Going Private

I've decided it's time to go private with my blog. If you would like to continue to read the new blog, please leave a comment with your e-mail address and I will send you an invitation. I have changed the comment moderation and your e-mail address will be hidden. Thanks for visiting :)

Red Crayon

I had a nice surprise when I opened my clothes dryer today. My sweet daughter, Zaylia, left a red crayon in her shorts and most of the clothes now are speckled with red crayon! I have them soaking, but I'm afraid they will be ruined. So if you have any tips, I am all ears.

Amazing

Amazing, I'm actually posting on my blog!

We've had a busy couple of months and I finally downloaded all our pictures from the past 2 months. A few of the highlights from the past two months, starting from the most recent include:

Jazilyn's first birthday. She wasn't quite sure what to do with her cake.

Then she decided to just go for it!

Yum, I think she likes it!

Kylianne and Zaylia started dance lessons. This is Kylianne's third year and Zaylia's first year. They were both very excited!

On Labor day, our extended family went fishing at Pass Lake in the Unitas. We ate a very delicious trout dinner that night!

The girls pet a possum at the zoo.

Our visit to the zoo wasn't complete until the girls rode the carousel.

We saw this strange van on the road on the way to the zoo. I never knew there was someone who liked stuffed animals this much... hmmm, except maybe Toby. For any of you that don't already know, we have a HUGE beanie baby collection, and they are NOT mine.... (Except for the one that Toby proposed to me with, I suppose.)

Kylianne started Kindergarten!!! I still have mixed emotions about her and Kindergarten, but she absolutely loves it.

We went to Idaho for a family reunion and my sister-in-law Danae snapped these adorable pics of Jazilyn.

Kylianne had her Suzuki book one piano recital with her teacher, Grandma Shari while we were in Idaho.

Aunt Carlene playing around with some of the cousins in Idaho. We had a slip'n slide out and none of the kids knew what to do, so Carlene got to demonstrate :)

The girls had lots of fun with their grandparents, cousins and aunts and uncles in Idaho. I wish we could see them all more often.

Uh-oh, Grandma Shari locked her keys in the trailer. Kylianne came to the rescue!

Last, but certainly not least, we went camping in the Unitas for a week. We had a few sleepless nights, but it was a fun trip with lots of yummy fish!

And if anyone is actually still reading this, here's hoping my next blog post will be sooner!

Yellowstone

Our family enjoyed a quick trip to Yellowstone National Park this past weekend. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we are glad we were able to sneak away for a few days.

On Friday, we went on a 2 hikes around some of the geysers, hot springs and mud pots with our 3 little girls. That in itself was an adventure! One of the wheels on our stroller kept coming loose and at one point as we were taking the stroller up some stairs, the wheel fell off and started rolling down the stairs. Luckily someone grabbed it for us before it rolled into a boiling hot spring! We fixed the stroller and watched it a bit closer after that "incident".

It started raining during one the hikes and so I got the umbrellas out, which in hindsight was not a great idea. Many tears were shed as the girls fought over who got the hold the pink umbrella. We finally we decided that Jazilyn needed it the most, so Toby tied it onto the stroller. (I wish I would have snapped a picture of that, it was ingenious...)

Then Zaylia fell off of the front of the stroller on one of the hikes and scratched her knee, poor girl. She acted like she could barely walk and limped around until I carried her the rest of the way. Luckily we had a first aid kit in the car and we were able to make it all better with a bandaid. It must have been a magic bandaid because she was able to walk and run perfectly fine as soon as the bandaid was in place.

On Saturday, we went to the grand canyon of Yellowstone park and saw the waterfalls.

We also loved spotting the wildlife at Yellowstone. We saw many elk and buffalo and some were right next to the road! We also spotted a fox, a bald eagle, two baby deer and a few big horned sheep.

As were on our way out of the park we were lucky to spot this right next to the road...

...Yep, that's a baby grizzly bear. We had told the girls that we might get lucky and see a bear, but I highly doubted it. I am very surprised that this bear was right next to the road and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was a great ending to our Yellowstone adventure.

There were so many amazing sight to see, I'm sure we could have spent a week up there. It's been at least ten years since I have visited the park and I really hope we make it back there before ten years have gone by.

Waterfall

I've been itching to go a hike for a while and so Toby and I decided to head up to Waterfall canyon yesterday evening. When I put my camelbak on the straps were really loose. I wondered why for a few seconds until I realized that the last time it was used I was very pregnant with Jazilyn. It definitely has been way too long since we've been hiking!

Toby never has hiked up waterfall canyon and I haven't been up there in over 10 years. It was a nice little hike and the waterfall at the top is breathtaking. As we were hiking back, we enjoyed this beautiful sunset. The perfect ending to a great day. Hopefully we will have the chance to hike a few more mountains this summer.



Earlier in the day we took the girls swimming. Kylianne and Zaylia are so much more daring this year. They both will now jump into the deep water unassisted and that is a huge improvement from last year. They both love to do bobs and Kylianne has just about mastered the back float. Jazilyn loves the water too and wasn't too happy when it was time to go.

Rainbows

We were all doing a little bit of this

and this

last weekend at Bear Lake, when out of the blue, these "magic rainbows" appeared in the sky.

I have never seen rainbows like these before and they were beautiful and added a little extra to our trip. It was cold bear lake trip, around 60 degrees, but we had fun. The girls played in the water for a few minutes and decided after lots of shivering to just play in the sand.

We were fortunate to stay at my sister-in-laws cabin for a few days and enjoyed some much needed r&r. We were also able to spend some good times with uncle Andrew and aunt Crystal before they moved to Texas. We will surely miss them both and hope they can move back soon!!

Arson

Yesterday around noon, I was helping Kylianne with a piano lesson and noticed that many of my neighbors were out in the street. I was curious and went outside to find smoke coming out of my neighbor's house (3 doors down). I ran outside to see if there was anything I could do and was told by another neighbor that the fire department was on there way.

Then someone screamed, "She's still inside, I just saw her in the window". My heart just about stopped, there was a lot of smoke coming out and I was really worried about her. She seemed like such a nice lady. Every year she would bring around fresh produce she had grown in her garden for us and was always kind to us and the girls.

Back to the story--A couple of neighbors ran to her door and started pounding and telling her to get out. The first police woman arrived at this point and when she heard there was someone inside she beat the door down and pulled her out of the house. She started screaming and fighting the cop and wanted to go back inside. Unfortunately, she started the fire in her house by setting off fireworks in every room of the house. Apparently she had a lot of problems and was just about to have her house taken away and wanted to end it all. My heart hurts for her, it's such a sad story.

She also has 4 dogs and she had kept them in the house with her too! It just makes me sick that she wanted to take their lives as well... Luckily, all the dogs got out safely and are doing fine.

It took the fire department a good 2 hours to put the fire out and the house is pretty much destroyed.

My neighbor was charged later Saturday with arson, disorderly conduct and cruelty to animals, with possible other charges pending. I never would have thought she would do this and I feel so sorry for her.

This a pic of the fire dept trying to get control of the fire...