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.
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Christian says "Butterfwy Wake" so cute!:





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

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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!

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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

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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.

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

Tony's vacation, part 1

July 18th was a Saturday, but we considered it the first day of Tony's vacation from work. Our neighborhood had a children's bike parade that morning, but the kids woke up a little late and we didn't get to the starting point on time. When we met up with it, Faith took off and I didn't get a picture of her! But Buddy refused an offered ride on an ATV trailer and wanted to ride his trike instead. Here's Tony running along, pushing the trike, and trying to catch up (spoiler--it didn't happen!).
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It was pretty cool, there was a fire truck leading the way and an ambulance brought up the rear.



We finally gave up and drove the car to the ending point where there was water, frozen treats, and sitting in the fire truck!

That night we decided to go out to dinner and Tony let Faith pick the restaurant. Of course, we ended up at "Chuck-a-grandma's". Christian was on one that night, he kept laughing and screaming and being crazy.



Then he stuck a napkin on my head and took a picture of it.

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And got Faith to join in on the silliness.


Sunday morning I just had to get this shot of Tony & Crumpet snuggling so cute. They were both asleep until I got out my camera. Note to Tony's truck driver coworkers--this is how tough guys should spend their early Sunday mornings :)




That evening at Tony's parents' Christian came up with a fun game. You sit in the wood bark wearing no pants,




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then you stand up and see how many've stuck!
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Faith showed off her creativity with some rad washable marker tatoos. Buddy's is a horse and hers is a dolphin jumping out of the water.



On July 21st we had Ann's family including Mike and Natalie's family including Scott (aren't the guys so lucky to finally be included?) over for a barbeque. The kids started off on the trampoline while I grilled up some hamburgers & hot dogs.





The dads congregated to chat,

as did the moms :)

Lots of swimming was going on. Faith's showing me that she can float on her back. Her little friend Hunter (on the dolphin floatie) loved it so much that she hardly came out of the pool!

The guys got up the badminton net and played a few games. The kids had fun with it, too.

Sparklers were a hit!

The kids couldn't get enough of roasting marshmallows. Many weren't eaten, though and ended up as a sticky obstacle course on the patio.

We ended the night with a fun firework display. I'm so glad our friends came over, we had an absolute blast!

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Tony's vacation: to be continued . . .

pioneer party

On July 16th we had a Pioneer Day party with our friends. We actually missed the beginning of the party where they fed the ducks at Layton Commons Park because we were making freezer salsa at a Relief Society thing. But we made it just in time to tour the Layton Heritage Museum!

Christian threw a fit when a curator told him not to touch the antiques, but other than that we had a fun time seeing all the displays.

I think the weirdest are the old blow dryer and perm machine!

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After the museum, we headed to our house to eat pizza and breadsticks from The Pizza Place. I hadn't tried theirs before, yum!!

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For an activity/treat, I had the kids pull salt water taffy. They were so funny, they got pretty annoyed that it was sticky in their hands :)


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I was doling out the taffy and had sticky hands myself, but Natalie got these awesome shots of Christian's attempt.

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I pulled a lot of it and we enjoyed it all the rest of the afternoon. It turned out so yummy! I've made taffy many times before, but it had been years and years. Yet another recipe I'll have to post soon.

We sure had a lot of fun that day with our friends!