ThOmAs

Saturday we took the boys to see Thomas the Train in Heber City.

We stayed at a condo the night before in Park City with our friends Ben and Andrea and their two kids.

The condo had a loft and the boys loved playing up there. -Ian, Ethan, and Logan

Me- I got my hair cut- I needed something easier to do, because I have been too tired to spend much time on it.

The boys were so excited when they saw that there really was a Thomas the Train.

Boarding the Train.

I love this picture because we are all smiling!

Andrea, Ben, Ian, and Sadie

Ethan had so much fun!

Logan pretending to take pictures with his Thomas camera.

After we got off the train, they let us take pictures in front of Thomas.

You could get pictures with Sir Toppin Hat, but the line was too long so I just decided to take one of him by himself.

I don't know if it was worth the money we paid, but I'm glad we went because the boys had a blast!

We had a nice barbecue with some family today. It was such a fun weekend. Too bad tomorrow it will be back to life as usual. :)

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend.

Weekend Retreat

We were able to get away for the weekend and visit my grandparent's in Nampa, Idaho. We were even more excited to go because we got to bring our van and it has so much room in it for traveling.

We stopped in Twin Falls on the way and visited the Shoshone Falls (below)

The water level was pretty high. The boys loved it.

Grandpa took us to the Wahooz Fun Zone in Meridian, Idaho. We were excited to find out that Ethan was tall enough to be a passenger on the go-karts.

The go-karts were too loud for Logan, so Grandpa took him inside to play arcade games. Grandpa is 87 years old, but he is still as active as ever.

Ethan was a little unsure of the car at first.

Nick had already been staying at Grandpa's house for a few days and so he got to hang out with us.

Ethan loved every minute of riding in the go-kart. It was so cute!

Boys swimming in the pool at our hotel.

I didn't take pictures of the other things we did. We went and saw Shrek 4 at the theater, we went out to eat, went shopping, played games, went to church, and then Grandma made us a yummy roast beef dinner.

What a great retreat from normal life!

The Finer Things of Life

During a trip to Huntsville, Alabama, I had a chance to enjoy the "finer things of life". There is a restaurant called Grille 29. It's not a place where a person would enter in with jeans and a t-shirt. After enjoying the fillet Mignon, a dessert was in order and the one that I chose was the Chocolate Mousse Pyramid.

Though this isn't the greatest picture, the top of the pyramid is edible 24k gold. Gold doesn't taste like anything but the pyramid was delicious.

Chris and Junk

So now that I'm home, Nanette wants to move. Okay! Moving! That doesn't sound too easy. I mean we have bought and have been given way too much junk, which means we are now de-cluttering the house to get it in the process of being sold. Therefore, on Saturday, I faced my fear of spiders and went under the house and pulled-out bins that are storing our junk. We went through four bins and ended up with a half a bin full of stuff to keep and the rest of the stuff taking up our garbage can that won't be emptied until Friday. Great!... we have three more bins. NOT! Nanette and I went up to Logan's room and put the clothes he can't fit in anymore into two of them and threw away a bunch of junky toys. While this is going on, Nanette is getting mad at me because I'm just throwing it away and not donating or doing something productive about it. When it comes to deep cleaning, my policy is to throw it away. Don't believe me? Ask my Mom. Needless to say, Nanette and I got a lot of junk thrown away. That is nice.

Lesson to be learned...Don't buy junk. Second lesson to be learned...Don't let me clean it or I will just throw it away.


P.S. Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to a Denver Broncos game with an old mission companion. Here are a couple of pictures:

Chris and Chris.... ready for the game!

Of course, we sat way up in the nosebleeds, but we still had a blast! Thanks Nanette for letting me go! :)

Our fun road trip

We just got back from a fun trip to South Dakota. We left the boys with my parents. Thanks mom and dad! On our way to South Dakota we stopped in Rawlins, Wyoming and visited my sister, Katie, and her husband. We went out to dinner and then played pool and went bowling. Thanks guys. It was a lot of fun. After that we stopped at Martin's Cove and visited the visitor's center. When we made it to South Dakota, we stayed in Rapid City, which is near Mt. Rushmore. While in SD we saw Mt. Rushmore (very cool), took a tour of Jewel Cave Nat'l Monument (the 2nd largest cave in the world), saw Crazy Horse Nat'l Monument, and went swimming at an indoor waterpark hooked onto our hotel. We had a blast. The worst part of the trip was having to drive home.

Us at dinner in Rawlins, Wy

My sister, Katie, and her husband Aaron

Devil's Gate by Martin's Cove

Beautiful Mt. Rushmore