Home Sweet Home

We enjoyed some time in Utah from 2-18 August. One of the many day trips we took was to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. We toured the gardens and they looked beautiful as usual!

One of Kjersti's favorite places at Thanksgiving Point was the Secret Garden. She couldn't have been happier.

Eve also enjoyed the Secret Garden, but for completely different reasons.

We spent a day up in Heber City with Cody's entire family and enjoyed eating at Tommy's Texas BBQ. Cameron and Grace just had a great time playing in the gravel. Soooo fun!

The family loved the restaurant, but Ruby thought it kind of stunk. She went on to say that she's had better BBQ out of a bottle.

Heidi and the kids along with a bunch of cousins went up to Tony's Grove. Again, the water was the dominant feature for Eve.

And guess who loves to do dishes? Not Eve!

Grand Teton National Park

We had a wonderful trip to Grand Teton National Park from 28 July - 1 August. We went there with all of Heidi's family so it was an action-packed trip full of fun and excitement!



Beautiful kids and beautiful mountains. Here we also see Kjersti practicing the "Kjersti Hip-Out". This is a technique that enables Kjersti to actually hold Eve for more than a few seconds. At this stage of Eve's young life, she hasn't missed many meals.



Eve had been in camp for about five minutes when this picture was taken. I'm not sure if she found the dirt, or the dirt found her, whatever the case, the two were inseparable for the entire trip. As it should be.


We stayed at Coulter Bay on Jackson Lake. The kids loved going down to the lake to toss in rocks and just hang out with their aunts, uncles and cousins. We managed to add a few rocks to the lake before a classic summer storm rolled in.


We hiked into Hidden Falls and the troops loved it! You can see in this picture that Eve became a bit nervous when she thought she saw Bigfoot. We told her it was just a bush and she was fine.



We then trecked up to Inspiration Point and Eve and Heidi are seen here enjoying the wonderful view over Jenny Lake. Spectacular!


The kids loved hiking, but it was the fat squirrels along the way that seemed to intrigue them most! Kjersti kept a cracker in one hand and an apple in the other as she moved carefully down the mountain.

We drove down a dirt road and stopped for lunch on a dirt ledge overlooking the Snake River. The kids loved throwing rocks into the river from way up high!

The wide view of the area. Amazing!

In the lodge we ran across a few odd animals. The Eve Moose.

The Big Horn Kjersti.

The Single Antler Eli.

And the Insane Lopsided Mother.

Birthday Girl!

Eve: "Everyone was making such a big deal about my first birthday and for the life of me, I just didn't get it... that is until they brought out an entire cake just for me! Ohhhh, I get it now!"


Eve: "No way was I holding back! I was going to enjoy all of the goodness in a single sweeping bite!"


Eve: "As I learned, birthday girls go to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate. It's a good thing you're bolted into this car Chuck, because you're about to witness some of my insane driving skills!"


Eve: "What could be better than riding a pony on your birthday?"

Eve: "Birthday's bring out all of my cuteness. How long until my next one?"

Lunga Park - 4th of July

As we have done many times in the past, we went out to Quantico Marine Corps base at Lunga Park to enjoy the 4th of July fireworks. Finding a good place to sit is easy. Getting all three of the kids to hold still enough to take a decent picture isn't.


Heidi always makes sure we show up to these types of events prepared! Uno, snacks and a host of other distractions keep the kids occupied until the sun goes down and the fireworks shoot up!

As in previous years, the base set up some free activities for the kids prior to the fireworks starting. One of them was the watergun maze. On a scale of 1 to 10, Eli thought this was about an 11. Too bad his gun rated about a 2. As you can see, he probably could have spit the water out of his mouth with more pressure than it was coming out of his gun.

Sometimes, the firefights were intense, but that didn't stop Kjersti from trying to get a good drink of water from her enemy's watergun. So clever!

The humanity! What is it about shooting a watergun at someone else? I mean no one aims for another persons body. They go for the face. Kjersti it seems would have it no other way. She drinks it right up. Mmmm, high pressure water... so tasty.

Dixie Cups

Eve: "Oh boy... how long have you been there looking at me? You must have seen Kjersti and Eli come in here and throw these Dixie Cups all over the place right?"

Eve: "They were making such a mess that I had to use this box to protect my face from being hit!"

Eve: "It's a good thing I'm the angel around here. Do you want this box so you can clean up this mess?"

Heidi: "Eve, did Kjersti and Eli really make this mess? Or was it someone else?"

Eve: "Well... actually..."


Eve: "Dad did it!"

Hawksbill Mountain

The closest thing we have around here to mountains is Shenandoah National Park. At 4,050 ft., Hawksbill Mountain is the highest point in the park. On June 12th, we figured we would set out to scale that mountain. Fortunately for us, especially Heidi, that means it's only about one mile from the road to the peak. Here we are enjoying the view... or sleeping.

Given the hot spell we've had recently, enjoying the "high country" was a pleasant change of weather. It was actually much cooler up there. Eve fell asleep about 300 meters into the hike and Heidi wanted to make sure she stayed asleep, even if it meant carrying her to the top of the mountain; which is exactly what she did.

Of course our two adventure seekers, Kjersti and Eli, went about climbing on the rocks and posing for pictures upon request. Eli even stopped chomping on his apple for a few seconds to flash his grill for the camera. Awesome!

No adventure is complete without a few tumbles. Unfortunately, Eli had a couple of them and was dead serious when it came to pointing them out.

A few feet from the bottom of the hike, Eve woke up, jumped on Cody's shoulders and successfully steered him to the car using his hair as reins. Who knew it could be so funny to steer a grown man like that?

Love the New Home

The first outing with the kiddie pool in the front yard was a big hit with Eve! As you can see, her cute smile wasn't the only thing she was revealing that day. ;)

Kjersti and Eli just love the new neighborhood and didn't mind supporting their baby sister with her big day in the kiddie pool.

A modern, beautiful home, we couldn't be happier with the place.

On a recent outing, Eli just couldn't keep his eyes open. The picture really does capture Eli's laid back (legs crossed) and rough and tumble (scruffed knee) spirit.

Eve loves heckling neighbors out for an afternoon stroll from the window. She says it helps her unwind after a hard day.

After the neighbors are gone, she focuses her heckling, and direction, on closer targets. A request for a drink of water never looked so intimidating! "Get it yourself," would be an unfortunate response. "Aye, Aye, Ma'am, I'm moving at the speed of light," would be much more appropriate.