Bowling

We decided to go bowling this morning. It's a fun indoor activity out of this nasty heat. So, we got to the bowling alley and as we were walking in realized that we didn't bring any socks. Oops! It is something we definitely aren't used to wearing and didn't think to bring along. So, I headed back to the house with Myer to grab some socks.

These aren't the best pics, I took them on our phone but they will do.

An excited little bowler!

Myer cheering us on!

We played a fun but pitiful game. I think Wayne and I need to go back and get some practice. Kenner beat us both with 93 points. I got 90 and poor Wayne scored a measly 70 points! :)

Family Reunion in Albion

My brother Nathan was kind enough to send me some pictures today! I'll probably post alot just because I love pictures and they are just great! Maybe family will mostly enjoy seeing these.

So, we got to Utah on a Friday. We stayed in Bountiful until Sunday morning then headed to Brigham for my nieces baby blessing. Then we all headed up to Idaho from there for the family reunion to begin. My mom and her sister found this neat place up in Albion, Idaho. It use to be an old college started back in 1893. It offered a two year teacher training program until 1947. It had trouble with enrollment and funding and was eventually shut down by the state in 1951. You can read a bit about it here and see some pictures if you are interested in the history of the place.

Anyways, a family bought the campus back in 2007 and restored one of the buildings. It is a three story building with several rooms, a kitchen, game room, etc. for people to reserve and come have family reunions or whatever. It was a great place for a reunion and very pretty up in the mountains. We got to tour all the other buildings and see their little museum one day. They are working to restore the others as well but it'll be a big and very expensive project.

Here are some of the buildings. They are all boarded and locked up.
Before they were locked down vandals got in and did graffiti and crap, kinda sad.

Just a pretty place up in the mountains. I think that may be my dad out playing horseshoes.

We enjoyed being with family of course and we ate lots of good food. It seems like we were constantly eating. They had several fun activities we could rent to use while there. We had go- karts for a few hours. Didn't get a chance to ride in those. I think mostly the grandkids enjoyed those and getting caught by the authorities in places they shouldn't have been! :)

Many enjoyed playing several rounds in the old gym with the airsoft guns. Kinda similar to paintball I guess. It is kinda funny they are called "soft" because some came back with some nasty wounds from those little things getting shot at them.

Here is my brother Eric showing off the guns I guess! I just had to laugh when I saw these. I think him and Nathan were being silly!

We also had these fun little bikes to ride around and get quite the workout!

A bunch of them cruising around

My mom and sister just made me laugh. My sisters decided my mom needed to get out of the kitchen and do something fun. So, she came to try out the bikes. They are kinda hard to get a hang of at first. So, it was fun to watch my mom figure them out. Then my sister was kinda helping her along. They ended up going around for a bit and sometimes my sister would be pushing and sometimes running after my mom! It was quite the site to see. Made me smile!

All the little kids got to enjoy this big blow up toy. It was a great entertainer. It looks like Nathan decided to sneak in and have some fun with Kenner! :)

The kids enjoying their Uncle Nathan and Aunt Mandy! I'm sure they will
be pleased I shared these pics!

Just Chillin' with my brother Eric and his wife Aubrey

With my sisters

The brick you see behind us in these two pictures above is the original brick. In many of the rooms they left walls exposed showing the original brick. Pretty cool!

Had to include this cute one of these girls . . . and funny little Cameron there in the corner!

One night they had a fire and made smores. It got chilly that night and kinda windy. Some were brave and went out, others stayed in and watched from the windows and had smores brought in to us. . . so nice! My grandma told us some stories one day. One was about hypnotizing chickens. That gave the "kids" (ok so maybe some of my older cousins got in on it too) an idea and seeing as there were chickens wondering around we later had a few entertaining moments of watching some chickens get hypnotized! Very interesting!

Unfortunately it never got hot enough to swim in the pool there but there was a hot tub that many enjoyed. I got a kick out of my 15 and 16 year old niece and nephew putting their cell phones in a baggie to keep it from getting wet while they were sitting out there. Kids these days and their cell phones! :)

So, there you have it, some more of our Utah trip. We enjoyed Sunday afternoon through Wednesday morning up at the reunion then headed back to Bountiful until the weekend. Wayne left that Saturday and I went up to Brigham to see my family a bit more until the next Thursday. It was a great trip. Maybe if I get more pics that show some different parts of our trip then you'll get to see more!

It has been awhile!

It has been almost 2 months since my last blog post, geesh! I was looking back to see what I last posted about and had to laugh because I'm am posting about the same thing again. . . . the zoo.

It is not that we have only been going to the zoo. In fact we have been to Utah and back to visit family this month. Sadly, we don't have a camera that is easy to travel with (Kenner broke our point and shoot soon after Myer was born) so I depended on family to take pictures. Now I am just waiting to get some pictures from everyone so I can have pictures to go with my post. So family, come on, get on the ball and send me some pics! Just kidding. I will be patient.

So, I'll save telling about Utah until I have some pictures. But until then this is what I do have to share since it has been awhile.

We went to the zoo last Friday with our neighbors. We braved the TERRIBLE heat and Kenner had fun having a friend along.

We walked around and saw alot of the animals . . . . . . . .

Holding hands, aren't they cute?

I think my favorite were the hippos in here where the kids are looking.
We hadn't seen them before and I didn't get a very good pic but I just loved seeing them.

Taking it easy. He rode like this for a bit. I got him out to see the zebra and giraffe
and he was pretty excited!

Myer wasn't too sure about this wagon ride. He was trying to bail!

After seeing the animals we went and cooled off a bit at the Riverbank. The kids had fun there and it was refreshing after walking around in the heat.

Kenner enjoyed running back and forth along here!

Thanks Michelle for sharing the pics you took with me. We had a great time!

Ok, so maybe I have a few Utah pics!

I realized I do have some pics that Wayne's mom sent me that she took on her iphone. They are pretty easy to email off of there so I was able to email them to myself while there. So, here are a few pics to start telling about our trip to Utah!

We got up bright and EARLY to leave on June 5th. The boys were pretty good on the flights (we had a layover in Phoenix) which is always a relief. After getting picked up at the airport we went to lunch with Wayne's parents.

Here is Myer enjoying some fries and fry sauce!
Although from his face, maybe you can't tell he's enjoying them.
I think he was still trying to figure out Grandma and Grandpa
and why they were taking pics of him!

We had a few days to play in Bountiful before heading to a reunion in Idaho. The boys sure had fun running around outside, (when it wasn't raining) watching the rain, and playing with their aunts and uncles, especially Kenner.

Sliding with Aunt Rachel

At Seth's Baptism the next weekend

So, that is about it for now. Hopefully I can get some more pictures from family soon, hint hint! And Don and Melissa, if you have any pics from Boondocks or when the kids were playing at the Gateway in the water (I thought I saw one of you snapping pictures) I'd love to get some of those as well! Thanks!

Zoo

Today was a perfect day to go to the zoo! The weather was sooooo nice this morning. If it could be that way year round here I would never ever leave. Anyways, Wayne has Mondays off and he loves the butterfly exhibit they have there. We went last month and saw the Asian butterflies. This time they had the Central American butterflies.

The exhibit didn't open until 10 and we got there just after 9 so we went to find some of the animals we didn't get to see last time we went. The animals seemed a bit more active today. Maybe cause we were there earlier or maybe because it was a nice cool day. Who knows but we enjoyed seeing them move around.

These jaguars were making me a bit nervous. They were pacing around like they were wanting to attack or something! Yikes!

Look at those teeth!

It's tongue is sticking out a bit, I tell ya they were hungry!

We didn't get a very good picture but we stopped to see this leopard and it walked off and was crouched down and all of a sudden it pounced against the glass at Kenner! Luckily there was something to stop him from getting through. It startled Kenner but it was so funny to see. He did it one other time. Crazy animals!

We also enjoyed seeing the elephant, stinky rhinos, giraffe and zebra that we hadn't seen last time we went. Here are some other animals we saw. I just thought Wayne did a nice job getting pics of everything.


And this little monkey was a big hoot!
We were walking to the butterfly exhibit and we noticed this monkey out eating stuff in this bush, but it was not behind the netting! It was crazy. So, all these people were stopping and watching this little monkey eat away and put on this show for us and we are all wondering if he is suppose to be out here. Wayne was right up there taking a gazillion pictures of the thing. He seemed to be putting on a show the way he'd just sit there purched and swing on the pole. It was pretty funny and a pretty big group gathered there a bit hesitant about this monkey on the loose! Then all of a sudden it climbed up the chain fence and slinked it's body back through. It was nuts, he could fit through the fence!

When Wayne went to buy our tickets to go see the butterflies he told the people there was a monkey loose and they were like," ya that little monkey over there. He's just a baby and they can't keep him in his cage. His mother keeps her eye on him." It was sure funny to watch him.

But for the main attraction and reason Wayne wanted to go.

This was actually taken at our last visit to the butterflies.

Wayne loves going and taking pics of the butterflies. It is fun to be in this area with them and have them fly all around you and sometimes land on you! He took a ton of pics of them and they are really pretty. So if you are really interested you can go see more of the Central American butterflies here.