Field Trip To The Grocery Store

Allie's preschool class had a field trip to the Winco grocery store down the street.

They got to go in the bakery and watch them make some bread in the big mixer.

 Then we got to go in the back storeroom to see how they store all the extra food. They also got to check out all the really big refrigerators.

They let each kid pick out an apple to take home and eat..

Then they learned about how the checkout process works and about bagging the groceries. The kids had a great time learning about all the things that happen at the grocery store.

Halloween

Emily and Allie had a Halloween party at their friend’s house a few days before Halloween. The kids had so much fun.

We played some fun games like pin the nose on the pumpkin.

Then we made some tasty spiders.

Then the kids all helped make some witches brew. They each got to add a special ingredient such as a frog, eyeball, spider, skull, and snakes. YUMMY!! While the brew was brewing we made some tasty caramel apples. The kids had a great time. 

Halloween afternoon we had a ward Halloween party. We ate dinner there and then had the kids parade around in their costumes and show everyone how awesome they looked.

 Pretty sure these 2 girls were the prettiest princesses around!

Joshua was a handsome, little cowboy. 

 Miss Allie as "Crimson Princess" as she so named herself.

 Emily as "Pink Princess"

It was raining just before we headed out to go trick-or-treating but stopped just in time for us to head out and enjoy a chilly night collecting some tasty treats. The girls were pros and Joshua caught on very quickly. He looked so cute standing on the porches holding out his treat bucket.

Apparently Tyler has had SOOO much fun dealing with people from his trailer park that he decided to dress up like one of his tenants. I can honestly say he wasn't very handsome looking. When we were at the ward Halloween party the Bishop came and was talking to me and gave me 2 little treat bags and said "here's an extra one so you can take one home to Tyler." I kind of gave him a confused looks then turned to Tyler who was standing right next to me and said "Here you go babe." The Bishop looked at Tyler and just about dropped to the floor. He did not recognize Tyler at all. It was quite funny.

The Land Down Under

My sister, Keely, and I just got back from an amazing trip to Australia. Tyler, being the awesome husband that he is, told me to plan a trip (using my passport) and get away for a little while. He would stay home and take care of the children. Really?? Who could pass up that offer? So Keely and I planned a trip to Australia. We went October 12-22.

This is going to be a VERY brief summary of our trip. I have made a book on Blurb that describes my whole trip. I don’t really want to type it out twice and I am not going to load 1000 pictures onto my blog.

We started our trip out in Sydney. We rented a car but took it right back because driving in Sydney is absolutely crazy and we didn’t want to die. We spend our first day walking around the city checking out all the sights. We went and saw the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge then we went to the Hyde Park Barracks for a history lesson. 

October is international food month in Sydney. They have a celebration every day/night celebrating a different culture/type of food. It was noodle night when we were there. We joined the locals and enjoyed sampling some different foods from the different vendors that were there.

Next we were off to the Blue Mountains for a couple of days of hiking. Beautiful! is the only way to describe this place. 

The Three Sisters. The rain let up just enough for this rainbow to appear right behind The Three Sisters.

The next day in the Blue Mountains was absolutely freezing!! It snowed on us all day long. Good thing we had good gear to keep us warm. We went on a nice long hike down into the Jamison valley.

Can you see the snow coming down? To get back up out of the valley we had to hike up 861 very steep steps. It was a killer workout.

We were then on our way back to Sydney for a good nights sleep so we could catch our early morning flight up to Cairns.

Upon arriving in Cairns we hired (rented) a car and drove up to Cape Tribulation. Driving here was 1000 times better than driving in Sydney. The roads are wider and there are less people. I have been on a lot of road trips but I can say that the drive from Cairns up to Cape Trib is probably one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on. You have the ocean on one side and the rainforest on the other side. The drive through the Daintree rainforest made it feel like you were in Jurassic Park. 

 We enjoyed some kayaking. Of course our luck with bad weather continued. It rained on us and it was super windy. We had 4-5 foot waves the whole time. Sometimes the waves were even bigger. Keely got tossed into the drink when we were hit by back to back 7 foot waves.

Good thing we didn't let the bad weather bother us. We still had a blast. 

Climbing up to get a coconut. Pretty sure they were 100 feet up there so we decided to just grab one off the ground. SUPER YUMMY!

The amazing coastline of Cape Trib. Where 2 world heritage sites meet. Right behind where I was sitting in this picture the rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef.

Next we were off for a day of snorkeling. This was our 2nd (and last) day without rain or snow. Right when we jumped in the water there was a black-tipped reef shark right underneath us. Too bad we had to hear about it from the girl next to us. Some how both Keely and I missed it.

I think I'd rather swim with this fellow anyway.

 Mr. Turtle and a huge bat fish.

After snorkeling we went and grabbed some ice cream and went on a walk along one of the many boardwalks they have there. As we rounded the corner we came up this guy (actually this one is a girl). It is a cassowary. A flightless bird related to the emu and ostrich. It is endangered. There are only about 1200 in all of Australia and 65 up in the Cape Trib area where we were. It is very rare to come across one in the wild. Keely had always joked about running into one. Although joking might be the wrong word. Keely was terrified of running into one. You see they can kill you with just one kick. Kind of scary, eh? 

The Cairns Night Zoo was a great adventure. First they fed us some super yummo food. Then we were off to check out the animals. We were able to pet some koalas!

 And feed kangaroos. I have dreamt about this day since I was a little kid. My bed was littered with stuffed animal kangaroos and koalas. I have always wanted to be able to pet a kangaroo or koala and I was finally able to.

Our last day in Australia we spent at a croc farm. We learned about how they raise crocodiles there and use them for clothing, purses and the like. They farm them so that people don't hunt them out in the wild, which is illegal. While we were there they asked for a volunteer to help them feed a quoll. My hand quickly shot up. A quoll is a relative of the Tasmanian devil. They are feisty little things and aren't afraid to attack people. If they bite you will you have to be on a plethora of antibiotics because of all the bacteria in their mouth. They are carnivores. I got to feed this quoll some dead baby chicks. It was pretty cool. Keely was jealous that I got to be the one to do it I think everyone else there was glad they weren't.

We only had 29 hours of flights and airport time before we got home. SOOO long. We flew from Cairns to Guam to Hawaii to Texas to Utah. On the flight from Hawaii to Texas a guy who was sitting 2 seats in front of me got up to go to the bathroom and got dizzy passed out and hit his head as he fell to the ground. And wouldn't you know there was no doctor on the flight so I had to play nurse. Maybe I should mention he did it a second time. Seriously? Oh, well! Glad I could help. I was even more glad when that flight was over.

I had a great trip. It was a nice break from everything. It was nice to come home though. I missed my husband and kids. Thanks Toque for letting me get away from it all for a little while. You are the greatest husband ever! Now lets go on a trip together!!

Fire Station Fieldtrip

Emily had her first kindergarten fieldtrip. They walked across the street to the firestation. Tyler was able to go on the fieldtrip with her.

They went on a tour of the fire station and the firemen taught them how to stop, drop and roll. They then were able to check out the fire trucks and ambulances. 

Emily's whole kindergarten class and her teacher, Mrs. Hinckley.

Emily said her favorite part of the fieldtrip was learning about how to be safe.

A Trip To The Union Station

Allie had her first field trip for school the other day. We rode on the Frontrunner train from the stop near our house to the Union Station and then let the kids explore there and see all the trains.

Emily and Allie loved the train ride. They kept saying "This is like the train you and Daddy rode in Switzerland." They were so excited to be just like Mom and Dad (any guesses on how long that will last??)

Josh-man was stoked about the Pringles he got to eat on the train.

Emily and Allie had a blast yelling "ALL ABOARD" as they played on the trains.

Allie checking things out from up front.

Joshua couldn't get enough of the trains. I loved how he would stand on his toes and watch the toy train go around the track.

This shot was painful to get. There always had to be 1 kid goofing off, looking off to the side, playing with their hair or siblings hair, pointing at the camera, etc. etc. This was the best shot we got.

Fun fieldtrip!

LOTOJA 2010

Well, he did it again. My dad rode the LOTOJA again this year. I think this was his 5th time riding it. CRAZY. Well, this years race started off a little crazy. The night before the race my dad was getting all of his stuff ready when he noticed a big old crack in his bike frame. UH OH! There was no way he could possibly ride his bike. So he went in to the local bike shop and talked to them. There was nothing to be done to fix his bike so they grabbed a rental bike stripped everything off of it and put all my dad's bike components on the rental frame. Whew! Disaster avoided. 

There was drama when it came to the feed zones this year. There were traffic problems that were holding people up so they weren't getting to the refuel zones in time to give their rider all their stuff and then there was a big accident between a car and a bike that held people up even more. Riders were so frustrated and didn't have any of there food, drinks etc when they needed them. Before all of this drama Tyler and I decided to skip one of the feed zones and go on up ahead and just wait at the next stop. This way our kids could get out of the car, eat their lunch and just play for a bit. By doing this we avoided the traffic mess and we were able to make it to the feed zone that all the support crews were missing. We helped load some other riders up with Gu and water and whatever we could find to help them on their way. It didn't look like my mom was going to make it to that feed zone and she had all my dad's special electrolyte drinks and stuff.  We gave him what we could and sent him on his way. Luckily my mom was just around the corner and saw my dad as he was riding off and was able to get him restocked. Another disaster avoided.

The kids were so good. They just chilled in the back watched movies, colored and read books.

There was some bribery with treats involved too!

 My dad finished strong. His time was 9hrs 43minutes. AMAZING!

After the race it was time for a little Bar J Wrangler action and a yummy dinner. 

 Diggin in.

What a fun trip! Can't wait to do it all again next year.