Campfires and friends

We have gotten some use out of our campfire, but it is always more fun with good friends.  We had a last hurrah with our good friends, the Farners, before they left to live in Australia for 7 months.  I know, how cool is that?  We met them in our Orem ward where I pretty much claimed Annemarie as my BFF.  Luckily I didn't totally creep her out, because she let me be her friend.  Kevin and Nate hit it off-double points-and our oldest are the same age and went to our neighborhood preschool together.  We sure do miss those Farners!

 Buddies, Josh and Reed

 The crew

 Sticky and happy girl

 Will

Josh

Hikes

Hiking is one of my most favorite activities ever.  I love being in the mountains!  For some reason (could be my ridiculously high expectations when it comes to having an adventure), but we're batting about .500 on successful hiking experiences.  Our first hike sans kids was to Silver Lake.  We were on a semi-tight schedule with a nursing babe at home, and we knew the hike was about 2.5 hours roundtrip.  So when we had some difficulty finding the trailhead, my blood pressure started to rise.  Nevertheless, we did find it and the hike was perfect with a gorgeous lake at the end!

Hike with kids (minus Corbin): Stewart Falls.  We've done this hike several times throughout our marriage.  Even so, it took us 45 minutes to find the trailhead because it was a "sneaky" way and we had forgotten how to get there.  We bagged that idea and decided to trust where everyone else and their dog started the hike.  We finally found it and I was feeling pretty good.  Kids were still happy, it seemed like this new way was possibly shorter, cool weather.  We were halfway to the waterfall (which is the only incentive for a kid to go on a hike) when the people coming toward us said that we should probably turn around because there was a bear on the trail up ahead.  Say what?  The smite angels did it again.  Seriously, what are the chances?!  After a brief discussion, we decided it best to turn around and call it a day (though I was tempted to take our chances and get to the dang waterfall.  What is wrong with me?).  On the way back, we had to go down a snowy hill.  Of course we slipped, and I just pulled Reed down the snow slide behind me.  We both got muddy and wet and he scraped his hand pretty good.  Of course we didn't have a bandaid, hence the socks on his hands.  The hike ended in tears-mostly Reed's-and some laughs (Kevin and mine) in spite of it all.

Stewart Falls 2.0

We made it to the waterfall!  It ended up being a tougher hike for Reed than we thought, 4 miles roundtrip.  He walked the entire thing (he had to), but he certainly did his fair share of complaining.  It got pretty comical and other hikers were trying to encourage him and cheer him on.

Tulip Festival

Kevin had the camera most of the time and I caught up with him a little later with Taryn....

 This is all they wanted to do

Can you tell how much Corbin loves being "hugged?"  Isn't that called the half nelson?

Picture Dump (winter)

Since I haven't posted in a long time and even longer before that, I decided I need to just post a bunch of pics.  I do take pictures occasionally but posting them on the blog in another story.  Here are a few from winter.  Yeah, I know that was a while ago.

 Our family of snowmen

 Yes, she is sleeping.

 I kinda love having this electrical box in our backyard.  It's a great little hangout spot and often find them "fishing" off of it.

 Setting up our tent for General Conference

 Taryn.  Nope, those are not her legs.  Someday I will tell them how inappropriate this is. :)

 Reed built himself a fort and slept in it for several weeks.

 Taryn got her pinky finger slammed in the bedroom door.  Almost completely detached and broken.  She had to wear this soft cast for a couple weeks then a little splint.  She only complained about it once really when it was hard for her to do a somersault one-handed.  Kids are tough.  The best was when her cast would start slipping off and she looked like Chubbs from Happy Gilmore (with the wooden hand). haha

 We do family movie night once a week.  We often all lay on our giant pillow (NOT a dog bed).  The kids, including Corbin, love movie night!

 Richard Simmons?

 My BFF Lesley came out to visit from Texas.  She has a cute, cute baby named Jack.

 Kevin, the handyman that he is (;)), built us a firepit in the backyard.  This was our first of many future campfires.

 Holy cute baby!

 Hanging out with neighbor and friend, Alex

 Discovering the ridiculously delicious Art City Donuts food truck.  Holy crap, I was racing the kids to eat the donuts faster than them.  It was eye-opening as well to the fact that maybe Dunkin Donuts are not quite as good as I thought they were....

Corbin with a new haircut at 10 months

Growing up-Corbin

 Corbin is growing and is coming up on a year!!!