hours in the heat. The last reason was that I feel like Thousand Lakes is the only place we go. A couple of years ago Casey had a deer tag down there and we literally went down every other weekend. Anyway, after some arguing and me threatening to not go I finally agreed to go on this trip and not complain if he would take me to Beaver over Labor Day. We had planned on leaving on Wednesday, but then noticed the truck had a bad tire and we had to wait until Thursday to actually leave town. Cael went down on Wednesday with Gary & Linda and we finally made it down there Thursday afternoon. Since we had to wait another day, we made the best of it and went and watch Eclipse. I loved it and I'm Team Jacob for sure!

Kensie with her babies

Even though I was not looking forward to the Henry's drive I kept my promise and didn't complain. We actually had a really good time and I'm glad we went. Most of the truck ride was through Capital Reef and it was a beautiful which made time go by quick.

I know....I know....she's the cutest little biker you've ever seen!

The road had been washed out so we drove the rest of the way on the bikes. This was Casey's favorite part of the whole weekend!

I took this of my Father-in-Law so I had proof a RZR had to pull his 4 wheeler out!

Lunch

excuse this photo of Kensie's baby.... I didn't notice until after.

Beautiful ....but extremely hot!!! I'm pretty sure Satan ran out in front of us at one point cause it was hotter than hell. It was also dusty and Kensie's white shirt was literally brown by the end of the day. We had decided to stop in Torrey and get dinner since we were so late getting back. Torrey is a tourist trap and the drive-in's were bombed. We all had mud and dirt all over us and I thought we would just blend in, but it turns out that people staying in trailer courts don't get as dirty as us. I wiped my kids faces off before we got out and did the best to try and make them look like they didn't just come out of a dust bowl. Kalee almost punched a girl who she said was "looking Kensie up and down with a disgusted look on her face!" This girl obviously has never had fun and got dirty. I'm glad I didn't see her or I might have had to say something especially since Kensie looked cuter dirty than her girl was cleaned up! Snob!

Grandpa Gary gave Cael a knife at the start of the weekend, so he spent a lot of time marking his territory. Right before we left he hurried and carved his name on one last tree. I asked him why he had to do that last one and he answered "i only had done 4 and I'm 5 so I did 5". It kept him entertained and he even carved a C for Casey and a T for me.

This was our Saturday ride and was a little steep and Rocky, but that's how we like um!

Whittling....

Kurt Memmott made the kids these guns.

Casey's fish that he caught within 10 minutes of being there.

Cael reeling his fish in, Kensie was screaming at this point.

Her face was clean before she had an itch.

Kensie & Grandma Linda

Smores...

Kurt & Casey

It turned out to be a great week and I'm glad we had the chance to get away for a few days.