temple tour & petting farm

On July 11th our family toured the Oquirrh Mountain temple in the Daybreak area of South Jordan. Traffic was crazy and we arrived a few minutes late for our tour, but the main problem was that we had to wake Buddy so he was a bit grouchy at first. That's why we all look crappy in the family photo and Christian won't even look at the camera, but I wanted it taken because I knew it would be dark by the time the tour finished.


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Buddy cheered up and actually loved the tour! Of course, I think the kids' favorite part was the cookies at the end, but they each seemed really interested and excited about seeing the inside of a temple.



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They loved this fountain and all the lights on the outside.

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The funny part was that even though we were surrounded by to-die-for marble floors, dreamy crystal chandeliers and breathtaking wall murals, every time we came through a room with plastic carpet protector matting Christian would point to it and comment, "This a special room!" I have to give it to the kid, it was shiny and had a pretty diamond texture to it and I'm sure it looked extra fancy to him since he'd never seen it before :)

On the 14th I decided since it was only supposed to get up to 76 degrees (and then the temps would soar into the nineties) that I would take the kids to Carver's Cove Petting Farm in Eden. We'd never been before and I'd been meaning to go there for years! When Sarah heard I was going, she asked if her family could come too (of course--yes!!!) so we also invited Joy's family and mom to make it a family event. Soon after we got there, the owner handed Faith this baby goat.

(Sorry for the glowy photo effects on all of these, I think my lens had something smeared on it. Of course, the kids are always playing with it so it ususally does, but it seemed worse this day.)





Grandma and Sierra couldn't resist that fuzzy little head.




Christian looks a little surprised that the donkey is eating the molasses coated corn he offered.






There were llamas,

and sheep.
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Don't Alaura (in the red) and Celeste (in the pink) look adorable in their cowgirl hats? Noah wore a straw hat, red bandana kerchief, & a cow print vest. You can see a bit of him on the left of this one and the llama pic above. Cute!!

We were all enamored with this little foal.

Then the kids got to hold a kitten

and a bunny.

There were also pigs, ducks, chickens, turkeys, cows, and dogs.

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Finally, the moment that they had been waiting for came--the horse ride! Buddy desperately wanted to go first, but I knew if he did that he would throw a fit because he couldn't have more turns so I tried to hold him off until the end. Faith rode first and is quite the horsewoman. She really wants her own horse, but I told her that she would have to settle for riding lessons.

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Christian kept shouting, "I next! I next!" so my plan was foiled and I let him follow his sister. He LOVED it and was especially happy to feed the horse an apple wedge at the end of the ride. As I feared, almost immediately after his turn, he stared throwing a fit because he wanted another ride, so I just left him lying, stomach down, in the dirt, kicking and screaming, and went to feed the goats again.

After a good ten minute cry, he picked himself up and joined us. I had them pose on the tractor
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and the buggy, but Christian got really upset with me that I wouldn't make them "Go!" I guess his mood hadn't fully recovered since it was past naptime.

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Just before we left we saw that the baby bunnies had come out of their dirt tunnels, so we took a peek at them.

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It was such a fun place that the kids have already asked several times for a return trip, and I'll have to be sure to make it a yearly occurrence.

That night when Tony got home, he had a surprise for the kids-- firework snakes. They loved watching those gross little things grow!

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Seeing those snakes brought back memories for me of when I was young and doing them with the Peterson kids (my dad's half brothers and sisters). I kneeled in the aftermath and ruined some brand new pants mom had bought me for school. I haven't thought fondly of those things ever since!

Mitchell Family Potato Salad

8 medium Russet potatoes
10 hard boiled eggs, peeled and diced
3/4 cup finely chopped candied party pickles*
one large can olives, finely chopped
1 tsp. Lawry's seasoned salt
1 ¼ cup Miracle Whip
2 Tbs. yellow mustard
2 Tbs. milk
paprika

Boil potatoes with skins on for 12-18 minutes, until tender but firm (not mushy). Keep checking by pricking with a fork. After draining and cooling, remove skins and dice.
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In a very large mixing bowl add potatoes, boiled eggs, pickles and olives. Sprinkle seasoned salt over the top. In a separate bowl, mix Miracle Whip, mustard and milk.

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Mix dressing into salad well. Taste test and add more Miracle Whip until desired consistency is reached. Sprinkle top with paprika and chill.

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*I use Storey's Sweet Memories distinctively flavored fancy candied party pickles which can be purchased at Macy's grocery store and possibly other Associated Foods stores. Sidenote--the picture is a stock photo. These pickles are a crazy bright neon green color and look realy fun in the salad!

I've gotten a few requests for another "hot guys" post and I'm only too happy to comply! Since I put boy band music on my blog, I've become re-obsessed with the Irish band Boyzone and specifically this song:


You can just ignore the Notting Hill clips with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and focus on the hot band mates

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especially Ronan Keating,

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and most especially Stephen Gately.
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Of course, my hot guy posts have to feature vampires. I'm not the biggest Robert Pattinson fan and I did already include a pic on my last post, so this time I'll feature the hottest Twilight vampire, Dr. Cullen (Peter Facinelli).
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I'll admit, the blonde hair does throw you a bit at first, but they just can't cover up sex appeal like this no matter what they do to him!

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First runner up in that category: definately Kellan Lutz as Emmet. Sorry Edward, I'm sure you'll make my top five list, or at least top ten :)

Time to go old school with one of my first vampire crushes--Keifer Sutherland in Lost Boys. He can even rock a mullet, and that's pretty impressive.

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No list of hottest vampires would be complete without Brad Pitt as Louis in Interview with the Vampire.

But for long-haired Brad ultimate hottness, it's got to be Legends of the Fall.

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For a current reference, there's Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) from True Blood,

but the hottest guys from that show aren't vampires. Sam (Sam Trammell) is a shape shifter

and Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is just a knucklehead.

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But if I'm mentioning vampire costars, I'm going to take this thing full circle and include this eye candy: Jacob's New Moon poster. WARNING--JAIL BAIT!! IF YOU ARE OVER THE AGE OF 19, VIEW THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK.




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It's worth the risk, if you ask me, but I'll include the poster of the rest of the wolf pack here at the end for those that get a creepy "Primetime: To Catch a Predator" feeling from looking at that one.

Camping!

A few people have finally heard my pleas and voted in my preschool polls, but I would love more! I've been posting more fun craft ideas to lure you over there--Clever Sprouts Preschool
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Also, I'm in the mood for boy band music for some reason, so I changed to that--hope you enjoy (mom)!
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On to my online journal entries!
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I did Faith's piggies with these hot pink hair tutus for church the morning of July 5th and then she donned another outfit to match for the rest of the day. Cute!
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We played games at Tony's parents that evening. We love dominos!

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On the 8th we had Ann, Natalie & kids over for our 4th of July party. It didn't work out to have it the week before, so we just extended the celebration of our country's independence! We had fruit kabobs, Chinese chicken salad and pasta salad then monkey munch and Pop Rock "firework" cupcakes for dessert! A bit later, the homemade blackberry ice cream was finally ready. Tip: always pre-mash your blackberries, don't just throw them into the mix and turn on the ice cream maker. Ours still came out delicious, but it was more like vanilla with frozen blackberrry lumps!

The kids had a blast swimming and juming on the trampoline and then I had them make some flag inspired placemats. I laminated them when they were done and ours have really held up after using them almost a month. I love that Faith got creative with the star punch and folded her blue square to get it to punch stars in the middle. She ended up with 44 stars just by estimating! Christian did his completely on his own after I showed him which corner the blue went in. I thought it was funny that he glue stick-ed both sides of his red stripes, but unfortunately that doesn't really show now that the glue is dry. I also love his little line of blue stars!

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I had us moms tie ribbon wreaths, but they came out a little sparse. I was going for this look, but was too cheap to spend that much money on ribbon!
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The next morning, the kids and I left for an impromtu trip to the Uinta's to stay at Jordan's family cabin. On the way there, we were twice slowed down by giant flocks of sheep crossing Mirror Lake Highway! Faith got this great close-up picture out of her window. Christian kept saying, "Mom!! Me get out and pet dem?!"


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It was "F" week for Sierra, so right after we got there we had some fun with Faith in Jordan's old fort




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and found some flowers.


Next, we drove over super rocky unpaved roads (for what seemed like an hour to the kids who were bouncing all around in their car seats) to Lily Lake. We hiked around the lake for awhile before Jordan finally found what we were foraging for:





FROGS!





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Faith got brave and held one,





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and Christian couldn't get enough of them.


While he was holding his third frog, he all of a sudden lifted it up and kissed it! Faith's exclamation of "Yuck!" startled him and, by reflex, threw the little guy into the grass. Because we laughed a bit about it, the next frog he got to hold he promptly gave a big kiss and a fling!

We next drove to this stream and the kids could have spent all day throwing pepples into it. By the way, the reason that Christian has no pants on is that he overindulged on all the fruit at our party the day before (he probably ate two pints of blueberries and nearly a whole pint of blackberries that were meant for the ice cream in addition to the watermelon). After two blow outs, I decided that he could just rock the pull-ups and saved the last pair of shorts for the next day.

I love all the pretty flowers that grow up in the mountains!

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We then hiked a trail that went through an area destroyed by a forest fire in 2002. Faith was so excited to finally go hiking for the first time in her life!

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Christian is always doing something crazy :)

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . And yet another example:

Here is Joy's family (with the addition of my kids), I'll have to get my family pic from her that she took. It was an easy and interesting hike and we loved reading the informative markers along the trail.

We had chili cheese dogs for dinner and then roasted marshmallows and Starburst (two of their friends told them to try it--they were actually pretty good!). We spent the next several hours trying to get the kids to sleep while we watched episodes of Firefly. I'll have to do an entire post soon on how much I love that program and what an injustice it is that we only ever got one shortened season of it. Soldier on, browncoats!

The next morning we cleaned up after breakfast and then hiked down behind the cabin to this stream. Below is a video of Faith crossing on the log bridge (with Joy's help).

We then packed up to go. Isn't it a cute cabin? Jordan's family built it themselves!

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This video is of the cool moths that hang out on the front porch. I love their defense mechanism!

We stopped at Butterfly lake to eat a picnic lunch and then headed home. It was a super fun trip even though it was way too short! Luckily, we didn't have to miss the Uinta's for too long . . . stay tuned!