Blanding

Oh Blanding,UT how we miss you.....NOT! Ok, so instead of focusing on all the not so fun parts of being in a city with 3,000 people, one grocery store and zero phone reception. I've decided to focus more on the positive parts of our 3 week visit to this small small little town. 

First off after two weeks of being bored out of my mind I informed JD that we were going out to eat. So out of the 3 choices they had in town we decided to try a place called "The Patio." It kind of reminded me of Purple Turtle....if any of you have been there.. 

YUM!

JD got the famous Big B Burger (the only difference from mine is that it had pickles and sauce.)

Cool.

Luckily the house was stocked with 4 wonderfully large puzzles for Jd and the girls to work on. I think they finished 3 of them... Lydia and emree loved helping daddy finish these. 

The young couple downstairs were so nice and allowed us to go out and feed there bunnies what ever we wanted. So that is what we did.....every....single.....day. The bunnies were fun to see and they really did eat anything the girls gave them, which made it fun for them. 

One of the weekends that we were there we decided to go down to Farmington, NM and visit some of our good friends Brad and Mary. We had such a blast with them and feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends. There little boy is so adorable and guess what they named him?  JD! This is Jd holding his name sake   JD junior. 

We wanted to stop by the Four Corners Monument on our way down to NM, but alas it was closed by the time we got there. So this is as close as we got. Don't worry we weren't too sad about that.

Sorry some of these pics are out of order, but Brad and Mary took us to a really fun indoor swimming place.  They had a huge water slide there that both of our girls absolutely could not get enough of. That's right, emree was squealing the whole time down and after going down it once didn't want to do anything else. 

Here is a pic of our good friends. And can I just say how kind they were to drive out over an hour to come pick us up after getting a flat tire in the middle of the night in the middle of no where in the rain. They even let us stay an extra night with them. We feel so extremely blessed to know such wonderful people.

After visiting an Indian Pow wow down in Monticello on the Indian reservation, (see video below) We stopped off in Bluff  to visit a balloon glow they were having and also to see the Historic Bluff Fort. 

This was taken from within our car since Lydia was so scared of the giant balloons, and for some reason JD thinks it's pretty cool. All it reminds me of is how dirty our car is. But to each their own I guess.

Here is JD and emree inside an authentic Navajo Kiva. This is a huge circular hole in the ground where they would cook their food.  Pretty cool.

Here is a clip from the Pow Wow we went to. We felt a little out of place with our platinum blonde pale faced little girls running around, until the missionaries walked in of course. 

We got to see a few of the beautiful arches there and our girls were such good troopers and hiked 3 miles round trip to see one of them. It was a lot of fun.

Kiva

Over all it was an interesting experience, not one that I would like to experience any time soon. But at least we have some good memories to look back on. 

Downtown

We took some trips downtown recently.  Lydia has been wanting to ride the trax for sometime now because she sees her dad taking the trax to work.  So we announced the big news to Lydia and she was so happy!  It was enjoyable for the first 10 minutes and then Emree got a little restless and angry as well as and putting her mouth on everything.

Here's the first big snowfall we had a couple weeks ago.  It snowed about 3 days straight it seemed like.  Well McCall had to work that Saturday, so I was able to take the girls out and play in the snow.  Emree hated it and Lydia was in love.  So I put Emree to bed and Lydia and I made a nice big snowman.  Everytime thereafter when we'd go outside, she'd shreek "Snowman" and go running to the spot where it was.

These girls love the piano and have made me go inactive playing because every time I do sit down to play they swarm me and cry until I let them sit on my lap and take over.  Emree looks a little possessed in this picture, she's thinking, "wa haha I just composed the most amazing concerto at the youngest age ever."

And then McCall and grandma went to the Dickens festival this last weekend.  I wasn't there so I can't comment much, but this picture is pretty slick.

Emree loves giving Lydia hugs, which usually results in Lydia just standing there not accepting the hug.  But we were lucky enough to catch one of her hugs in action.  She is such a sweetie!  It melts my heart each time she does it, in a manly sort of way.

Right before church, cheeziness!

And I found this picture of Lydia that I love, thought I'd post it again.

Halloween 2012

Halloween was fun this year.  Lydia was so excited about trick or treating and would talk about it every day, and now that it's over she asked for a treat from her Halloween candy every 10 minutes.  Lydia was 'tangled', we found a pretty purple dress at Savers, and McCall couldn't resist putting makeup on her.  Lydia couldn't stop staring at herself when she had that makeup on, it may mean trouble in the future.

 We were excited we didn't have too lame of a costume this year.  Nonetheless I had to educate a few people on who we were at our ward halloween party.  We didn't get a good picture of Emree but she was a dragon and everyone thought she was a boy.  Lydia screamed bloody murder when I took her treat away from her during the party.  Everyone looked at me like I was an evil parent, but I felt justified considering she had eaten no dinner, one cookie covered in frosting, a doughnut and a half, dozen skittles, a couple more candies.

 The blue hair was way too much for us that night and we went home with headaches because of the strong smell, so we decided to switch it up for Halloween night and the Halloween party with friends.  It just gave me another excuse to wear my sweet red pants.  Lydia and Emree were awesome trick or treaters, they only grabbed the chocolate unless there was none to be found, and they were so cute that most people would tell them to take 2 or 3, score for us.

 Emree being cute some time ago

Happy Fall Yal!

Wheeler Farm!

Sorry for the double take here...but seriously....is this not THE COOLEST chicken you have ever seen? I just couldn't get enough of that "Do". One of my highlights of the year, for sure. :)

 

  JD climbed this tree stump all by himself! Hurray for not getting hurt while doing so.

 



Camping!

Me and JD got the wonderful chance to go camping with some friends from his residency a little while back......and would I add....without the kiddos! (Thank you!) We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon and were able to snatch the last campsite available that night. It was absolutely gorgeous up there and I personally had an epic blast with my hubby!

Football!

We have had the fun opportunity, since being back in Utah, to go to BYU Football Games! It brings back so many memories of being in college again and getting to go with awesome family members makes it that much better. Not to mention I love going the the tailgating parties and getting lots of free stuff!

Childrens Museum in Salt Lake City!

Once a year we are wonderfully surprised with the fact that it's already free museum day again! So naturally we take the girlies to one of the biggest and bestest museums ever! The girls loved the museum and all the things they could do there. I would have to say that emree's favorite part was the miniature black piano she got to play, and lydia's would have to be the make believe grocery store! I was pretty excited myself about that as well...it was really cool! :) 

Carving Pumpkins with Cousins!

We had such a fun time carving our pumpkins this year with our wonderful cousins, Ann, Bryndon and Avery. Decorating Halloween cookies and eating yummy ice cream I believe was Lydia's favorite part of the night.





 

 

Those were just a couple things that we have been up to lately. I love this time of year with all the fun activities and memories we get to make as a family.