Arches Camping Trip

We had our first camping trip of the summer.  We'd all been looking forward to it.  We went to Arches National Park with a posse of friends and took over the group camping site.  The weather was less than cooperative, but we managed to find a few windows of play time and it turned out to be a great weekend.  As always, we can't wait for the next time we head south and set the tent up.

No better family time than out in the middle of nowhere playing together

Playing at Double Arch

Cutest hiker

My boys

Hide and seek desert style

Girls just want to have fun!  Iris and Emma

My little birds in our nest

Taking a break at Skull Arch in Fiery Furnace

Iris at Skull Arch

Peekaboo

Riana and Dion, our new friends from South Africa.  Fun to show them a place we love

Kissing Turtle Arch.  Can you see it???

Double trouble = Double love

In the big scheme of things...

Family play time. Safer than it looks. I promise!

"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, to have my senses put in order"

Easter

We had a fun Easter.  We had friends over again for brunch and an egg hunt.  Its becoming a tradition and we enjoy it a lot.

Hunting for his basket

Nope.  Not in there!  Keep looking

Found it!  Sporting her 80's inspired headband compliments of the neighbor girl

Success! Who told the Easter bunny we have an xbox?!

Getting ready for the egg hunt

Checking out their loot

Egg hunt action shot

Thanks Easter bunny!

Yard Time

Time for planting, weeding, mowing, dandelion farming and window washing!

Fun in the sun

Helping Dad dig holes

Never too young to learn to wash windows, right?!

Not too bad

She blows the bubbles, he shoots them down, everyone has fun

 

Good times

Girlie Fun

Painting finger nails is exciting business these days.  When we get really crazy we glue flowers on the thumbs and big toes!  And who wouldn't want to twirl about in a dress with sparkle wings?!

Blowing them dry

Done!

Prettiest dragonfly in town

The big 4-0

Another one joins the 40 club!  It won't be official until tomorrow, but we celebrated Jeff's birthday early over the weekend.  We met when we were 23 and it feels like a lifetime ago.  Here's to another few decades together babe!
As always, the kids were super excited for singing and cake and present opening. 

We'll save the "over the hill" letters for 50!

Smile

Getting some help

Iris randoms

Just had a few cute pictures of Iris I wanted to post. 

Sporting her leprechaun ears for St. Patrick's Day

With her friend Emma waiting to watch Frozen

Getting serious with dress up time.  That's my wedding dress!

Pink ruffles and big smiles

I hate video games

Yep, I hate video games.  That pretty much sums it up.  So I was a little torn when an xbox landed in my living room compliments of a friend Jeff works with.  The kids love it and Jeff loves it.  They have fun playing games together.  Here's hoping we find the balance between a fun way to unwind and pass some time versus zombie kids spending hours staring at the TV screen.

They love it.  Me...not so much

The good, the bad and the smiley

We had our spring parent teacher conference for Miles 2 weeks ago.  The good news was that he's much improved in reading and math.  The not-so-good news was that he is apparently quite disruptive in class, talking at inappropriate times and having trouble keeping his hands to himself.  I can joke and say I don't know who he gets the talking thing from :)  But in all seriousness we want him to do well and also be respectful of his teacher and the other students, so this is something we are working on.
His teacher agreed to provide us with daily feedback in the form of happy faces, neutral faces and sad faces on a summary sheet.  It's been hit or miss, but today was a good day.  Fingers crossed for more of them!

Rough day

Good day

Yellowstone

We just had a great weekend trip to Yellowstone.  It is such a beautiful place...magical and mysterious and amazing. I hadn't been up there since the summer of 1993 when I worked there during college.  I had a moment realizing just how quickly a big chunk of my life went by.  It is nuts really...all that has happened in that time.  The kids are at such cool ages now for traveling and trips like that.  We only had a short weekend there, so we will have to return and explore more, but it was fun. The trade off for snow and frigid temps was that we had the place to ourselves compared to the summer madness. 

The first thing to happen after 5 hours in the car

Enjoying the fancy presidential suite at Worldmark

The quintessential Yellowstone photo complete with bison and hydrothermal features

The very cool vehicle we toured the park in

Ready to roll

Keeping me warm

Posing post eruption

Curious about the boiling water off the boardwalk

Lower Geyser Basin

Snowy Firehole Canyon

Firehole Falls

Family shot at the falls.  Look who's missing lots of teeth!

Girl power

Another.  Since I pay google $2.49/month for photo storage why not have both?!

At the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center. Such awesome and beautiful animals

Family shot on cool (scary?) couch

Posing with their new friend