I seriously LOVE where I live!

I love driving down the road and passing one of my neighbors who is driving a tractor - on the road. Then I love passing one of their sons, who is like 12 or 14 years old following behind in another tractor or in their truck.

I love being in my backyard and being able to see the sheep. My two favorite times are when in the late spring the males are herded in to females pen. After they have had their fun -ahem- and the males are herded back, they frolic and jump and bounce all over. They kick up their hind legs and just couldn't be happier! It is so funny!
Then in early spring we get to see all the cute little babies!

I love that I can take my kids on a walk or go for a bike ride and see so many animals.

We love watching the young horses play.

We love seeing the bulls too - we just love electric fences more.

Molly cracks me up

This morning I heard Molly yelling, "Mom! Howlp! (help) I'm in your baf-room. I can't get down!" I'm thinking to myself, "Huh? You can't get down? From what?"
She was trying to open my blinds.

(and me being me, said, "Hold on right there for a minute, I need to grab my camera first!")

Dance competitions start

Sidney had her first dance competition this past weekend in Saint George. She has one practically every weekend for the next few weeks. She dances in the same company with two of her cousins, Katelyn and Averi. By the time all the girls had all their dances in, it made for a FULL day of dancing, but it was fun to go watch them.

Aloha!

Jeff and I went to Hawaii for a little working vacation. Working for Jeff - vacation for me! We went with my brother Glen, his wife Kathy and our friends Jesse and Lisa.
We had breakfast one morning at the Kihei Cafe. I had banana macadamia nut french toast with coconut syrup. Oh it was oh so good!

We went snorkeling at Molokini and to Turtle Town. Molokini was great but I only saw 3 turtles at Turtle Town. I have been there before when they were all over. It was still really neat to see them even if there were only 3.

Glen and Kathy snorkeling

Lisa would just rather soak up as much sun as possible and not snorkel.

We went out to dinner one night at one of my favorite restaurants. Mama's Fish House. If you ever go to Maui and are looking for a GREAT place to eat, go to Mama's. It sits on a beach with beautiful views and the windows in the restaurant are open or rather non existent so you get all the fresh air and the food is just delicious. My favorite thing there is the macadamia nut encrusted Mahi Mahi.

Lisa, Me and Kathy just outside the restaurant.

We stayed at the Grand Wailea. It is my favorite place in the world to stay. The hotel itself is really pretty and the grounds are simply amazing! Every time I stay there I am reminded of why I love the place.

The pools are the BEST! They have full size water slides, a water elevator, a lazy river that runs all around the pools, a sandy beach kiddy pool, and little water slides that are all over that take you from the top of the pools to the very bottom one. There are a couple of bars in the pool that you can swim up to and have a drink in. So fun! I love the pools!

Jeff, Kathy and Glen going down on of the little slides. We had great weather, a great time in the ocean and a great time with friends.

Fallen Soldier

Lance Cpl. Nigel Olsen who is from my town was killed last week in Afghanistan. His family flew out to escort his body home. The streets were lined - and still are lined with flags in their honor.
The flags went all down Main Street, around the pond and up the street where his family resides.

I thought they looked really beautiful.

Cade's Kindy 500

Cade's Kindy 500 was this morning. I got to go to the school to help. Cade's teacher had asked me to take pictures of each child in their car so that she could make a scrapbook of it. Jens and Sidney both did the Kindy 500 when they were in kindergarten but I never walked through all the stations before. What a cute little project! The kids make a cardboard vehicle and they "drive" to 7 patriotic symbol destinations. They learn about the Statue of Liberty, The Liberty Bell, Mount Rushmore, Betsy Ross and our flag, the Lincoln Memorial, the American Eagle and the White House.

I made Cade a taxi for his car. It turned out pretty cute I think!

I decided to post some pictures of some of the other kinds of cars. Some people are really creative!

I thought that this car was cute. It was a Fancy Nancy car, but the little's girls name who owned it was Abby. So the car was named Fancy Abby. Molly loves Fancy Nancy so much. If she is still a big Fancy Nancy fan when she reaches kindergarten, then I am going to copy this idea.

This little friend of Cade's had the cutest motorcycle. And yes, it is made out of cardboard. They painted it and printed off the clip art and made the coolest motorcycle. I wish that I had made him move his bag so that you could see it better.

Cade's other friend had a boat that was just too cute. It had working lights and real water in the window that was colored blue. It was so cute.

They learned about the Liberty Bell. When it was built and when it was retired. At the end of the destination each child got their own little Liberty Bell as a keepsake.

They learned about Mount Rushmore. How big it is, who designed it, how long it took to build, etc. At the end they got a coloring page of Mount Rushmore and a postcard of it.

They learned all about the Statue of Liberty and got a foam Liberty hat.

Then they learned about the American Eagle and got a picture of an eagle.

Then they learned all about Betsy Ross. About her life and her family and how she came to make the flag. They got a red, white and blue candy cane from her.

Then they learned about the White House. What kind of business takes place there, and about some of the rooms. They got a picture of the White House to take with them.

And finally they learned about Abraham Lincoln. About his family. His wife's name and his 4 boys names. What kind of pets he had, how tall he was, how he was the only US President to wear a beard and how he died.

They each got a penny as a keepsake.