Happy 6th Birthday Molly!

Happy Birthday Molly!!

This sweet girl turned 6!  It's so hard for me to believe that this little girl has gone from this to this in 4 years!  She has the same sweet, carefree attitude too.

For her birthday we invited some friends over for a birthday party in the back yard.

We played pin the crown on the princess, made necklaces and crowns, played in the water with water balloons and slip n slide and face painted.  What a fun time!

Sadly I didn't get a picture of all her friends but she had Presley Ball, Sophie Anderson, Taylor Rigby, Olivia Lee, Chelsea Hegstead and Lydia Peterson over.

When it was over we quickly packed up and headed to Ammon Splash park for a family birthday party.  I thought this gift was so cute and sincere from her cousin Anita.  Some of her own favorite things she wanted to give Molly.

Happy Birthday Molly girl!  We sure love you and are thankful for your fun loving and carefree attitude that you bring into our family.     You are so special to us! 

This year Molly has been taking gymnastics, started learning piano, has become quite a good little reader, has started to recognize being mean = less friends so she started to be a little nicer and a little less bold.  She still is a timid swimmer but loves to go swimming with her life jacket.  She is a really great big sister.  Sometimes she is the only one who can calm Lincoln down.  She speaks his treats and TV language.  She loves to play kindle and watch Netflix.  Her favorites are teenage shows like Liv and Maddie and Jessie.  She's pretty boy crazy which I think is the main reason for her interest in those shows.  She believes in easier to ask for forgiveness than permission as she has got fingernail polish all over the kitchen floor and table and counter tops and we find her sneaking treats into our bed and find wrappers under her bed.  However that same carefree attitude helps her get less up tight about situations the other girls get upset about.  She just rolls with it and takes it as we go.  She really is a special girl and we are so thankful she came into our family 6 years ago.  She has blessed us beyond measure.

A quick trip to 7 peaks

This past weekend was Dustin's Friday off and since we have season tickets to 7 Peaks water park and our friends the Hansens were going to be in Utah too we planned a trip.  We headed down after Dustin's dentist appointment on Friday morning and stayed at my sister Heidi's house.  She just moved 2 weeks ago with her new twins and 2 year old since her husband Kenny got a job teaching Seminary there.   Just look at these babies!

I have already missed her dearly so we were looking forward to this trip and planned to send Dustin home with Mike and Farrah.  My kids and I would stay for another 4 days before coming home.  A quick ice cream stop on the way down.  This is about what it looks like when we go anywhere.  Lol.

That day my left eye had seemed blurry and that evening after taking out my contact my eye felt like something was in it.  I ignored it and figured my contact was dirty.  We sure enjoyed seeing everybody that night!  The girls especially were crazy about those babies!

Once I took my contact out that night my eye started to hurt and hurt worse.  I lied away most of the night in pain with my eye.  It hurt to blink or even let my eye ball move.  I finally woke Dustin up to let him know I thought I needed to see a doctor because something was seriously wrong.  We couldn't find a 24 hour clinic other than a hospital 30 minutes away so we tried to rest until 8am.  Finally morning came and we put shoes on and headed to the nearest clinic.  By this point I couldn't open my eyes and I had motion sickness from riding in the car with my eyes closed.  I gave Dustin the lecture about 3 times that I was sure we needed to go to an eye doctor and not just some Redi Care and he reassured me that it was the closest thing he could find that was open on Saturday and besides I was not the specialist.  ha!  I prayed he was right and tried to put complete trust in where he was taking me.  Thankfully the clinic got me immediately in and the P.A. says, "you're in luck, eye abrasions are my specialty."  I about fell off my chair.  The guy immediately put a steroid drop in my eye that took the pain straight away.  He was able to drip some florescent drops in my eye and see there were multiple abrasions on my cornea which were causing me blurry vision and pain.   The moral of the story is I ended up on my sisters couch holding very still and waiting for the next time I could give myself some medicine while Dustin and the girls had a good time hanging out at 7 peaks with Hansens who ended up feeding them all lunch and helping Dustin take care of the girls.

Heidi & Kenny were kind enough to not only take care of me but to look after Lincoln while he spent the day playing with Russell.  What an adventure.  We ended up going home with Dustin that night after 7 peaks because I was unsure how long it would continue.  Thankfully by the next day it was drastically better.  What a bummer.  

Family Vacation Day 6 & 7

On Day 6 we woke up and headed home.  On our way back on the freeway we saw a sign that said Cove Fort.  When I looked it up on my phone I saw it was an LDS site and only 1 mile off the road so after contemplating back and forth we decided to drive by and see it.  After only a minute we decided it would be good to get out and look around. I'm so glad we did.

Within only a minute Sister Connie Snider came walking over and recognized me from our home ward.  Her husband Norm was our home teacher all growing up and a very faithful one at that.  He and she were serving a mission at Cove Fort and she happened to be available to give us a little tour.

We watched a short video about how President Hinckleys grandfather was instructed by Brigham Young to go develop this fort for the saints traveling through this land.  To protect them from Indians and provide a refuge from their travels.  It was humbling to see all they did and that sister who cooked and cleaned every day and night to provide for all the travelers coming in and out.  It made me exhausted to think about.  The girls thought Connie was pretty great and enjoyed the tour.  Lincoln wanted to run after sitting in the car so I spent a good portion of time chasing him to this same spot.

She showed us these fun toys and told the kids a story about the sharing toy and gave them one to share. 

Her sweet spirit touched my heart and I hope it touched the girls too.  She explained that the toy doesn't work when the circle is not in the center and how our family and marriages don't work when we don't keep God in the center.  It was sweet.

I wish I had a picture of Norm and his story about the mice named Lamen, Lemuel and Nephi.  He told about how they wanted to jump and get the cheese that was hanging from the inside of this bucket and the Holy Ghost was telling them not to do it.  Finally the boys jumped in for the cheese and got stuck in the bucket and Nephi who obeyed the promptings of the Spirit helped get them out.  Dustin had been trying to teach these very lessons recently so it spoke straight to his heart and again hopefully to the girls hearts.  It didn't hurt that as he ended his testimony he told the girls what great parents they have.  It was a tender mercy to be there that day.

We left with hearts full of the Spirit and of gratitude for the gospel and the way the Lord orchestrates our lives.  We felt His hand was involved many times though this trip.  Providing us with the best possibly experience.  We are so thankful.

  

We had high hopes we'd be able to go swimming that afternoon/evening at Seven Peaks again however when we showed up it was even busier than the 4th of July and we decided we didn't want to fight the crowd so we went to the 7 peaks fun center instead which was included in our passes.

The kids (and Dustin) tried rock climbing.  They all got pretty far but they chicken out and repel down.

Even Lincoln was climbing with them.  ha! 

We got to ride on the carousel, airplanes and go carts.   The rides were just the right size and nobody had to get stressed out.

We had fun.  It was our last night so we had to end with ONE MORE swimming session first thing in the morning.

We cleaned up and went to the new movie Finding Dori before heading home. 

Truly it was an experience we won't soon forget.  So amazing to spend this time together as a family.  I was a little worried on day 3 that we weren't going to make it all week.  Dustin was pretty grouchy and the kids were being pretty wild and crazy so I was on edge and that led to everybody being upset.  However, soon we all calmed down and had the best experience ever.  I'm thankful for my husband that works so hard to not only provide for our means but to allow us to go on little trips like this.  We are so blessed.

Family Vacation Day 5 & 6

Day 5 started like this.  Like until about 11am and it was fantastic!  We just slept, bathed, and watched TV all morning to rest from our busy vacation.

After a while Dustin pulled over to get gas.  When I looked at the dash it said there was still at least 250 miles to empty so I asked him what he was doing.  He said he just felt like he needed to fill up.  As he's pumping the gas into the car he notices a small hissing sound and finds this lovely screw in the tire. 

I instantly knew it was his obedience to inspiration that saved us from much heart ache that day.  There was a Big O Tire only 7 miles from where we were and would you believe nobody was even waiting.  And within that 7 miles of driving there, Lincoln decided he should take a nap.  It was about 98 degrees outside and we had a long stretch of road ahead.  Probably 100 miles to the next Big O Tire so Dustin would have been putting the spare on the car on the side of the road.  Instead we sat in the air conditioned store and watched TV and Kindles.  So thankful for a good husband who listens to the promptings of the spirit.

We were listening to the Disney Cars soundtrack as we got into Zions and I felt so overwhelmed with the excitement and beauty it just brought tears rolling down my face.  God is such an artist!  We did a quick swim in our motel pool and headed for bed.

We headed to the park bright and early to hopefully beat the heat a little.  We took backpacks, water bottles and a lunch for each of us in hopes to have a great experience.  Our first stop was the hike to Emerald Pools.

This was a hike unlike other hikes we have been on.  We saw cactus and lizards.

And it was SO HOT! but it was pretty awesome too.

We tried to get ourselves wet any chance we could when we saw water.

What we thought was going to look like this:

Looked more like this.  ha!  I was disappointed but hey it's alright.

We survived the head and had ourselves a picnic and a refill of our waters and after a little bit of contemplation we headed for the Narrows.

The girls knew there would be water to get in at the end so we endured on.

Dustin got to pack Lincoln this time which was nice.  He's a worm.

After about a mile on level ground we came to this and waisted no time.  In our tennis shoes and clothes we went for it.

And boy it felt good!

There was literally TONS of people there.  It was hard to get a picture without everyone in it.

The kids were loving it though.

What an amazing place!

Dustin tried to show them they could float just like when we go to Salmon.  He mostly wanted to cool off himself though I think.

Lincoln hardly whined the whole day.  He along with us.

By the time we got back to the car we were hot, tired and hungry.  It was 102 outside and so we drove to find some good food.  We stopped at a rock store on the way out and Dustin spoiled the girls with buying them a necklace for themselves to remember this fun day.

This fun little place was on the way out too.  Just took a picture of it for fun.

What a blessing to be able to do a vacation like this and spend time with my family.  Sure love these people SO much!