We are going PRIVATE!

After some deliberation, I have decided to go private with my blog.  If you are interested in being added to my blog so that you may continue to view it, please leave a comment with your email address below.    Otherwise you will no longer be able to view our blog.  You will be required to sign in to view it in the future, but this will keep others who I do not know from viewing pictures of our children.  We want to protect them from all the creeps out there in the cyber world.

Thanks for understanding.

Miners Fight Back Against Obama TV Ad: "Absolute Lies"

Whether or not you agree with using coal as a source of energy, it is one of great abundance in this country.  Many people rely on coal mining to put food on their tables and a roof over their heads - WE are one of those families.  Most of Andy's rail business is coal related.  Not all coal that is mined in the US is used in the US.  A lot of the Wyoming coal goes to the southeast US for energy and some of the Utah coal goes to Korea and Europe and some to other parts of Asia.  

Obama has allowed such strict EPA regulations on energy plants that it has caused a number of power plants to close.  This has resulted in lost energy plant jobs, lost mining jobs, and loss of rail road jobs, because rail roads haul coal across the country.  Do we wonder why unemployment hasn't improved?  This will result in higher energy costs for all of us because there is no other power substitute in place.  Coal generates much more efficient power than solar & wind combined.  Does this mean we build more nuclear power plants?  I lived through the Three Mile Island meltdown and don't want to do that again!

President Obama has approved an ad that lied about these coal miners in Ohio.  These blue collar workers (you know, the middle class Obama's so worried about?) were so frustrated by the fact that they were misrepresented that they wrote letters to the president and to the radio host who accused the mine of forcing them to attend a Romney ad.  

I'm so glad that the working middle class is standing up for themselves.  I hope a lot of other coal miners realize how many of their jobs are in jeopardy with Obama's War On Coal.  

Here is a link to the original Obama ad where he LIED in the ad about coal miners: Obama's False Ad

Here is the resonse of 500 Century Mine employees:

I'm so sick of all the lies of the Obama administration.  I don't understand how anyone can support a man with such little integrity.  I may not agree with everything about Romney, but I can say that he's a man who I can respect by the way he conducts himself and I feel he will represent us as a nation with more character than what's been demonstrated over the past four years.  I'm sick of the excuses.  I'll be glad when the election is OVER!  We can't take another 4 years!

Put Me In Coach!

Another soccer season has come and gone...Whew!  Somehow I ended up being roped into co-coaching Kendall's soccer team this fall.  As much as I LOVE coaching, I've always said that I prefer to coach high school kids.  If I thought junior high was grueling (after teaching middle schoolers all day), I wasn't ready for 3 & 4 year olds!  Ack!  Their attention span is, well, little to none.  But they were such a sweet bunch of kids and I'm grateful Kendall got to play with them this fall.

Aren't they a good looking team?  

Coach Brooke giving the team a pep talk

Go get it Sis!

So close to scoring a goal!  (sorry for the blurred pic)

Go Blue!

Waiting their turn to play

A mouth full of pizza after our last game

Having fun with her teammates after the game

One of Kendall's dearest friends

Hanging with her buddies!

Chow time!

As much as I love seeing Kendall get involved in sports, I'm not sad to say that I'm happy soccer is over for now.  We have too much on our schedule after school with gymnastics, dance, scouts and karate twice a week.  Soccer was just one too many things - every Thursday and Saturday (but thankfully only for 4 weeks!).  

Latest Kendallism

Kendall and I went to Gardner Village on Tuesday for the witch scavenger hunt.  One of the witches we needed to find was riding on her broom backwards.  She was suspended in the air by a cable.  When Kendall found this one, her reaction was: 

"Look Mom!  She's zip lining!" 

Gosh I love that girl!

See, it does look like she's zip lining!

Hanging out with the witches

Going On A Bear Hunt? How We Spent Our Fall Break

My kids are on fall break from school this week so I've been working hard at keeping them busy - of course Andy's out of town for most of the week so that makes it even harder on me, but we are making the best of it.  We're having a great time and made some wonderful memories.

Monday we met up with Andy for lunch in Provo.  We took our bikes along so we could ride the Provo River Parkway afterwards.  To make a long story short, Riley's tire was flat to the rim so we had to pack back up after unpacking the bikes.  To make it sting a little less, we drove the Alpine Loop through American Fork Canyon on the way home.  The scenery through AF Canyon was just incredible.  So many different colored leaves in all directions.  That has to be one of my all time favorite places to see leaves - Vermont is a VERY close second.  Most of these pictures were taken near Sundance - before I passed the ranger gate and where there is actually room to pull over for a few snaps!

On Tuesday, Kevin had the day off so we decided to take the kids for a hike.  We headed up to Big Cottonwood Canyon with the intent of hiking the Dog Lake Trail.  We got there, parked, got suited up with our coats and camelbaks and headed over to the trail head sign to see the map.  There nailed to the board was a hand written note stating that a bear had been seen on the Dog Lake Trail just the day before.  My first reaction was, that the bear had plenty of time to move on to somewhere else.  Kevin's first reaction was, maybe it hasn't and we have your kids along...Good point!  There were plenty of cars parked at the trailhead, but we loaded back up and headed further up the canyon to Silver Lake.  We decided to hike from Silver Lake to Lake Solitude.  It was a perfect hike for our kids.  The incline was subtle for the most part that they didn't even notice they were increasing their elevation - until the end that is!  It was a beautiful day for a hike and along the way, we didn't come across a bear (thankfully) but we did come across more MOOSE!  This is our lucky fall I guess.  Momma, Daddy and baby hanging out along the trail, munching on some leaves.  They were there on our return trip as well.  My kids are getting spoiled with wildlife this fall.  Thankfully both moose encounters were uneventful.  According to Kevin, there are more people attacked by moose than by bears!

The view of from Silver Lake

Hi there Baby Moose!

Daddy Moose getting a snack near the trail

Looking across Silver Lake

Watching the ducks

Love the contrast of the colors

These aspens were absolutely gorgeous!

See how they are almost orange!

Utah really is beautiful!

So not to be outdone by Tuesday, we planned an action packed day for Wednesday.  We had a playdate/mom craft date in the morning that lasted till lunch.  The moms made these for their daughters (who by the way are all good friends).

Isn't it a cute shirt?  I love how it turned out!

After we cleaned up and everyone went home, we ate lunch and headed out to the zoo. We haven't been there since they opened up their new Rocky Shores exhibit.  The kids loved seeing the polar bear, the sea lion and the seals.  Sadly, the river otters were playing hide and seek with us and we missed out on them (Mom's favorite animal).  

On the way home from the zoo we hit up the new Scheels store in Sandy.  This place is a cross of Sports Authority and Cabela's.  It's HUGE!  They have a ferris wheel inside the store as well as lots of other things for the kids to play on, climb on, video game shotgun shooting, bowling alley, DDR, indoor playground like at fast food places, etc.  This place is out of control.  They seem to carry it all - from fashion clothes like Down East Basics to kayaks to cross bows and ammo!  When we got home my kids were SPENT!

Thursday brought MOPS and both kids were happy to go because they knew the Major kids would be there.  Riley really likes Timothy (from scouts and church) and Kendall and Gracie are just the sweetest of friends.  I love MOPS more and more because I get to see my dear friend Michelle!  I was so honored that when she introduced herself to our entire MOPS group today that she used me as an example of the type of lifelong friendships that can be made through MOPS.  It's a great place to meet people who "GET" you and love you and care about you.  I had wondered if I'd "outgrown" MOPS, but realized that even though I am older than most of the moms nursing their newborns during the meetings, that there is a place for everyone.  

After MOPS we headed to the ATT store for what is hopefully the LAST purchase I will now make in what should have only been a $400 iphone 5 investment.  This saga has caused me over $1000 easily!  I had to upgrade my operating system - TWICE, I had to get a Time Capsule to back up my computer incase of an issue while upgrading (this is something I should have done years ago), I had to repurchase MS Office for my Mac because my old version was too outdated for mountain lion, and then I needed to buy a case and screen protector.  Opps!  I just realized, I will most likely make one more purchase - another cord whenever Apple gets around to supplying them.  Gotta have a charger in the car!  

After the ATT store, we hit Costco for lunch and what always ends up being a much larger purchase than intended.  I really should just go in there with cash so I don't over spend!  By the time we got home and got unloaded (which is always more fun when you make a game of stacking the rolls of toilet paper and tossing the paper towel rolls across the kitchen to mom so she can put them away, the kids settled down for a few cartoons, finishing of homework and rest time.  

Kendall had a soccer game after dinner.  When I walked onto the field, I knew we were in trouble.  We were playing against a team we had played last year.  The coach of this other team is so militant it's not even funny.  I swear he must hold practices year round because #1, his players are very good for 3 & 4 year olds and #2, he talks to them so firmly that I wonder if they are even having fun.  Our kids were more interested in the large air force plane that kept circling over the Sandy area tonight instead of playing soccer.  But that's what I expect of 3 & 4 year olds, especially around 6:45 pm!

Tomorrow is our last day of our break.  Even though I'm exhausted and haven't done my mandatory one load of laundry per day, I'll be sad to see them go back to school on Monday.  I love having them around all day and doing what we want, when we want. Tomorrow is our "free" day.  The only thing I have to do is get an overdue oil change.  Thankfully Andy will be home in the afternoon.  We haven't gotten to talk to him more than a few minutes this trip so it will be nice to spend a little QT with him before we head out to small group later in the night.  

We are going to attempt to ride our bikes on the Provo River Parkway and have a picnic lunch on Saturday as a family after Kendall's soccer game.  Hopefully we'll be able to make that work - I did buy a bike pump at Scheels to put on Riley's bike to hopefully prevent another flat.  Might even buy a can of fix a flat to keep around, just in case now that he's into trail riding on his mountain bike!

Off to bed.  This momma's gotta keep up with two energetic rugrats tomorrow!  I think the kids have had a great week even though we didn't go anywhere for their week off.  It was a great "staycation" for us!

Little Man's First Mt. BIke Trail

We have been wanting to take Riley mountain biking for awhile now.  I wanted both Andy and I to be available to take him so that we had one of us in front to show him the trail and give him verbal cues and one of us behind him so if he struggled, someone would know and be able to help him.

I was finally able to find an afternoon where we could have a sitter for Kendall and Andy was actually home!  We took him on one of the trails that he had hiked the week before so he knew what to expect.  

He did so well and had a blast!  He's been asking when we can go again!  I took him to the Draper Cycle Park afterwards and he's totally addicted!  He's asked me everyday when we can go back to the Cycle Park even though I already promised to take him on Tuesday during Kendall's dance lesson!  Here's a video with pictures I put together from our adventure.

Girls Night Out

Andy, Riley, Kevin and Tristam all went to the motorcross together at RMR so Kendall and I decided that we needed to have a GNO together.  We made appts to get our nails done.  I found a nail salon in South Jordan that has kid-sized pedicure chairs!  She got spoiled with a mani, pedi and a movie!  She thought it was the best!

Look how happy she is!

Watching a movie with getting spoiled!

Fun memories

After our nails dried, she didn't want our GNO to end so we decided to hit up Cold Stone for a sweet treat.  While enjoying our ice cream, Kendall spotted a Claire's store.  I have intentionally NOT taken her in there.  It's like heaven for a little girly girl like Kendall.  Racks and racks of jewelry, make up, purses, etc. 

This is what we ended up leaving Claire's with that night - Pierced Ears!  She loves them but sadly they both had to be re-pierced over the next week because they came out over night.  We discovered her knitted blanket was the problem.  Sadly, blankie now has to sleep at the end of the bed.

What a fun night for the girls while the boys were out enjoying the motorcross!  Even though half the time I don't know what to do with a girly girl, I'm so glad she's mine!  I loved watching her smile and get giddy over each thing we did.  I need to do that more often for her.

Going On A Moose Hunt

We haven't been on a "family" hike that included all 4 of us in a very long time.  The kids and I hike a lot, but Andy's rarely with us.  Between work, travel and riding dirt bike, he's not always available to go along on our treks.  We headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon on Saturday afternoon to hike the Red Pine Lake Trail - the trail head is right before you reach Snowbird.  As we started our hike I walked into a patch of burn hazel at the back of the car...Great way to start, right?  Thankfully I got it washed off quickly and it was just a minor irritation.  We headed out and passed lots of people going in both directions.  Everyone who was coming back down were telling us to keep an eye out for moose.  We were determined to find them on our hike.  Lucky for us...Momma, Daddy and Baby were hanging out just off the trail.  The kids have seen moose before, but Andy hasn't seen them in the woods before.  

Our entire hike was this beautiful

So happy to have dad on our hike!

Since Andy was along, I actually got to be in a picture!

The aspens are just gorgeous right now

I never tire of the fall.

My happy hiker

Looking out towards the valley from the trail

Beautiful blue skies on Saturday

We also got to teach the kids what a wooly bear caterpillar is and it's significance.  According to his stripes, we should have and average winter.  Average in Utah would be a welcomed change after last year's pitiful snowfall!