Volleyball Girl

Abby just finished up with a rec volleyball league. She had a blast. She is actually quite the little volleyball player! She started out fairly good, but with the assistance of a good pair of knee pads she really improved and was diving and saving all sorts of hits. It was really fun to watch her play, improve and just love to go each week and really have a ton of fun. Now, how are we going to fit this new love in with all of her new activities?? (ha, ha ~ I am sure we can!) Her team did a great job as well. During the tournament they took the only undefeated team to game 3 and the score had to go up to 18 -16 before they finally beat us. (They usually go to 15) Our girls did awesome, and I must mention -- this other team ate their Wheaties! They were 3 times the size of our girls.

Great Job Team Force!

You Gals Rock!

My baby boy is 18!

The craziest thing happened. Tanton turned 18! Wow! On September 30, eighteen years ago I became a mother. At that time it would have seemed like forever before he would turn 18, and here it is. I could not be prouder of this boy, he is such a well rounded, fun young man. Happy Birthday Tanton!
Tanton's step-mom, Marnie, always spoils him with a cake of his choice ~ she does a fabulous job, but I really think she out did herself this time. Here he is with his IRON MAN cake. Real working lights and all!

Girls Weekend...cont.

After such a great day in Yellowstone Park, and getting home so late -- I think it was like 2 am by the time we went out the West Yellowstone entrance and drove back to Driggs. We slept in a little and spent the next day, Saturday, in Jackson Hole. We shopped, and shopped, and shopped...and shopped. This place called "The Round Up" is closing, so they were having clearance on all of their items, well you got it - Ol' Josh sold a pair of cowboy boot to each of us!! What suckers we are! Jackson is fun and we had a great time. Later, we ate at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. Marcy and I shared a dish that had buffalo in it..we joked that it was probably the poor sucker we saw as road kill the night before (and how true it probably was!). Our dinner was very good, so was the country band playing. I am a HUGE country music fan ~ Marcy on the other hand thought every song sounded the same, oh she has much to learn. :)

The next morning we got up and after getting ready we stopped by some gorgeous waterfalls that I have never even seen on our way home. They were about an hour North between Driggs and Rexburg ~ called Mesa Falls. Very much worth our detour.

Marcy ended up staying for about a week. We had such a wonderful time. She is just one of the sisters now. It was a much needed fun, relaxed time we all had. She fit in perfectly and we were all so comfortable around each other it was almost scary! Needless to say, we now have a very good, new friend/sister that lives up in Chicago. Now, we just need to plan where our next vacation will be. Hmmmm.

Way too much fun!!

Back in April when my sisters and I took our boys to Hawaii we met a friend from Chicago, her name is Marcy. We kept in touch on FaceBook and kept saying that we needed to get together again sometime. Well, Marcy decided to come on out West to visit us -- and we had a "GIRLS TRIP" up to Yellowstone, Jackson, etc. We had an absolute blast!

Most people might find it a little odd to meet a total stranger on a cruise, know them for a few short days and then spend a week with them a few months later on your own vacation. But that is what happened with us. When she first told us she was going to come out to visit we were like where should we take her in "Utah"?? So, we decided to take her on up to Idaho, Wyoming and Montana! We took the scenic route up to our condo in Driggs, Idaho where we spent all of our nights. This is where our game playing and "Slumber Parties" took place...

On Friday we got up kind of early because we knew we had to conquer the whole Yellowstone Park in ONE DAY, and we wanted to find very animal there was to see!! We started out seeing a Mama moose with a baby. Next we got to Old Faithful withing 10 minutes of her going off... our timing was perfect! Good start so far. The weather was perfect: sunny, beautiful, 4 girls, laughing our guts out, having an absolute blast!! Next we saw a huge buffalo just meandering down the road, holding up traffic, just like he owned the place. Now, remember Marcy is from the city - CHICAGO - she has not seen anything like this. Her hands were shaking. She could hardly take a picture. Then we say elk, deer, more buffalo, the regular Yellowstone stuff - which Marcy loved every second of. The country was so beautiful -- but our true goal was to find a BEAR! We headed all the way up to the top Yellowstone Park (because that is where the bear were suppose to be). That is where we got out to go and see a cool waterfall and lo and behold -- there was a huge buffalo just walking right down the road toward us from the campground. It was so Crazy! Marcy about died, she was sure it was going to charge her since she had a red jacket on! LOL!! On our way back down we saw another car pulled over, we looked up and could see something black, we thought it was a black bear - Marcy FREAKED OUT!! She started yelling "What do we do! What do we do?" It was sooooo funny. Well, it ended up being a black Wolf and a silver Wolf -- which is pretty darn cool, too. But we were still on the hunt for our BEAR. We even said "this day has been so great the only thing that would top it off would be to have a bear sighting".

It was getting later and it would be getting dark soon. Our hopes were fading. Everyone had told us that there hadn't been a bear sighting in like 2 or 3 weeks, they had gone higher in the mountains. So we decided to go back to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone before we left the park. As we got close to the Grand Canyon we saw a car that was HAULING BUTT in reverse as we were coming toward it -- we knew it had seen something. So we looked to our right so see and right there out in this golden meadow was this HUGE GRIZZLY BEAR running through the meadow from one grove of trees to another. I cannot even tell you how beautiful it was!! I was so incredible. All of our adrenalin was going, we turned and stopped with the other car. Then of course, several other cars stopped -- but they didn't see the bear! We were so LUCKY. We stayed and he went from one grove of trees to another. Then stayed there. We waited in our car....... until it was pitch black. We were just sure that bear was going to come out and we would see him. Yes, we were the only car sitting there until 8:30 pm. What a day....
You would think that would be the end, huh?? Well, on the way out of the park we saw some flashing lights - ahead we passed an ENORMOUS BUFFALO dead in the road. A truck had barely hit and killed it. It was so sad and such an incredible sight to see such a big animal lying there dead in the road. Marcy wanted to pull out her camera, I told her we couldn't because the Park Rangers... but I must confess the next morning I would have given anything to have a picture of that incredible sight. I felt sad still, but it is something I will never see again, and I couldn't get it out of my head!
Well, there is one day.... what a great time!

Charlotte, North Carolina

For Labor Day weekend (Sept 4-6)Brad and I went out to Charlotte to see Tim, Melissa and the kids. We knew we would see them Oct. 10 for Greg's wedding, but it had just been so long since we had been out there due to our schedules, our kid's schedules, etc. It is always good to see them at their own home, see some home improvements they have done and so on. Those little grand kids grow so fast!! It is amazing how much more Dylan knows each time we see them, and poor Sophie had a splint on her right leg from her hip to her toe due to a small fracture in her shin. She sure learned to wobble around with that splint on quick though. The kids were darling, they warmed up to us super quick, even Tim and Melissa were surprised at how quickly they warmed up to us -- especially Brad. Probably because of his strong resemblance to Tim.
Tim had a 4 day weekend, which is RARE, it was nice that we could spend so much time with the whole family. We went to a minor league baseball game, that was actually played in South Carolina. Then on Saturday we went to the National Whitewater Center. It is a super cool place that is actually all man made, but has class II and class III, and IV rapids. You can raft or kayak at this place. Brad and Tim went on a whitewater rafting adventure. Melissa and I stayed and tried to entertain the children. They were very good, but this is probably not the best place for kids, and the temp was like 100 degrees. The guys absolutely loved it! Then Brad, Tim, and I went on the zip-line. It was a fun ride.
Melissa got to be a spectator because the day before they broke the good news that they are EXPECTING THEIR 3RD little amigo!

Needless to say, we had a wonderful time. Thanks again, Tim & Missy!

Slacker!

Kathy, Kelly, Marcy, Stacy @ Mesa Falls

I have not updated my blog in forever! Wow! I have been so, so busy with one thing after another that I had not had the time to sit down and just get this done. Hopefully soon I wil be able to update, but these are the things that we have been up to around our home... and beyond.

1. Lake Powell - we went to Lake Powell for a week with the Gunnell family. Oh, we had such a great time and did so many crazy things. I can't wait to show.

2. North Carolina - Brad and I went out to N. Carolina to visti Tim, Melissa and the kiddos. We did some really fun things while we were out there also. It was great to see Dylan and Sophie and how much they had grown up.

3. Driggs, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole -when we were on our cruise to Hawaii with our boys we met a friend from Chicago. She flew out to visit, so me and my sisters took her up north to see some sights. We had such a blast! We laughed so much - it felt great. I have lots of pics and stories to tell to go with that adventure also.

4. Tanton's 18th Birthday! My little boy has become an adult. Tanton had his 18th birthday on Sept 30. So crazy to think. I am so proud of him, yet so sad to see him grow so old.

5. Phoenix - Abby and I went to Phoenix to see my friend Steph Honing. We picked a perfect weekend to go. It was her UEA break and the weather here really sucked. We enjoyed 85-90 degree weather there and flew in to 40 degree weather in Salt Lake.... that was sad.

6. Greg got married! On Oct 10 Greg and Kristina got married. What a wonderful day. Everything turned out beautifully. I believe the happy couple was very pleased. So, lots to say and post...

7. Company - We had Tim/Melissa and the kiddos staying at our house, so we were able to enjoy their company.

But now after what seemed like a whirlwind - I will hopefully be able to catch up on my blog one event at a time!