Tony's vacation, part 2

The morning of July 22nd, we packed up and drove up to the Uintahs. Tony had gotten the kids fishing poles and they were dying to use them!

We first got our tent set up at the Butterfly Lake campground and then hiked the short distance down to the water.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Christian says "Butterfwy Wake" so cute!:





Tony and I took turns casting for Christian, but Faith learned pretty quickly to do it for herself.

.
.
.
Here's one I got on video:



Tony let Buddy reel this fish in and he was so excited! He even had to pet the little thing. Faith told him that we were going to eat it and Christian said, "I not want my fish to died!"

When Christian got tired of fishing, I wandered around with him for awhile. I took this picture sitting at a picnic table in an empty campground. I wish we had noticed this one! Then we could have actually rolled out of bed and down to the lake in the morning :)









Buddy was also very excited about finding this "doggy foot print."



After awhile, Christian got pretty tired and was laying on a rock. His sweet sister came to his rescue and let him relax on her lap for awhile.






Faith reeled in this little beauty of Tony's.


I don't know what Tony was in the middle of saying or doing in this photo, but I don't think I've seen that particular expression on him before!



When we got back to camp, we roasted hot dogs for dinner and then, of course, did marshmallows, too.


We slept pretty well that night in our tent even though the hard ground wreaked a bit of havok with the bodies of us old people. It didn't get cold at all and, as you can see, Tony & Christian slept in pretty late.





I made a camp breakfast feast of eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice, milk and hot chocolate. I heated the water in a kettle and the kids had never seen or heard one before! I had to stop everything for a minute and teach them the "I'm a little teapot" song!

The kids loved everything about camping. Even making "waterfalls" with the dirt!

Christian never figured out how to cast, but he sure loved reeling it in by himself.

Even though Tony let Faith reel in a fish of his day before and two that day, she decided that she absolutely had to catch a fish all by herself on a line she'd cast out. It was getting late and I was worried that it might not happen, when she finally got one! Not long after that, she caught another!! What a great little fisherwoman, especially for her first try. Tony said that she's already caught more fish and can cast out farther than Tammy, who was drug along camping and fishing her entire young life ;)

However, she wasn't quite perfect at it. In fact, she had so many flub casts that hit the rocks and broke so many water bulbs that we ran out! Tony thought that the new 10-pack he bought would last us for two days, but now we know that we should buy double or triple that for next time.

After pulling Faith away from her new favorite sport, we headed back to Kaysville. We got home and spent just over an hour showering, unpacking and repacking the car and headed right out to the condo at Park City!

.

.

We met up with my parents, sisters and their families and had fun eating out and doing lots of swimming.

We did just a little bit of shopping this time. Mom bought Faith this for next year

.

and the sweater for school. Celeste got the same one and Alaura and Sierra got the same style in different colors. We're going to dress them up to match for Thanksgiving!

We hadn't been 0n the Alpine Slide for a few years, so we thought we'd take the kids. Here we are riding up the mountain on the ski lift,

and the kids at the bottom of the slide. Christian's not happy because he wanted to go "dust one more time?!!!"

They also had an outside inflatable fun area that we paid for the kids to participate in.

We had such a fun time! The kids keep begging to go back on the Alpine slide and I told them that we would try to make it a yearly tradition.

Before we left the condo and headed home, Joy broke out some bandanas and made them into pioneer handkerchief dolls. She meant to do the activity on Friday for pioneer day, but we just didn't get to it. They turned out so cute!

Late that afternoon, we finally got home to stay. Tony lit off a few "daylight" fireworks before Christian passed out for a late, but completely overdue, nap (and the rest of us totally vegged out). They were fun little parachute guys and these colorful streamer "spiders" that the kids loved to watch falling from the sky and ran to catch.

.

We sure did fit a lot of fun with friends, family, and ourselves into Tony's summer vacay!

some videos

First up we have Christian just after he started singing the alphabet song by himself. This was taken on the evening of May 6th, in the car as we were coming home with our three free KFC meals that Oprah.com had the coupon for (Tony was still on his way home from work & picked up his own). It's a little hard to hear at first because the windows were down, but then the sound quality gets a bit better. Buddy only misses letters E, M, N & O. Great job Christian! And great job to Faith for taking this video!

And this one's from May 16th at Sam's Club. As we pass a big screen TV display, Christian gets the idea that Faith should dance with him during the closing credits to the end of Madagascar 2.

Nothing too exciting has been going on lately in the Braegger household. We have been loving some great spring weather going on around here, though! Faith and Christian have been playing outside every day, and this pic was taken after Little Buddy flooded our garage floor with the hose and then splashed around in the water in his socks. Faith, in a futile attempt to protect herself from the crazy hose wielder, got out her umbrella :)




Last Sunday we had some wild weather with high winds and hail. If you look closely, you'll see the remnants of a tumbleweed stuck on Crumpet's leg.



Faith is busy making a miniature, two floor candy store out of this cardboard and paper. Seriously, what will she think of next?


Some pics of the cute flower planters we got a few weeks ago: here's the little one hanging by the front door (the giant blue thing is an Aqua Globe to help keep it moist) which we planted ourselves,



the urn of white Geraniums,

and the terrific hanging basket.

Because Faith learned to ride her bike without training wheels, we thought we'd better get her one that was her size. At ToysRUs, Christian found something that he would love!

Here's Faith with her first new bike--details on her second in my next update. Christian looks a little miffed that it's not his!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I lost my cell phone and replaced it with this one. I hate getting expensive new gadgets, so I got the cheapest one that seemed like it would hold up. My cousin Derek works at the T Mobile store, and I always get whatever he tells me to!

.

Here's Christian after he finished off the end of a giant Sam's Club bag of frozen blueberries. Seriously, he was even bluer in real life than he looks in this picutre!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And here's Faith on her old, small bike showing off her new "two-wheeler" skilz:

since Easter

While Faith was on spring break, I went into the optometrist at Sam's Club for a check up. I was glad that Faith was there to keep Christian busy during the long appointment, and both kids were really very good and mostly quiet. One exception was while I was answering the "lens one, or lens two" questions behind this thing.-->

(I learned while trying to find a picture of one that it's called a phoropter. This blog is nothing if not educational!)
.
Christian started in with his, "mom------mom------mom." I kept telling him, "Quiet, Bud, and mom will be done in just a minute." and finally the doctor told him that he needed to wait until mommy was done. After a hundred more "mom"s, I finally said, "WHAT, Buddy?" and he replied, "Mom, wook wike wobot!" (translation-"Mom, you look like a robot!")

Next, the doctor put on crazy specs on me like these which have interchangable lenses, but he put a black plastic piece in the left side while he checked the prescription for my right eye. After a minute or two Christian blurted out, "Now wook wike piwate!" (Now you look like a pirate!) After that one, Faith, the doctor and I all cracked up!!


On April 14th I found this cat toy on clearance for $7 (regular price: $18) and just couldn't pass it up. Faith had been wanting something like this for Dusty and was just thrilled.







She even made him a matching pirate's hat!

A couple of weeks ago, we had gotten these barstools and I forgot to take and post a picture.
.
It was the weirdest thing. First of all, they are from Target and our dining set is from RC Willey, neither of which carried the opposite item and they are not marked as being from the same company (which I'm pretty sure they are since they're nearly identical.)
.
Secondly, was the way we got them. I had seen them in a Target ad about 8 months ago when they were on sale for 15 or 20 percent off the regular price of $90 each. I, of course, decided to wait until they went on a better sale. I scoured the Target ad each Sunday only to find that these never went on sale again! I checked on-line a few months ago and they weren't even listed, so I was afraid they had been discontinued.
.
That particular Saturday at the beginning of April, we went out to eat at the Bountiful Chuck-A-Rama, which is unusual because we don't eat out very often and if we do go to Chuck-A-Grandma's (as Faith calls it), we go to the Riverdale one. We stopped at the Centerville Target on the way home and happened to find my barstools being clearanced out for half price!
.
When we asked an employee for a flatbed cart to wheel them out, he remarked that he was surprised and glad to be getting rid of the stools so quickly since they had been in the back room for awhile and he'd just put them out a few hours before! Luck like that just doesn't usually happen around here! Even better was that my mom paid for them as a gift to us!!! I should have entered the lottery that day :)



On the 15th, we had a blizzard most of the day and the snow finally started sticking around 1 pm. This is crazy Utah spring!






That night I made omelets for dinner which Tony, Christian & I thoroughly enjoyed (Faith doesn't care for eggs and didn't really touch hers). The next morning, Buddy wanted to eat Faith's for breakfast since he loved it so much! Here he is with a gigantic bite.


On April 17th our primary had a talent show activity. Faith brought this picture of Olivia for the display table because she decided that art is her best talent. I think this drawing is amazing!
.
Some of the other kids sang, played piano, did karate, jump roped, played kazoos, and one even showed his talent for burping. Afterward, they got medals, light sticks (for letting their talents "shine"), and giant cookies. It turned out to be a really fun activity and all I really had to do was make the invitation and call half the families with a reminder!
.
On a sad note, just this past Sunday I was released as the Primary first counselor. Yes, I was only in the presidency since November, but the president had been in for three years. (Interesting note: I was the third person to be first counselor in this presidency that I know of because she lost one who got called to be Young Women's president and another when the ward split this last time.) I hope I get another calling in the primary, I think I'm too used to the action and would have a hard time sitting through a three hour block of church without it!



.
.
After the activity, I couldn't get the kids to leave the church grounds! They ran up and down the little hill and collected lots of dandilions. I played with this pic a bit--cropped it extra close and desaturized the color--and thought it turned out pretty cool.






.
.
Then, the little monkeys climbed up on the hood of the car and didn't want to get off. It seriously took us an extra 30 minutes or more to get on the road after that activity!
.
.
.



On the 18th our family headed over to J & J Nursery to get some flowers and such for our front and side planting beds. I love this pose of Buddy's, it reminds me of a "keep it real" rap star pose!




We picked mostly budget-friendly petunias, but also got some snap dragons, marigolds and geraniums. (We later stopped at WalMart and got two rose bushes and four peonies.) We also bought large and small hanging baskets and an urn of white geraniums. The kids loved the koi pond and could have spent another couple of hours staring at it!


Also at Walmart, Tony picked the kids up some gardening gloves in thier favorite colors. Christian had fun playing outside, and Faith was a big help planting the flowers. Next up will be a vegetable garden, as soon as we get a non-stormy weekend!!

The next day after church, I let Christian spend a minute or two watering our new flowers with his long lost friend, the hose sprayer. Unfortunately, it took him way longer than two minutes because it was just so darn fun.
.
And I say "unfortunately" because little Buddy's mom is not so great at remembering the sunscreen at the beginning of spring, and she needs to work on that now that she has a child with skin just one nano-shade darker than an albino. His arms got kinda crispy and his face looked rosy, but it could have been much worse.

Tony's 38th birthday was the 20th, so we celebrated the day before at the parents' houses. My mom made Tony his favorite dessert, Chocolate Lush. (You can find the recipe for it HERE.)

.
He got money, fun cards, and a shirt.

I don't write often enough how much I and the kids love that guy. He's a wonderful, caring husband (and believe me, I know how hard I am to put up with!), works so hard for our family, and is the cutest, sweetest, funnest dad ever!!! We love you soooooo much, happy birthday Ton!!




The night of the 20th, Christan was doing his best to talk me into letting him fall asleep in my bed (good try, Buddy!) while Faith rounded up items to take to school for a time capsule that she was putting together in her class.
.

.
They were each sealing their items in a #10 can, not to be opened until high school graduation. She wanted a recent picture, so I took this one that very night and printed it out for her. Tony and I each wrote a letter for the project and I gave them to Faith in sealed envelopes.
.
After school the next day, Faith asked what we wrote in the letters. I told her that it was a surprise and that she would find out when she got to unseal the time capsule.

"Is it the Easter Bunny's phone number??"

"No."

"Is it Santa Claus's phone number?!?!!"

"No."

(Very dejectedly) "Oh."
.
.
And lastly, here is a video of Christian singing "Happy Birthday" to himself (because he always wishes he were the birthday boy) and blowing out a hot glue stick "candle":