Monday, July 27, 2009

Road Trip

Here we go again! We're off to Salt Lake today, Mt Timpanogos caves tomorrow and the farm in NV after that. It will be fun to be out there again and see all my aunts and uncles and family.

And with Craigs' new found love of Cars (the show) and especially "Mack" the big truck I'm sure he's going to be in seventh heaven when he gets to play in one! I'm excited.

See you all when I get back next week. (prepare for another long post :) Cuz there will be lots to tell!

Hair cut

Can you believe that all of that hair came off of my little boys head?
Ah, isn't is so nice to be all clean cut? We were even able to do it with minimal squirming this time!

My handsome guy.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Who's been eating my tomatoes?

So when we got home from our trip to AZ I went out to check on our garden. Ammon had been watering it while we were gone so I figured all would be fine and dandy.

But then...
Just glancing at that picture you might not realize what is so wrong with it. But let me tell you there is most definitely something wrong. This tomato plant is supposed to have large lovely beautiful green leaves all over it, picture kind of like a tree. Not just a bunch of sticks!!!

It looked like some one had just started munching on the leaves, literally. I mean look at this:
Doesn't that look like some one just took a bite? I'd told Ammon that he could eat our tomatoes while we were gone but I wasn't thinking that he'd eat the PLANT!










And then, we found the culprit!


This bad boy had been going to town on my poor tomatoes!
I'm not kidding it was about the same size as my longest finger, and about the same size around too. He was HUGE and he certainly wasn't starving!

P.S. If you have tomatoes and are having a problem like this, we have the stuff that can liven up your plants and chase these guys away. They will fall right off the plant and run away. (we didn't have any on hand to use but my dad did it with his tomatoes and said they left and never came back.)

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

AZ Fun

We just got back from a weekend in AZ. And although it's still blazing hot here... It feels like blessed cool. K.C. and I both suffered from heat exhaustion while we were there. It was tons of fun to visit but we are so glad to be home.

Here's some of the highlights.

Hoover Dam, we were actually going to stop and look at it this time but Craig fell asleep 5 min. before we got there so we pressed on.

They are making a lot of progress! They may actually finish it someday.

When Craig woke up we stopped on the side of the road and ran around to stretch our legs. K.C. and Craig climbed this huge rock.

And of course Craig had to copy daddy!

I love my boy, and I'm so glad he loves me too!

I thought this turned out kinda fun!

Craig with his Great Grandpa Hunt. It was fun to stay at his house for a few nights while we were there.

Me being brave and trying the whole, flower in the hair thing. I'm trying to just be confident but I still feel like it's hard for me to pull off.

My little Craigo was so sweet the whole trip. Every time I braced myself and 'just knew' a break down was coming he would always surprise me and happily and sweetly respond.

Even with traveling in the middle of the day while he was bored and awake he was sweet and didn't even cry. We found lots of fun games to play and he had a blast finding all the semi's on the road and saying "Hi Mack! Eggo found Mack!" We would race them too.

This may have been a bad game to start because now every single time he sees a big truck he gets all excited and starts exclaiming "Go daddy, go daddy, go daddy!!!! Get him! Let's win!" It's cute, but with the amount of trucks on the road it's practically a non stop game.

It was BLAZING HOT in Mesa! Oh it was miserable, I felt lightheaded a ill most of the time. We went to this play place that had AC so that we could cool off and Craig could have fun. It was great.



He loved sitting on all the animals!


Big tough gorillas

ROAR like a lion!

His uncle Kieth took him on a fun spinning teacup ride. he was good to only let it spin a little though.
(and Kieth he still remembers you, he saw this picture and said "Kieth, arms up!")
K.C.'s parents and Kaylea enjoying some cool. It was fun to spend time with them.
Blake and Abby were very patient as Craig learned how to play sweetly and share THEIR toys with them!
Jackie (K.C.'s oldest sister) had this fun covered wagon that she gave Craig and Abby a ride in.
We went over to Jackie's house to can some meat (yes that's right! I canned meat! How domestic of me! It was actually tons easier than I expected. I would actually like to get the stuff and do it now! I'm all motivated, but we'll see how it pans out.)

I forgot my shoes in the car (bad idea when the ground can burn your feet off in .02 seconds.) So I walked on K.C.'s feet out to the car! I love him.

The night before K.C. was really sick and the only thing we could figure was heat exhaustion. We were both feeling really yucky all day that day (Monday). Luckily I'd kept Craig hydrated well enough that he didn't seem to be effected.
We headed out around 4 and just prayed that we would feel good enough and be awake enough to make it home. But as soon as we got out of the valley we started feeling better. Then we ran into this wonderful rain storm!

The AC was cranked and it was like 10 degrees in the car, it looked cool and peaceful outside and I was in heaven! It really was fun to see everyone but the heat was terrible! We sure picked a great week to go south!

We were almost to Mesquite and one of our tires blew out! We are very lucky though because the several times that we have had a tire blow out our little car continues to drive straight and true! It was a bothersome delay, but all was well and we were soon on our way again.

By the time we got home it was 2 am and Craig had slept most of the way home and I was so worried that he wouldn't sleep any more, but he was so sweet, he slept clear till 10:30! Yay.

While I was there Kaylea showed me more things about my camera, so I've had fun practicing what she showed me. It will probably be a while before I'm very good at it but it is fun to have something new to work on and feel like I'm actually going to get better! Thanks Kaylea.

There you have a it a huge post and a ton of pictures! I didn't even take pictures of all the other things that happened. I kept forgetting to pull my camera out!

Rain Storm

While driving home from AZ was trying the best I could to practice the photography tips that Kaylea had given me while there. It wasn't exactly the ideal environment because the sun was going down and I was in a moving car. So composing a picture and not getting the traffic on the other side of the freeway in it was tricky. I think I finally started to get the hang of it and Shot all of these shots on the Manual setting. Go me.

I love this one!
Splashes of rain from the windshield wipers.
These were extra tricky because the camera was trying to focus on the mountains and cars, not the windshield, so I manually focused them too.
AZ Sunsets



I guess when you're stuck in a car there's always something you can do to amuse yourself! Craig was pretty cute too, after I'd take a picture he'd want to see it and say:

"Mommy, Eggo see it, please, okay."

I was happy with how well they did turn out because usually taking pictures from inside the car through the dirty glass is just a ridiculous waste of time. Especially given the fact that the things you're trying to take pictures of are flashing past you at rapid speeds along with the other things that you're trying to avoid like cars and trucks and stuff.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Big Hit

Check it out folks!

"Me" by Nephi Farr

This is an awesome album by an awesome artist. He writes all of his own lyrics. He composes all of his own music. He records all of his own music. And to top it all off, he's my brother!

I'm working on a better way to broadcast it but because I'm still working on it this is what I've got so far.

You'll have to either subscribe to follow the blog using a pod catcher (Google Reader is the only one I tried) and then view the post through the pod catcher to be able to play the songs

- or -

a slightly more time consuming way is to click the 'subscribe to posts (Atom)' link at the bottom and just click the audio tracks from there. Seriously it is worth trying.

If you can only listen to one then listen to "Have you ever seen love." It's a duet by my uncle and brother as a tribute to my grandpa who has passed away, and to all parents. It's awesome.

They are going to try to do a master recording of it so that it's good enough to try to sell.

Let me know what you think. I'd love to hear someones opinion that isn't prejudiced because it's family. Let me know which ones you like and which ones you don't like so much. I'm so curious.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Fourth of July Weekend

We had a crazy 4th of July weekend this year. Since we couldn't find anything fun and FREE to do in this area we headed to Hurricane where they actually have a parade! It was fun to see.

They drove the 'royalty' around in this:
It was hilarious because the driver was having the time of his life lifting the bucket up and down, and swinging the tractor around trying to scare the girls. It was great entertainment.

This was a particularly interesting one. the "quiltmobile." It looked like they just glued a quilt to the car. But that sure doesn't make any sense for things like, oh let me see... rain?
Craig had a grand time waving at all of them and saying "ba bye!" This picture is a smile, a yawn and a 'ba bye' all in one. Crazy kid!
Then we migrated to the park where there was a candy canon. So fun. Except for the part where all of the hard candy's fall out of the sky and land on your head, or the head of your young child. I spent much of this activity acting as a human shield.

The candy would shoot out of this canon
(and I caught it mid flight!):
Candy flying through the sky:
So thrilled that he actually got one!
(It was a mad house with mostly adults pushing and shoving to get all the candy for their children.)

Can you tell how excited he is? This face cracks me up!
I guess he thought I couldn't see them good enough because he brought them closer and shoved them right into the camera! A very nice close up of his prizes. Thank you Craig.My boys. I love them so much!

One of the rare pictures that I actually like of myself! Yay me.


Craig and his Aunts, Annie and Elle.
They are such good buds.


No matter what is going on, Craig always takes good care of grandma. And in this case that means taking his candy out of his mouth to share with her!
{ she didn't actually eat it! Dad managed to whisk it away}

The bike that my dad built out of PVC so that he and mom could ride together. Here my brothers Ammon and Nephi are riding it around the park with our ingenious new marketing banner on the back. Too bad you can't see it very good. It's hilarious.
Craig's First Race!
Ready, Set, GO...

He could hardly see me in the sea of humanity crowded at the finish line so he didn't start running until most of the kids were more than half way across. The the lady in front of me moved a little so he could see me and he took off!

I'm sure he came in close to last, but it was fun for him to do it. Afterwards he kept talking about how he was fast like a race car! It's so fun to hear what he comes up with now that he can talk so much better.
Then K.C.'s sister Kaylea and her Boyfriend came with 2 kids each and we hung out at our place a little before going to watch the fireworks. It was fun for Craig to get to play with Brodey and Bryson. He hardly gets to see them but he recognizes them from the pictures we show him.

(we asked him if he was going to share his toys with them when they got here and he said "Eggo share a book with Brodey!" and then as soon as they walked in he ran, grabbed a book and gave it to Brodey. It was cute.)

We all went up on top of a mountain after that to watch the 2 fireworks shows and have a picnic with the whole group. While we were waiting for Kaylea and Mike to get there I played with my camera.

I love this picture

He's getting so big.

Our picnic spot.
Cool Sunset


I had fun learning how to use the time exposure on my camera.

St. George lights


Let the fireworks Begin!



It was fun to have Kaylea and Mike here and their kids. It just so happened that my sister came down to stay with my parents the next day and my Aunt and Uncle too. Mom and dad usually come over to our house for Sunday dinner and so they brought a whole passel of people with them this time.

We fed 21 people out of one small crock pot, some corn on the cob and a salad from our garden. It was lots of fun but it was also a lot of people running around and I realized just how hard it is to split your attention equally between all of your guests. I hope no one felt left out.

After most everyone left and the kids were in bed we played Guesstures with Kaylea and Mike. That game is always a hoot. So there you have it, our holiday weekend. Just one crazy whirlwind of fun.