Hellfire and Backpacking

So we have had a very busy and fun week and a half. This last weekend we went to Hellfire. It is UROC (Utah Rocket Club) big rocket event out on the salt flats. The salt is an amazing place to be. We had fun flying and crashing rockets, swimming at the pool, and just hanging out on the salt. Here are a few pictures from our adventures on the salt.






The weekend previous we went backpacking in the High Uintahs to a lake called Quiant. We spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. For the most part it was great. It rained a little on Friday afternoon then all night Friday night, and most of the day Saturday. It finally cleared up Saturday evening and didn't rain again even though it threatened a lot. We did a lot of fishing, playing games, and just relaxing. It is a beautiful lake. Here are a few pictures from that weekend.

A week of fun

This week we have done several fun activities with my family. On Monday night we went to a Bees game.

They lost but we still enjoyed the game. On Tuesday we went up the canyon and spent a few hours playing, cooking dutch oven dinner and enjoying the out doors. I didn't take any pictures. Yesterday we went swimming at the American Fork Pool.
This morning we went to Timpanogus Cave.

The boys loved it. They did great hiking up and down. I forgot how chilly it is inside the cave.

There are so many neat things to see in the cave.

On the way down David kept telling people that the hike was worth it. Tomorrow we are off on a back packing trip for four days.

Weekend in Vernal

This weekend we went to Vernal to spend some time with Kelly's Family. On Saturday morning we hiked to a place called twin caves. They are two shallow caves on the hills above Vernal. It is a place the Indians used to camp out. There are remnants of them there. There are a some pectoglyphs in the rocks. Here is a picture of our family at the caves.

I don't know if you can see it but this is a picture of one of the pectoglyphs. It is an Indian necklace.

That afternoon we went and did some cliff jumping at Steinaker Reservoir.




The boys were very daring. They both jumped before I dared to jump. The water felt good on a hot afternoon. On Sunday we went white water rafting on the Green River. Kelly's Brother Bryce and his Daughter Alania along with Kelly's dad Evan and his wife SueAnn made up our group. We did a section of the Green that goes through Dinosaur National Monument. We had great rapids and calm areas that turned into big water fights. I ended up on the lunch boat that stayed out of most of the water fights and didn't have to paddle like everyone else. The kids had a blast trying to paddle, swimming in the river and riding the rapids.

The boys played in the river while we waited on the beach for lunch to be ready.

A picture of a water fight on the river.

Long time no post

I know it has been a very long time since I have posted anything. I'll start with the baby birds. In the spring I posted a picture of a bird nest. The birds finally laid eggs and here are the baby birds.

My boys took swimming lessons here is a picture of them with their teacher.

A couple of weeks ago I went with my family to the Oqurrah Mountain Temple open house.
Here we are outside the temple.

Now to switch gears a little bit. We have been pretty busy spending time with family lately. My little sister Chelsea got married a week and a half ago. We have been doing some fun activities getting ready for that. A couple of days before she got married we had a little bachelorette party. We went to the cheesecake factory for dinner all wearing little crowns and Chelsea in a ti era that said "Bride to be" and a red banner with lights flashing that said the same thing. They brought a cute cheesecake that chelsea dumped on the table.

Here we are altogether.

On the way home Kathryn's car broke down and we turned around to help her. Here we are standing around as Dad gets here car going again.

The week after Chelsea got married we went to Park City. Here is David coming down the slide.

We played in the park

and went to the Olympic winter sports park

We spent one day fishing at Smith and Morehousereservoir. They were actually stocking the lake while we were there. The kids had a good time throwing the fish back into lake.
My mom bought all the kids these cute sweatshirts and wanted a picture of them all together in their sweatshirts.

We found this cute spot to take the pictures.

We spent some time over at the resort playing. David climbed the rock wall.
Here's Kage playing on all the blow up bouncy toys.
We spent the morning of the Fourth of July up there before we had to check out. Here are the kids playing with bubbles before the parade started.

This week we have spent a couple of afternoons at the pool.
The boys have really enjoyed that. This has been a pretty random post but hopefully it fills anyone out there on our activities for the last few weeks.

Dinner around the world week 2

Well its week 2 of trying food from other countries. Today Kage picked Africa. We had a dish called Bobotie. It was a casserole type dish with hamburger, dried apricots, raisins, bread soaked in milk, curry, onion, garlic, and eggs poured on top. Once again the kids didn't like it, Kelly said it wasn't the worst meal he had ever had, but it wasn't the best. It was actually quite bland tasting. We also made a peanut bread that wasn't too bad. The boys actually liked it.

This is a random picture from this last weekend. On Friday afternoon we went up to the Utah outdoor show. They had this big slide that the boys rode a few times. The show ended up being very small, not a lot to look at or do. We did get some good information for our ATV trip we are planning on taking later this summer.

Saturday we went to the Air Show at Hill Airforce Base. I didn't carry my purse so I didn't have my camera. We went with my Dad, My brother-in-law Gregg and his two boys Colby, and Tyson, My brother Cameron and his wife Kathryn, and her parents. It was fun to see the planes fly and to walk through some of the planes.

Dinner around the world

I have this cookbook that is a children's world cookbook. I thought it would be fun while we have some time off for the summer if we tried some different foods from around the world. I asked David what country we should try food from. He suggested Iraq. This book didn't have anything specifically from Iraq but it did have food from the Middle East. Also my sister is living in Israel right now so I thought this would be fun to try. The first thing we tried was Hummus. Although the book did have a recipe for this I just bought some at the grocery store. David didn't really care for it but Kage really liked it. I served it with pita bread. It was the first time I had tried it too. I thought it was pretty good.

Here is a picture of the boys trying it out.

The main dish was a salad from Lebanon. It was called Tabboule. The strangest ingredient in this salad was cracked wheat. The dressing was made with lemon juice and olive oil. It also had cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, mint, onions, and lettuce. It wasn't too bad but the boy's did not like it. I think the dressing was a little too strong. The cracked wheat added an interesting texture.

For Dessert we tried a dish called Halva. It was made with a special flour called Semolin, Sugar, water, butter, vanilla. It didn't sound like it would taste bad but it was nasty. We will definitely not try that one again.

It ended up being a fun activity. The kids are already asking what country we are going to try food from next week. I told them we would wait until next week and decide because that was part of the fun of the activity. So now we having something fun to look forward to.