Christmas Nativity Family Style!

Yesterday night Kaden, Clark, and Grace got into some nativity dress-ups that I had bought a couple of years ago at a craft fair and decided it would be fun to dress up as Mary(Grace), Joseph(Kaden) and Donkey(Clark). Was really cute and a good laugh seeing Clark carry Grace on his back.

Red Rock Gymnastics

Friday the girls got to go the The Ute Gymnastic practice meet. It was so fun to see all the cool tricks those girls could do!



After the meet all the gymnast were signing posters and Grace just had to have one so we stood in line for about 25 minutes waiting to get the signatures but, it was worth it because now Grace can show off her true Ute spirit with her gymnastic poster on her wall.

Family Traditions

Family traditions are so fun and helps your family to grow closer together. It seems that around Christmas time there are more traditions that go on in one month then the rest of the year. One of our traditions is to go to the Festival of Trees. This usually happens on a Friday. I go and pick up the kids from school and then go and spend a couple of hours looking at all the cool trees. Also, another one of our traditions is getting a picture with Santa which also usually happens while we are at the Festive of Trees.





Here is one of the many trees. This was KaeLee's favorite tree. Can you guess what the theme was? TWILIGHT.

A Little Late but, Happy Halloween

We started out trick or treating at Blaine's work. This is a tradition and such a fun one. When the kids get done trick or treating there they already have enough candy to last them a year but, of course we just can't stop there. So we went back home everyone went trick or treating except for KaeLee who stayed home and gave candy to trick or treaters. We had a great night!

Family Caravan to St. George

Last weekend we got the chance to go and take Blaine's mom and dad, and some others in his family down to St. George. While we were down there we were able to go to Tuacahn, Snow Canyon, Zions, and many more places. It was so fun and we can't wait to do it again.


The first thing we did when we were down there was go to the Tuachan play BIG RIVER!! For all those who don't know what Tuacahn is it is a big out door (play)theater. They put on such a great show!


This is a picture of all the kid, before we went in to watch the play.


It is so beautiful down there. This is a picture Kaden took right as the moon was coming up over the red rock.


This picture pretty much speaks for its self. Big hairy ugly spider. As we were walking we saw people stopping to look at something on a wall. Out of interest we also stopped to look and found this huge thing just sitting there.


The boys had a great time playing pool at the hotel. Grandpa used to love this game when he was in high school but, had not played it for a long time. So we thought it would be fun for them to play a little game.


Saturday morning we went to Snow Canyon (a national park just outside of St. George). This is KaeLee and Blaine in a little slot canyon we hiked into.


Kristen, Grandma, and Grandpa had a great time on the hikes. They had not been to St. George for a long time so this was a great opportunity to show them all the cool thing down there.


Kaden and Clark loved to climb all over the rocks and see who could climb the highest.


Grace also loved climbing on the rocks but, her favorite thing to do was posing for pictures.


Look at the beautiful view!


The last thing we did before heading home was go to Zion's. It was amazing up there. This is the whole gang execpt for KaeLee(taking the picture) and Grandpa(who wandered ahead).

Thanks for the great memories!

OUCH!!!

This past weekend while at scout camp Kaden cut his finger and had to get stitches. Here are a couple of pictures.

Gone Fishing!!

Believe it or not, I actually took a vacation!! Better yet, it was without wife or children. (Just Kidding, Crystal and KaeLee) I went to a fishing lodge west of Juneau, Alaska for a week at the end of August. The lodge is called Doc Warner's. I had a great time.


This is one of the halibut I caught on my trip. We caught our limit (2 per person) 3 out of the 5 days. We only kept them if they were larger than 30 inches. The biggest one I caught was about 40 lbs.


Rex, Hiram and I with our catch of halibut (this was our best day). Rex's halibut weighed 58 lbs. We caught a couple of salmon that day also.


While fishing for halibut, I caught this yellow-eyed rockfish. It looks like a goldfish on steriods. We'll see what it tastes like soon.


Another day's catch. We each brought home 85 lbs of fish (60 lbs of halibut, 20 lbs of salmon, and the rest in rockfish).


Rex talked us into putting out a crab pot. It was like a poor man's version of "Deadliest Catch", but at the end of the week we had a feast with the Dungeness crab we caught. Rex was quite the "crabber", and this picture shows him enjoying the fruits of his labors.


Except for the first day, salmon fishing was a little spotty. We caught about 20 salmon the first day, although we released six of the best fish because of a "species identification problem." This would be one of them that "got away" because he convinced us he was a king salmon, instead of an impressive silver salmon.


Lucky for us, the weather was good all week. The first day was rough in the afternoon (causing Rex to make an offering to the fish gods over the side of the boat). After that, we had lots of beautiful weather, just like this fantastic sunset.


We saw lots of wildlife during our trip. Humpback whales, porpoises, eagles, sea lions, sea otters, and bears. This bear shared his fishing hole with us. He was more successful. He was often about 30 yds away while we fly fished.


Alaska is beautiful. This is a picture of the Icy Straits where we fished, with the mountains of Glacier Bay National Park in the distance. Every view looked like a post card. I never wanted to leave.

Idaho Trip!

This past weekend the girls and Bailey (our neighbors) went to Idaho to a family reunion. While we were up there we did many fun things here are some pictures.

We started of by floating down the canal.
Everybody ready to go swim.

Grace an Bobby having a little bit of a hard time choosing what duck to feed.
Saturday morning we went to a family reunion. Grandpa is in the top left corner, all the rest are his brother's and sister's.

Friday night at midnight the last book of the Twilight series came out. This is KaeLee, Mindee, and Kailee reading it.

The sun was extra bright that day so Grace had to were 2 pairs of sun glasses.

Suzzie, Grandma, Trenna, and Crystal at the sand dunes.
Lexi, Mindee, KaeLee, Bailey, Terra, and Grace. Look at the beautiful sunset.
Out in the sand dunes is a little lake, we got to run and play in that until we got cold!
Playing in the water.

Bright Sun!
Look how pretty!
Keep picking!
Picking Huckleberries for jam.
We went and picked huckleberries. For those of you who don't know what those are they are little blueberry type things but, taste a little more sour.

These are all the fun crafts that the girls made while at grandma and grandpa's house.
This is the pop up trailer that the girls got to stay in while the mom's sleep inside.

Dad's Birthday

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Homestead Vacation!