It's A Zoo Out There

My brother Matt and his family came to visit and we got to spend a day at the zoo with them. My mom brought Erin's boys too and we had a great time. We had a fun visit with everyone and saw some of the new exhibits at Hogle Zoo.  I loved watching Sophia's cousins take her by the hand and point out the neat things they saw.

Olivia and Coleman were sad they missed it... and insisted that I check them out of school to go with us, but I remained the firm, mean mama and made them stay in school.... we'll make another trip to the zoo another day so they can come too :).

Family Fun and Funny Faces

While Scott and Kristen were visiting we got together at a park for a family dinner late in June. Sophia would take off any time she was put on the ground without an anchor of sorts (usually me or Ryan holding her). That girl is fast! We loved spending time with Ryan's aunts Denise and Karen and their kids and with Ryan's siblings.

Ryan's cool cousin Richard just got married to Shanae who is a master artist with face paints. She brought her supplies and hooked up the kids. Coleman had a T-Rex on the side of his face, whose mouth opened when Coleman opened his mouth. Sophia wanted to be an elephant (she kept saying "Me Elly!") and Liv got some fancy swirly beautiful things. Faith was a butterfly and Alyza wanted a rainbow. Sam was an awesome pirate, but I didn't grab a photo of him (darn it!). They had a great time playing with each other! Someone brought water balloons (which made their cute painted faces run a bit). I loved that Sophia was trying to dry Coleman off with paper towels when he got drenched. I was just glad she was occupied with something that kept her attention long enough to keep her from running off to the park. We ate homemade ice cream and bacon chocolate chip cookies and played kickball and visited and played at the playground (I finally gave in and just TOOK her there... what a novel concept!) and laughed and felt grateful for each other. And did I mention that I chased after Sophia? Yeah, that too.

Here's a short video clip of Coleman's awesome T-Rex (thanks, Shanae!):

Summer Visitors and Activities

It's hard to believe that summer has come to an end! As I've been looking through photos from this summer I decided to condense a whole bunch of activities into one post, lest you get bored.

Here goes...

Early in June my good friend Kim came to visit for a bit from Indiana. We met Patrice for lunch and had a great visit. We missed Loretta who was our other pal in high school but didn't come to visit until later in the summer. It is so fun that we still see each other (usually at least once a year) and still consider each other our best friends. These ladies are wonderful!

Ryan's sister Traci and her family came to visit in June, so we had a Harper BBQ. It was so fun to get all of the Harper cousins together (of course we missed Mikkie!), they don't get to be together very often and they have such a great time together. I love the picture of Ryan and his brothers and sister.

We went to the zoo! It was HOT and we were dismayed to find out that our zoo no longer "carries" lions or hippos. Some of the new exhibits are neat though. I love the photo of Sophia consulting the zoo map as if she would be our tour guide (top left).

Olivia got to be in the Steel Days parade with her soccer club (Xtreme). Sophia and Coleman enjoyed the parade (and all the free candy) but were especially excited to see Liv.

Loretta and her cute kids came to visit from Alabama!  Patrice and her kids live in Davis County and we met at Loretta's parents house for a yummy lunch and let the kids play. Each of us has an oldest daughter (and they all wear glasses, they thought that was cool). The girls swapped Cinderella stories about all they had to do to help with the younger kids and around the house, so they wanted a picture with the babies on their hips (see bottom left). It was so fun to see them all! This day we missed Kim, who had returned to Indiana with her three kids. Between the four of us there are 14 children... amazing!

Our good friends the Reis' came from California to visit... we spent as much time as possible with them and went to the Scera pool and Discovery Park. Olivia and Madi and Brandon and Coleman would move in together if they could (and often plot how one of our families can move so we can live by each other). They are finally starting to grasp the concept of needing a job in order to live in a certain place, but we enjoy whatever visiting time we can with them.

Matt and his family came out from Connecticut for a couple of days and we met them and Lindsey and her boys and my mom at the This is The Place Heritage Park. I am sad that I didn't take any pictures of Matt's cute boys! They have a ton of activities there including pony rides, gold mining, a train ride, a barber shop (complete with a free shave) and a bunch of other "working" shops with people in period dress there to explain it all. My kids liked the mountain man and I liked the pharmacy full of natural remedies. We all liked the "saloon" that sold ice cream. One of my kids asked if all saloons sold ice cream back then :).

This year some of the descendants of Sophia Mason Crook (who my Sophia was named after) decided to add a marker in the Payson City Cemetery for her. She is buried somewhere in Davis County (where she died) but as most of her descendants settled in Payson they felt it appropriate to put it there. She was a remarkable woman of great faith and determination. We went down with Grandma Cole to see the marker and after wandering the cemetery for what seemed like hours, we found it! Maps and coordinates in that cemetery seemed to be helpful at the entry gate, but when we got into the cemetery we got all turned around. It was still fun to be with Grandma and enjoy a cold ice cream cone with her after we were done at the cemetery. She is a great lady and I feel blessed to have such a close relationship with her.

We had a full, fun summer... but alas, it is time to get back into the groove of school.

**What are your summer highlights?

Isn't Life Grand?

We were only a few hours away from Grand Canyon, so we figured we would get our money's worth (we bought the Annual Interagency Pass for National Parks and such) so many of us from the group went to there when our time at Zion was done.  A little history would be enlightening--my mom worked at Grand Canyon cleaning cabins during the summers of her college years. It was her favorite vacation when she was a kid, and it continues to be one of her favorite spots. She is always trying to talk someone into going to Grand Canyon with her. We were glad that it worked out this time, and she knew of some great lookout points and simple hikes to go on.

We had to get the obligatory photo underneath the Grand Canyon Lodge sign.

I love Sophia's expression in the photo above!

We drove and hiked and looked and oohed and aah-ed and took lots of photos. The sun was bright so our expressions were kind of goofy in most of the photos, but we had a good time. We drank lots of water too. It was hot.

Our last stop was an old Native American Granary. It was a 1/2 mile hike (or so?) and we wanted to hurry, so we half-way ran down and back up the trail. I learned again where I get my "we need to hurry!" from (my mom was hurrying us all along) and Coleman and Olivia kept asking me why we needed to run. Poor kids.

We saw variations of this view on our way out of the park as we drove to Jacob Lake (which actually doesn't have much of a lake, did you know?).  It was late and we were tired and hungry and Sophia was cranky, so we kept telling the kids to give her snacks (Teddy Grahams, cereal, pretzels, etc. from the best trail mix ever that Lauren made). The road was so curvy and windy and Sophia didn't feel so well. About 30 minutes away from Jacob Lake Liv told us she thought Sophia was going to be sick. Sure enough, there was vomiting. A lot of it. Yucky and smelly. We pulled off to the side of the road and waved as all of the other cars in our group passed us. My mom said she was sure we had stopped to photograph the beautiful sunset :). Lindsey was kind enough to stop and check on us, but there wasn't much we could do. We cleaned her up the best that we could and made our way to Jacob Lake where we promptly bathed Sophia and all of the parts of her car seat. Good times on the family vacation!

We decided that Grand Canyon is amazing... and it is good to visit there every 10 or 15 years or so. We might be tempted to get to the South Rim sometime soon though (we need to make good use of our interagency pass!).

**What's your favorite national park?
**We aren't the only ones with throw-up stories while on vacation, are we? What's yours?

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Zion Ponderosa Ranch had so many fun things to do... the best thing was hanging out together in the great house. When we weren't running to a national park we had a great time at the ranch.

We swam (that's my awesome mom on the slide!)...

We ate... and ate... (we made Cafe Rio salads with Brazilian Lemonade when it was our night to cook)...

Sophia went to sleep in the corner while we played games (Ticket to Ride and Trivial Pursuit).

We played on the swings...

...and Sophia was SO cute... she was happy to keep swinging while we...

waited and waited in line for Liv to go on the bungee trampoline...

...and when it was finally her turn, the power on the machine didn't work! She was so disappointed, but she got another ticket to do another activity.

Coleman miniature golfed! He even got a hole-in-one.

We braved family photos! Ryan was so great, I don't think he loves taking family photos, but he was willing to do it for us. We had some challenges with the sun and shadows, so there is a big hole in the top left corner, but it was just too bright there. Looking at it now, it looks like a perfect spot for Matt and his family. We missed them so much! We should photoshop them in (wink, wink).

Look for the above family photo on the blog header soon...

... and these are all of the Cole kids and grandkids.  Again, missing Matt and Ashley and their boys, and always missing Chance.

Above are the Cole siblings (minus Matt)... David, Heather, me, Lauren, Erin, Lindsey, and Megan.

We zip-lined! We had to climb 3 huge flights of stairs to get to the top... and the first time we climbed it we didn't know that we had to check in and get our gear... by the time we got to the top and realized that, Olivia decided it was way too high. After she couldn't do the trampoline, she decided to do the zip line. It was fun! Did I mention that my mom is cool? She did the zip line too! That is her in the bottom right corner.

Our "special" boys found any wild-life they could, including this blue-bellied lizard! There is a Blue-Belly Grill  at the ranch, and when they found this guy we figured out where they got the name.

The kids blew bubbles and played on the stairs (scary!) and we had pow-wows in the closet (which was as big as most of our bedrooms) where Grace and Sophia had their matching jams on.

We really appreciated my mom and Mike for making the arrangements for us to stay at such a fun place!

Zippin' Through Zion

We spent one of our days in Zion National Park and had  a great time. My mom and Mike gave us cool Zion's t-shirts for Christmas last year, so our family sported them for the day.

You aren't allowed to drive into the park very far any more, but they have a handy shuttle bus that takes you anywhere you need to go... and luckily wasn't that crowded. Lindsey and her boys got there the same time we did, so we got to spend the morning with them.

We hiked to the Emerald Pools and had a great time! Sophia did NOT want to keep her hat on her head (but she DID want to keep her finger in her nose). Ryan had Soph in the pack for our hikes and she did pretty well. I was trying to help Lindsey with her boys a little bit... they were great, but were wanting to hop and run ahead, so I was trying to keep track of Jonah (four years old) since Lindsey was with Jaxton.  Lindsey overheard a woman telling her hiking companions what a horrible parent I was for bringing such a young boy on a trail like this.  She said something to the effect of "Now that's just bad parenting right there!" Lovely. If I had seen her again I would have given her a list of all the ways that I am a bad parent, but certainly hiking on a fairly easy trail with plenty of water and sunscreen isn't one of them.

We finally found a way to keep Sophia's hat on her head... she just needed to fall asleep!

After the Emerald Pools hike we met up with the rest of the group near the lodge for a picnic lunch.

Sophia stayed asleep for a few minutes like this!

After she woke up from her nap, Soph was in a funny, funny mood.

She kept picking the grass and throwing it on Grandpa.  Ryan got the cutest video of her (notice, no hat!):



After our lunch and a little break we loaded onto the shuttle bus again and hiked to Weeping Rock. It is such a short hike with a fun ending... the kids loved the dripping water and the cool shadow of the overhang.

We loved being at Zion with our family!

Science Museum

We've been so excited to have my sister's family visiting. We don't get to see them nearly often enough! Always on the lookout for cheap (free!) ways to entertain the kids, we ventured to the Monte L. Bean Science museum on BYU campus. The kids loved it!

Olivia and Emma loved the hunts that the museum provided.

Coleman had a great time too but didn't love "hanging" with the girls (Claire, Sophia, and Grace).

We all thought this butterfly (made up of hundreds of smaller butterflies and moths) was really neat.

The best part about this museum? It's in walking distance of the BYU Creamery outlet. We all enjoyed a cold scoop!

Coleman, Andrew, Josh, and Nathan

Sophia loved hers too!

Spring Break Day 5

On our last day of spring break we had a family picnic at Creekside Park!

My mom came for a bit and helped set up and cook. She is great!

Megan, Jaxton and Lindsey

Ryan was our grill guy... making sure the raw hamburger juices didn't get on the hot dogs. We ate completos. Yummy!

Sophia and my dad who was in town for my grandma's 80th birthday celebration (more to come on that later!).

This plaque is hanging up in the pavilion... Breneman Barr Bitner is one of my ancestors (great, great grandfather?) and his family donated or sold the land to the city where the park is now. Pretty cool!

The kids loved this round thing.... I'm not even sure what to call it.

Jonah and Brady had so much fun together!

The kids kept asking us to push them... my dad gave it a go several times (it was tiring work!).

Sophia LOVED the slides. She has found a new favorite thing to do!

We played a rousing game of kick-ball... David (with Katty and David Joseph) wanted to play dodgeball... but we stuck with kick-ball. It was very fun!

David had flip flops so he tried playing barefoot... the ball left an impression in his foot where he kicked it!

We didn't go out of town for spring break... and we didn't have perfect weather all week, but we managed to do some fun things during the week, especially with my dad and Lindsey visiting... now to get back on schedule and back in school!