Our family comes from Utah every year for the 4th of July.  We look forward all year to their visit.  This year we had more family than ever and it was fantastic!  We had people sleeping everywhere in the house!!!

Rexs' parents and his sisters family always make the trip, but this year his brother and his family and aunt and uncle and their family made the trip as well.  All in all we had 22 people.

The next few posts will be about the adventures we had while they were here. 

We went to the fish hatchery and Beacon Rock on Monday.  Which somehow I failed to take pictures of.  I am not sure what I was thinking...except for I hoped I wouldn't drop dead hiking to the top of Beacon Rock!  On the way up we caught a frog.  He hitched a ride home with us, and now lives in the boys' room and answers to the name Beacon. Okay, he doesn't exactly "answer" to anything, but that is his name.

Tuesday we went to the zoo...and I did remember to take pictures.



All the kids sitting in the bald eagles nest.  L to R Brody, Bridger, Maggie, Wyatt, Hudson, Dakota, Renee



Wyatt always does the funniest things.  He thought he was so funny putting his head in the lions mouth!  While we were at the lion statues Maggie was photo bombing everyone, but I didn't get her in my picture.  I am not sure how that happened. 



Great Grandpa rolled in the scooter, and Brody hitched a ride up the hill on his Heely's  Everyone was staring at them,  Brody said it was because they were so cool, but I think it might be because Brody has a huge wet spot in the front of his shirt that makes it look like he peed himself!!!!



Wyatt and Levi were buddies all day.  The kids sure miss the family sometimes.

Rex, Brody and Hudson petting the goats.  Everyone in this family (besides me) thinks we need a goat.  I think they are outside their minds, so I told them to stay in there as long as they wanted to get their goat fill!  Better there than here I say!

Maggie's 7th birthday was on June 28th.  I can't believe she is already 7 and going to go into the 2nd grade.  She is such a girly girl.  She loves make up and dolls and dress up.  She loves to play house and school.  She has a HUGE heart and is willing to help anyone at any time.  This year in school her teacher Mrs. Brown said she was one of the sweetest girls she had ever had in class.  With all that sweet and lovable she can defiantly hold her own with her boys.  She gives them a run for their money for sure. 

She has such a strong personality and knows exactly what she wants.  I love that about her.  She is determined and driven. 

Happy Birthday Magnolia Paige!  We love you!

Maggie wanted to go to the lake on her birthday, so we took the boat out for the first time this summer.  She even drove the boat with dad.

We don't make it to the beach enough.  It is so close and beautiful, we have no excuse not to go.  We seem to only go when family is in town.  We have happened to go twice in the last couple weeks.  Here are some pics from our last two trips.



Sunset at Cannon Beach from the Surfside Resort in late June

 

This looks so relaxing.  Rex and I took a nap out there the day before.



Haystack Rock early in the morning

 

Maggie and Wyatt playing in the water at Fort Stevens on our family day trip



Maggie loves the water



Hudson fell in the water and got scared.  Rex consoled him and after a few minutes Hudson was back out there.



Searching for sea shells



The sun reflecting off a small inlet on Cannon Beach



Sunset at Cannon Beach.  The sun was the most amazing shade of red.  You could see layers of color throughout the night.  It is sad that the beautiful colors were a result of the awful wildfires in Colorado and Utah.

HUDSON is 4 !!!

Hudson is obsessed with a Disney cartoon called Jake and the Never land Pirates.  That's all he wanted for his birthday. 

We bought him a shirt that made him look like Jake, and all of the toys to make him an official pirate.

After all if the hub-ub of the day we took a family walk to the park.  It took us FOREVER to get there because Hudson had to stop every 30 feet to look through his telescope to search for bad guys.

When we came back to the house Brody made a treasure map and all the kids followed it until they found their peanut butter and chocolate treasure.

This year, Hudson has learned so many things.  He can spell an write his name, count and even repeat patterns.  He has such a sweet and loving personality.  He loves to snuggle every morning and read his stories.  

It is so much fun to watch him grow and learn.  We cant wait to see what this big 4 year old has in store for us next year. 

Our summer has started out with a bang! Rex and I went to Cannon Beach with the other managers from his work.  It was beautiful, and we had a great time.  Our room had a beautiful view of the ocean from our living room and the tub in the bathroom, and Haystack Rock from the deck. 

It is fun to get away sometimes, but I am always happy to come home to the kids. 

Rex and I always try to take a picture when we go somewhere, but we SUCK at self portraits!  Here's the proof!  We did get Haystack Rock in the background though so props to us for that!

Here are some other pictures of our room and the trip:

This is the sunset from the deck off our room.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love the beach.

Those are America's Tire tents.  We had a great time roasting marshmallows (and fighting with them) and hanging out by the fire until early into the morning.  This pic is of the first night.  We did the same thing the second night, but the Cabana Boy grounded Rex from the marshmallows because he was the ring leader of the epic battle the first night.

Before we left we took a long walk on the beach and explored Haystack Rock.  When we came back into the resort we saw a huge crane removing the bed from our friends room.  We had a good laugh imaging the reasons for the obviously extreme bed extraction.  Truth-be-told the resort was planning on changing the beds that day, but it was totally worth the pic!

Gone Fishin'

When we were in Utah Grandpa took the kids fishing in Utah Lake. Rex and I tagged along too. Caleb, Kristi and the kids were able to join us, so we were bound to catch something.

Rex and I are not big fans of fish, so I wasn't a huge help but we had fun and I got a ton of cute pictures.

Rex taught the kids how to skip rocks

Hudson discovered the wonders of a worm

Grandpa spent most of his time retying lines.

Brody and his fish.

Maggie with her windblown hair and her fish

Grandpa was trying to help Hudson get his fish off the line and it jumped out of his hands and tried to get back to the water

But....to no avail. Hudson and his fish. He wouldn't stick his hands in the fish's mouth to hold it

Wyatt with his first of 4 fish! He was the "catcher of the night" for sure. I think the look of the catfish freaked him out. It did me. NASTY!!!

At the very end of the night as we were packing up Brayden reeled in a double! Pretty cool!

*S*P*R*I*N*G*B*R*E*A*K*

We spent Spring Break in Utah with family like we usually do. We had a great time hanging out with family, going sight seeing, and losing lots of hours of sleep! The kids spent most night there staying up and talking with their cousins. I love that they get to spend some quality time together. I wish they were all closer.

This year we went to the zoo with all the cousins, even some of Rex's cousins and aunt.

Great Grandpa even strolled around in the rascal he rented!

All the grandkids Renee, Brayden, Dakota, Wyatt, Brody, Zander, Hudson, Remington, Magnolia, Lela and Bridger

Bridger and Grandpa on the carousel. I think this is my favorite picture of Grandpa.

We took up an entire train car

We went to BYU and toured the campus. I would like to share pictures of that trip, but in regular fashion we brought the camera, forgot the SD card, bought another and then forgot that one! Classic. Trust me, we had fun though.
Grandpa took the kids fishing at Utah Lake. All the kids caught a fish, Wyatt caught 4! I will write about that in another post.

We spent one day on Temple Square. We went to the Church History Museum which I had never been to. Super fun. There were some pretty cool things there.
That night, Rex surprised me and we went to dinner with friends Dan and Cindy at the new Cheesecake Factory in the new shopping center downtown, and then we went to the Anniversary Inn that night. We hadn't been there since we got married. We stayed in the Sultans Palace room this time. The tub and shower were a Phoenix and the bed was atop two elephants.
Since we were able to stay for Easter we spent the weekend doing an egg hunt in Tassie and Jereme's backyard and dying 120 eggs in grandma's kitchen!

Easter morning before church

We always look forward to out trip to Utah on Spring Break.