Trip to St. George

Tami, Meili, Dave, and I went to the Tuacahn in St. George to see Les Miserable. If you haven't been to that theater, you must try to go sometime. It was absolutely spectacular with the outdoor scenery. And the bats...well they just added to the ambiance.


While down there we had to visit one of our favorite parks, Zions. The kids love it there.



And of course, we were visting Grandma and Grandpa Chase. The kids love walking the desert landscape looking for animals and bugs and plants with Grandma.

Visit from the Stephens Clan

I'm so behind in posting, it's ridiculous. Almost a month ago we had my wonderful Uncle Brad and Aunt Melissa and their kids come to visit. I think they had a lot of fun and we had a great time too. Some highlights from the trip. (Thanks Melissa for some of the pics.)

Seven Peaks

Adam rock climbing in Rock Canyon.

Linc and I after climbing up to the top of where the kids were climbing to.

Scout taking a turn with the hose.

Brad having fun trying it out at full blast.

Matthew getting some tips on how to roll hose.

Camille showing off her new turnouts.

Probably my favorite parts of the trip included watching the Olympics with all the fam. This one was during one of Michael Phelps' amazing moments. Can you tell we were a bit excited?!

Happy Birthday Scout!

Anyone that knows me well, has heard the story of Scout's birth. And if for some odd reason you don't know, well....you probably don't want to ask. I get all excited when I tell it and it ends up being a really long story. We celebrated her birthday while we were in St. George this past weekend. No fanfare of a birthday party, but she thought she was the coolest person ever because she had people sing to her every day for three days and she kept getting presents from people everywhere she went.

The first picture is an actual real product that a man made. It goes on top of your car like a taxi sign when it needs to be used. I thought it was quite funny. I wish that they made more signs like "Screaming child inside" or "Mom about to lose it inside". Those may be more useful. Although, I'm sure that my sister wishes she had one of these lighted signs on the outside of her car on August 15th two years ago.



Thus began the life of my sweet little girl, Scout. She came out screaming, much like I was while I gave birth. Little did we know that this girl with a great set of lungs and a pout that could scare a bulldog, would be the sweetest thing to touch our lives.

We love our little Scouters, and are so happy that she is a part of our lives. Happy Birthday Scout!

The Sky is Falling!

Or rather the arch is falling. My brother called and told me that the Wall Arch in Arches National Park collapsed today. Just a reminder to take advantage of one of the many great national parks we have at our disposal (all over the country). Arches is one of the coolest parks I've been to, just because it's so amazing. But, aren't they all?! I have many great memories of trips there. I'm sure some of you reading my blog remember those trips!

Here's a snippet from an article:
One minute it was there, the next it was gone.

The collapse of "Wall Arch" at Arches National Park proves once again that gravity does work, even though you might wonder after gazing at the "rockitecture" of this dazzling Utah park.

Pioneer Day

Yeah, I know...a little late to be posting for something that happened two weeks ago, but what do you do? Too busy saving our children from overgrown trees, I guess.
Our 24th was a whole lot of fun, even though Dave had to work.

We started out by going to the city's parade. The kids loved it and we were able to go with our friends Alexis and Michelle. The kids loved eating snow cones and otter pops and all the candy at 9:00am.

Enjoying his third unhealthy treat for the day...and getting a nice beard at the same time.

Scout is in love with anything purple nowadays. Debbie found this "my purple" for her at the carnival in Mapleton.

Trying her skills at a carnival game.

The whole gang enjoying the shade and some treats. We went to the Mapleton City Carnival later that day.

We topped off the day by going to visit Dave at the station. As soon as we got there they got called out on a fire. So, of course, we followed him. This is not uncommon. =) The kids loved watching him in action. This time he was on top of the truck working the hose. Lincoln talked about it for days.

Top Priority

Anyone that knows Lincoln knows that he has a bit of a problem regarding crossing the street. It has taken about two years to teach him that he has to stop and look before he crosses the street. Even still, he gets so excited when he sees his friends out that he just can hardly contain himself. He MUST run across the street. Most of the time he is so excited he doesn't remember to stop, let alone look. So, naturally I've been concerned about this. And it doesn't help that since our home backs up to a field, the road at the end of our property narrows significantly. And it also has a very large tree growing in the canal at the end of our property. All of this makes it so that child or adult has to go well into the street to see around it, to cross safely. On that principle I emailed the city to see if they could trim the tree in such a way to prevent me and my neighbors from having to do this. Within an hour of emailing, I received a message from a city police officer, asking me to call him back. Well, I didn't get this message until later that night, when of course the officer was off duty. So, I stressed all weekend about why a police officer would be calling me. I was searching my mind for any wrong things that I could have done. Well, Monday morning I called him and he informed me that he was calling about my tree request. Weird?! A police officer? So, he told me he would look into it and call me back. Well, the next day, he told me that he had come out to look at the tree and it was a hazard to drivers. Whatever, just as long as it's fixed, right? Well, only a week and a half later these guys show up and are chopping down the tree. Not just trimming, they are removing it. We go out to watch him from our backyard, of course. Since that's what we do...watch construction and deconstruction. The guy stops his chainsaw and comes over to talk to me. The first thing he says is, "Is your Daddy the mayor, or something?" What?! He went on to tell me that they were told this was a top priority and the tree had to be removed right away, no questions asked. I told him that I just emailed a request in. So, he said he's going to call me when he needs something. =) Well, I of course, took pictures. And actually the main reason for this extremely long post, besides that I thought it was funny that they took it so seriously is....that I miss the tree. How lame is that. Our neighborhood is so new, that there aren't any mature trees, and as ugly as that one was, it was still something to look at. I actually feel guilty for having it removed. Especially because they put a huge, ugly cement barrier at the end of the road now. I told my friends that I need to plant wild flowers in front of the barrier or something. I should use these mystical powers I possess for the greater good, not for the bringing down of an innocent tree! On the bright side, we can see down the street now. Anyone have an idea of how I can beautify the cement barrier?

The cutting

Our naked corner of our backyard.

The pretty barrier.

Pull over, pull over. No, it's a cardigan!

Please tell me someone recognizes that movie quote?! If you do, you are officially cool like me. Or ridiculously good at remembering stupid movie lines. (Which is saying a lot.)

While we have been having non-stop fun around here, I haven't really taken too many pictures that would be of much interest. So, since I never really write about Dave, I thought I would share a funny thing that happened to him today. He just got a new phone, thanks to a friend. (Because we never BUY new phones, we just wait for them to be given to us by cool people that ditch their old ones for swanky new ones.) Anyway, he found a ring on there that was fire truck sirens. He thought it was way awesome and, of course, just had to have it for his ring tone. Well, not once, but twice today, he was driving and heard fire engine sirens. He looked all around, slowed down, started to pull over, and couldn't believe that he couldn't see the fire trucks that sounded as if they were right along side him. Both times he missed the phone calls because he was too busy pulling over to answer it. Needless to say, he will be changing his ring tone. Well, I thought it was hilarious!