The Kite Festival

On Saturday we went to the annual kite festival in Sun River. This has been a favorite activity of ours since we moved here.












This year the wind wasn't too strong as in years past and although it was intermittent we were able to get our kites in the air.


















This event had even more signifigance as we learned that our dear Grandma Z had never flown a kite before. This was her first time! Go Grandma!
















After we were done flying kites we decided to enjoy the festival part of the day. The girls got to ride on these blow up games...
















Meet the lion (whose signifigance I still don't understand).


















Got our face painted...













had snow cones...













and rode the choo-choo.













All in all, it was an awesome day filled with good memories for everybody.

This video is of Lydia's reaction to the kites. She was VERY impressed!

Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend began with decorating eggs with Grandma Z. Everyone had a great time! This has been a long standing family tradition.











Saturday morning the Easter bunny came and put an egg trail down that led them to their baskets. This was Lydia's first time really getting into it.











Lila's basket


















That Easter Bunny is so smart. She, I mean HE, knew the kids were looking forward to going to the kite festival soon so he brought them all kites.

















Saturday night, we had a family dinner with Hunter, Josh, Chris, and Grandma and Grandpa. After a ham dinner we had a good time playing on the Wii. Lila happens to be the family bowling champion. Hunter was intrigued by that so here they are battling it out.

Over all it was a fun weekend filled with family and fun!

Emma's Farm Trip

Emma's kindergarten class had their spring field trip where they went to the Stout Family Farm. It was a lot of fun once we got there. They had us walk about a city block to the farm and I, not knowing if my stroller could handle the farm, had to carry Lydia the whole way and drag Lila behind me. Luckily a few rounds of Old McDonald helped us make the most of the walk.

Their farm is just the cutest, most quaint, farm I have ever been to. They had an orchard in their front yard, the house had a wrap around porch, tire and mattress swings in the back and cute little animals all around.

This picture is of the kids gathering around to get their instructions. You can see the horses, the mattress swing, and about 1/4 of the kids that were in attendance.




The first thing they did was bring out the baby lambs to show the kids how they are fed. I don't know about the kids, but it was really fun to see these babies suck from bottles.


















Once the kids were separated into groups our group got to feed the horse. I really wasn't sure if the kids would be willing to feed the horse but both just dived in.














Lydia had a really good time walking around. She steered clear of any animal but was perfectly content to walk around and do her best to get her little tush on one of the mattress swings.















The mattress swings were a HUGE hit. The kids loved it and the best part was that a lot of kids could enjoy it at once.












There was a couple other swings to enjoy while we were there. The tire swing in the back and this one here. Lila really liked this one the most.










Here are the cows that we got to feed.















Baby Lydia is happy as a clam (and trying her darndest to get her hands on my cell phone!). She did not want to get off. We just laid on the swing in the shade, under the trees and listened to the trees and felt the breeze. It was one of the best parts of MY day... :)

The

The first day that Grandma and Grandpa were here we went to the DI. We found this little toy for Lydia. She liked it so much that we just had to buy it. In fact she would not settle down until she saw that we put it in our cart and were taking it with us.

Conference Weekend Part II

On Saturday, Grandma and Grandpa wanted to go to the Dinosaur Museum at Johnson's Farm. We learned that the way to determine if the dinosaur was a meat-eater or leaf eater was to look at its toes. If it had four toes, it was a meat-eater, if it had three it was the other. We later learned that most of the dinosaurs in this area were meat eaters. Anyway, the kids had fun counting the toes of the tracks.






When we got home, Lydia crashed on Grandpa. What a treat for Grandpa!









Sherrill and I went and did a little shopping and when we came back I found a bunch of lilacs that Nate had picked for me. My house smells wonderful!
















On Sunday, we wanted to do a little geo-cacheing and make our way to the Valley of Fire in Nevada. This was a lot of fun for the kids because it was like going on a treasure hunt. They had even more fun when we made it a race to see who could find it first. Luckily, we had Gavin to help us because he was really good at finding them.














Finding this geo-cache was a real adventure. We had to cross some railroad tracks and go down a dirt road that had a no trespassing sign. This led to a cemetary, that once passed, we were able to find the treasure. This was an official one that was full of Nevada pins and pencils for the kids. We had just cleaned out the car so we had to do some real digging to find treasures we could leave behind.





In the field where we found the geo-cache was a beautiful blooming cactus. I just had to share!












The last geo-cache that we found was called the Better than Walmart cache. I still don't know what that meant but we had fun finding it!











Just a few miles beyond the last cache, we got to The Valley of Fire state park. This was also a great time for the kids. There were tons of these rocks for the kids to climb with all this holes and nooks for the kids to climb into.









They could have done this all day if we had let them!












Lydia was not going to be left out. She insisted on climbing like the big girls everywhere she could!


















This trail we went down was full of petroglyphs. What was neat about it was we could climb right up to them and look closely. The kids could as well. I told the kids that this particular mountain looked a lot like swiss cheese.

Petroglyphs.

Although it was a full and exciting day, we were exhausted and everyone slept really well that night! The best part was spending time with family and creating awesome memories!