Reunion-ing and Big Girl Beds

We had the Horrocks reunion last week.  A good time as always, even though we were only able to attend abt 3/4 of the fun.  We missed out on Cowabunga Bay early Friday, but made it down to Daryl and Teri's house for dinner and movie on the lawn.   It was so much fun.  The girls were in heaven having so many cousins to play with, and then when the movie screen got all blown up and ready and the popcorn machine started popping, there was even more excitement.  We watched How to Train Your Dragon (which I love...so funny), and listened to the very loud crickets.  The girls all sat on the blankets on the ground with Aunt Ashley.  Even Brookie sat there the whole time, and only at the very end, at almost 11pm she came over to snuggle mom.  I was impressed. 

Then the next day we headed up to Park City to just hang out, shop, do the Alpine slide, zip line, coaster, etc.  Well, right after we bought our tickets, it started to sprinkle.  Then the sun came out, blazing hot for about 20 mins...then it started to sprinkle again.  And kept sprinkling.  By this time we had been in line about 45 mins and were 3/4 way to the front.  We decided to stick it out and hope a bunch of people bailed while it was on a "rain hold"  they can't operate till the rain quits and the track dries off.  And of course a bunch of people bailed.  But since we were only there for the afternoon, and weren't coming back, we stuck it out.  We got soaked.  But we were at the front.  Like 5 people from the very front of the line.  Makayla had been SO patient the entire time, people around me kept saying how impressed they were that she wasn't whining or crying from sheer boredom.  She was awesome.  It had finally stopped raining a short while after we'd been there about 1hr 15 mins.  So were were waiting for them to dry the track, when BOOM...major thunder.  Then the rain started up again, and they had lightening at the top of the mtn, so they had to close for the day.  Makayla was DEVASTATED.  The tears finally came, and she didn't understand why we weren't coming back later.  Ugh...it was a major bummer.  But out tickets are good til October...so hopefully we can go down and do some back to school shopping at the outlet mall soon and redeem our ride! 
This was her standing with the slide in the background shortly before it started raining again, when we were about 3/4 way to the front of the line.

After that disappointment, we headed up to Uncle Lynn's cabin in Oakley.  Abt a 30 minute drive from Park City.  Beautiful drive by the way.  We loved it.  Especially in the rain.  It looked so pretty.  Stayed there and ate dinner in the rain.  Nothing like waiting out an incredible thunderstorm in a small cozy cabin filled with family.  It was great.  Then we headed home after dinner.  We had to drive back to Logan that night, so we were one of the first to leave.  We had a great time though, and can't wait till next year!  Hopefully by then I'll have a new camera so I can take more pics!  I just use my crummy phone camera now, so it's not really worth it to take great pics, cause they don't turn out very well.
Oh well. 

And on to the big girl bed!
We've been looking and looking for a twin bed for Brookie forever.  She's older than Makayla was when we put her in her big girl bed.  We just couldn't find anything for fairly (extremely) cheap that we liked.  Not even something I could re-paint.  So we just went with the crib she is already in and took the front panel off, converting it to a day bed.  It's still got the small crib mattress in there, so it's really low to the ground.  Which is probably good, since I'm sure she'll fall out once or twice.  If she's like Makayla, once is all it will take!  So for now, she's all set!  We're still looking for a small bookshelf to put in there, and a stand up 5 drawer dresser for me to re-do, or if we find a nice one for cheap that I don't have to re-do...but those odds are slim, since we don't like paying for the nice new things.   Not that we don't like them, but they're not in the budget at this point in time.  So we're going for cheap.  Might have to hit up some garage sales and see if we can find a diamond in the rough.

All ready for bed!!  So excited.

And good night!

Fireworks, Projects and fun!

Lately we've been planning.  Lots of planning,  We have a road trip coming up in a few months, and 4 or 5 yard projects to tackle, and lots of playing and summer fun in between.  Who knew yard projects were so expensive!?  So we're spreading them out and tackling them one at a time in hopes to get them all done before fall comes around.
Our first project:  Small retaining wall by pine tree.  We have one area along the sidewalk with a few aspen trees and a pine tree, and the landscaping goes along this bed on the yard side of it, but along the sidewalk, nothing.  And it is sloped quite a bit, so any time it rains, all the dirt gets washed onto the sidewalk...and kids like to play in it, and kick dirt around, and it's just messy.  So Jason decided he wanted to tackle that first.  We went and found some really nice stone pavers and got started. 
I forgot to take a before pic...but here's the first row almost done.

 The man...a.k.a. Jason, doing his manly thing...haha.  I just sat back and watched pretty much...I was useless.  And those stones are heavy.  Not saying I couldn't lift them, but I AM saying, I didn't enjoy it.

 We were going to stop at 2 rows, but I thought 3 would look better, so Jason went back to the store for more stones.... :)

 And the finished product...ahhhh....so much better.  Now I just need to get my hands in that dirt and plant a bunch of stuff to make it look pretty.  :)

 Ta da!  That was fun.

Next project...probably planting a tree or two in the back yard.  Three cheers for SHADE! 
Now onto the fireworks!  They were fun.  That's about all I have to say about them.  Since all pics are now taken with my phone camera (which is NOT great), I haven't been taking alot of pictures lately.  I need to give in and just get a new camera someday.  Maybe after all the yard projects.  But for now, here are some kind of ok pics of the fireworks from my phone.  The only reason why I took pics of fireworks at all was because the moon was just coming over the mountains behind them and it was huge and full and looked super cool.  So really I guess I was trying to take pics of the cool moon, and the fireworks were an added bonus. 
I wish you could see the mountains a bit more, but it looked so cool. 

 Woohoo!!

And I'm throwing these pics of the girls in just for fun, cause I took these pics today, and they are cute! 
Slip n' slide!   Cause really who doesn't love a good water slide on a 96 F day?

 We got Kayla a hair cut the other day, and apparently the shorter it is, the curlier her hair gets.  I knew it had some natural curl to it, but it just keeps getting more and more.  So funny, because it used to be straight as a stick!  So cute.  She is in love with her new hair cut. 

And that's all folks.  Next up, Cache Valley Cruise In.

Summerfest

Every year we look forward to Summerfest.  It's a lovely craft/art/music festival for 3 days in downtown Logan.  We have our favorite artists we look forward to seeing every year, and always see new things we like/wish we could afford.  A lot of it tends to be very pricey since it's all handmade stuff.  This year there was a definitely noticeable decrease in vendors.  And still masses and masses of people...everywhere...let me just tell you how fun it was negotiating the narrow sidewalks full of people while pushing a double stroller...and trying to stop and look at things.  I felt like an elephant.  Eventually I made Jason be the elephant.  :)
So this year we walked away with nothing, as our favorite artist we buy something from every year wasn't there this year.  But we did treat ourselves to some art fair food.  Lots of places to choose from, and me and Jason split up in order to get through lines faster and when we met up, we both had BBQ pork sandwiches.  Different vendors, and different side dishes.  But both BBQ.  Great minds think alike.
We also treated the girls to the most gigantic thing of cotton candy I have ever seen.  It was seriously almost as big as Brookie.  And the girls were in HEAVEN.  And I picked the worst day to forget to stash some wipes in my purse.  Woops!  Good thing they had some little sani-wipes at the booth.

 Look at the size of that thing!!

 Brookie enjoying her first cotton candy snack from Grandma.

 My fave :)

Then on the way out to our car we ended up walking by the Kettle Corn booth....yikes.  That stuff is my WEAKNESS!!  I love love love it.  And Jason and I were having movie night at home that night so we decided to get one to go.  Let's just say almost half of it was gone before we even got home, and it was a very large bag of kettle corn!
Summerfest is always fun, even just to get out and walk around daydreaming of all the awesome artwork, and people watching of course.  One of my favorite pass-times.

Family Pizza Night

Sick of all the updating posts yet?  :)  Here's one more for ya.
We took the girls out to eat at Piza Pie Cafe the other night.  We haven't actually taken them out to eat a whole lot.  A few horrible experiences when Brooklyn was a little younger have kept us at home most of the time.  But we decided to go, since we had some awesome coupons, and me and Jason love that place. 
Kayla and her daddy.  

 Me trying to get Brooklyn to smile...

 Trying again...

 One more time....

 This was as close as we came.  Too bad she was looking at me and not the camera!  But it turned out to be a cute pic!

 The girls did SO good, and really loved the place! 
Makayla ate with her pinky up the whole time...it cracked us up. 

Tough Mudder

 So Jason and his sister Ashley just got back from a weekend trip to Colorado.  They stayed at a super fancy ski resort.  It was gorgeous!!  They were there for a Tough Mudder event.  13 miles, obstacles, mud, ice, electric shockers...basically torture in my opinion.  But they had an awesome time, and Jason said he'd even do it again!  His legs are torn up...I told him it looked like he was dragged across pavement or something.  Ashley's friend Christos also joined them. 

 They got to explore Denver a bit.  They actually stayed in a town called Avon I think...I could be wrong on that...but Denver was only an hour or so away.

 This was after the race...my pictures never download in the order I want....

 At a Rockies game!

They had a good time!!  Jason wants to do another one in Salt Lake in October....brrrrrrr......

The Graduate, the Bird and the Cowgirl

Sounds like a really interesting story title eh?  Not really.
My littlest brother Bryon graduated high school!  What!?  I swear he's still like 6 years old.
But it's true, he's on to bigger and better things....like exploring Europe right now...what!!??  Yes, that's right.  He's a bit spoiled, and we all (and he) knows it!
There he is marching in!

 And sitting RIGHT in front of us!  We had good front row seats :)

 And poor Brookie was SO tired, she snuggled Grandma the whole time.  Look at that smooshy face!

Hard to believe next year Bryon will be turning in his mission papers!  Holy cow.

Makayla started swim class.  She does much better than I thought she would do.  She pretty much does everything except go under and open her eyes.  Even going under sometimes she needs to be talked into....but I'm pretty sure I know where she got that from...I remember myself being really tentative in the water, and HATING getting my face wet.  But in the last 2 weeks she has drastically improved in alot of areas.  So we're going for another 2 week session!  She passed the first level!  

 And to make it even better, she's in class with her adorable cousin Haylee!  And it's just the 2 of them...for now, I think next week they have 4 kids total.  And their teacher is SO awesome with them.  She loves him.  Too bad they rotate teachers every 2 weeks.  But that's also probably a good thing. 

 And here is our little friend.  She sits on top of our window AC unit and pecks at the window...every morning, at 5am...like our personal little alarm clock...set about 2 hours too early!

 And here's the cowgirl!  Playing dress up at cousin night at Gordon and Kristi's house!

 This pic was just too cute, so I stuck it in.  Makayla was being ultra sweet this day.  She wanted to hold Brookie's hand everywhere we went!

So Long Pre-School!

For a few months anyway, we are free!!!!  Ok, not really "free" I guess.  We still have lots going on.  And apparently I am way behind on blogging, because the last post was from Jason's birthday almost a month ago!
 Makayla graduated from Melody Lane Preschool (1st year) in May.  She'll go again in the fall, 3 days a week instead of 2 in the 4yr old class.  She absolutely LOVES preschool and got so mad when we left and I said she didn't have to go again for a few months. 

Here she is with her class.  These photos are terrible, I am aware.  My camera has got one foot in the grave, and I was in a really terrible spot for pictures.  And not wanting to ruin anyone else's picture taking I didn't stand up for a better position.   So I made it work as best I could.   

 She learned the alphabet in sign language.

 Played a cool stick song! 

 And was really sad to say goodbye to her teachers!  They really are amazing ladies. 

So now on to swimming lessons and lots of summer fun!