Goblin Valley

This year for spring break we took a fun camping trip to Goblin Valley State Park with my two brothers and their families.  (We usually go to Arches National Park, so I was sad to miss that, but we will go again soon.) We decided to leave an extra day early and spend some time with Alan's sister Amanda and her new husband Todd at their apartment, which was the halfway point for our drive.  We had such a fun time with them and loved staying up late and chatting.  :)

 The kids loved playing in the campground, and even Evelyn climbed pretty high!

Several months ago we decided to splurge and rented a yurt to sleep in. It was so spacious inside, and it had a heater and electricity!  We brought our own microwave and our Coco-motion to make hot chocolate.  We set the thermostat to 70 degrees and weren't even cold either night (good thing--the weather dropped to 35 degrees at night, so my relatives in tents were pretty cold.)

 Even though we just got back from this trip a few days ago, all my pictures are looking the same to me, and I can't distinguish which pictures belong with which hike we went on.  We hiked several nearby slot canyons (Ding Canyon, Leprechaun Canyon, and Little Wild Horse Canyon) and also spent some time playing on the "goblins," of course.

I think this was in Ding Canyon

Maggie and Evy in Ding Canyon

Jared and cousin Andrew playing on goblins

Alan and Evy in the backpack

Jared and Andrew again

Alan and Jared in the cool cave/tunnel on our hike around the goblins

My brother Mike helping Jared up a tough spot

I took this picture of Alan after climbing this tricky place on our hike in Valley of the Goblins

Valley of the Goblins hike

Jared and Maggie petting the lizard that my brother Mike caught

Evelyn loved to romp and "hide" in the goblins

I took a picture of Alan and Evy from a high spot I climbed up

Our one and only family picture this whole trip.  Evelyn didn't want to stop to take a picture.

Jared named this place by our campsite "Goblin's crown." It was pretty high up!  This picture is of Jared and several of his cousins.

 I think the rest of the pictures are from our hike to Little Wild Horse Canyon.  It was such a long hike, but Jared and Maggie were both such troopers!  I am so proud of them and all the hiking they did without complaining.  This hike was such a pretty slot canyon full of fun S-curves.

Cute Maggie

Jared and cousins stopping for a snack

Maggie and Jared in a really narrow part of the canyon

We had a lot of fun on this trip and look forward to going again sometime!

Happy, Happy Easter!

 I made this fun bunny cake with my Activity Day girls, and the kids loved eating it up!

 We had a very full and exciting Easter weekend.  Not only did we watch our prophets speak during General Conference, but we also had an egg hunt with the Stouts, an egg hunt with the Curtises, and we celebrated my mom's birthday.

 My father-in-law's ex-wife hosts has hosted an amazing egg hunt at her house these past couple of years.  There were seriously hundred of eggs hidden!  She also made cute aprons for my kids.  It was fun that Evelyn was into egg hunting, too, this year!

 The following pictures were taken at my brother Matt's house on Easter Sunday:

Jared and Maggie with cousins Summer and Charity

Trying to take a picture with most of the Curtis cousins was a challenge!

We sang happy birthday to Alan, my mom, and my niece Charity after Easter dinner

End of March

I haven't blogged lately because I have been working on a different project.  I have been trying to make digital scrapbooks of each year of my kids' lives, so I am already very behind! It's a ton of work. 

Anyway, I have just loaded pictures from the past month on my computer. 

Before the dentist

 At the end of March Jared chipped both of his two front teeth on our steel playground in our backyard.  I was pretty worried about it, but we went to the dentist, and after a couple of fillings and 45 minutes of time, he's good to go again!  I am sure grateful for dentists!

After the dentist

 Also, I gave Maggie a haircut for the 2nd time in her life.  I cut it a little bit shorter than I intended to (and a little bit shorter than she wanted), but she looks pretty cute!

Ha ha, it doesn't look very even in this picture, does it?

 Also, I just have to include these cute pictures of Evelyn in the bath.  She is such a delight!

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Pig tails!  Evelyn loves to request her hair is done this way!

Disneyland!!!

Mediocre picture of us on the airplane.  The kids LOVED the airplane ride!

 Alan and I took Jared and Maggie to Disneyland this week!  It was an AMhAZING trip.  Wow.  Practically perfect.  We left Evelyn with my mom, and it broke my heart to leave her, but it was totally the right choice and she doesn't seem to have been permanently scarred or anything.  :)

 We spent two days in Disneyland and one day in California Adventure.  We took our Sit 'n' Stand double stroller, which was wonderful.  Neither Jared nor Maggie complained even once about their feet hurting, and we were able to move quickly from one area of the park to another.  Alan and I, on the other hand, had very tired feet at the end of each day--my pedometer logged between 22,000 and 26,000 steps each day!

 These were the pictures of my kids I took at the beginning of the day in case they got lost in the park...which they didn't.  :)

We saw lots of characters walking around the park, but Minnie is the only one we got a family picture with. Her line was short right at the beginning of the day.  

In line for Small World 

The new Elsa's ice castle on Storybook Canal boats

Jungle cruise

Of course, one of the most exciting parts of Tomorrowland was everything Star Wars related.  We went on Star Tours about 10 times, and Maggie was the "rebel spy" one time!  

 

Jared had heard about the Jedi Training Academy from his friends at school, and he really wanted to go.  I explained to him that they only picked a few of the kids from the audience to actually do the training, so he probably wouldn't get picked and would just watch.  He still wanted to go, so Alan took him to the Jedi Training Academy while I took Maggie to a little Frozen play.  

Jared with Darth Vader in the background.

Well, Jared actually got chosen as one of the "younglings" to train!  He was so excited!  Too bad Alan didn't have the camera to take pictures, but I later took these pictures of pictures that Disneyland wanted me to pay lots of money for.  Ha ha.  They did a really fun job with Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and storm troopers present, as well as several Jedi to help teach the younglings the moves with their light sabers.  Jared even got a certificate when it was over saying he is now a Padawan.  I think it was the best day of Jared's life.  

Darth Vader emerges and encourages the younglings to join him and he will "complete their training"

Jared is given a pep talk by a Jedi

Jared got to have a duel with Darth Maul!

We saw these storm troopers walking around Tomorrowland

Astro blasters aka "the Buzz ride"

Jared pointed to this statue and said "It looks like Walt Disney is force choking someone."  Ha ha!  He is such a funny kid!

Jared and Maggie went on all the big rides and loved them!  Maggie loved Space Mountain and Pirates and Thunder Mountain, and Jared loved Star Tours and Indiana Jones the most (Maggie wasn't tall enough for Indi.)


These next photos are from our day in California Adventure.  I didn't take as many pictures here, but we had a blast.  We were able to go on the new Radiator Springs Racers three times, and Jared went on California Screamin' eight times, switching off with Alan and me (thanks to Switch Passes!)  Maggie went on Tower of Terror twice with Alan and keeps talking about how fun it was (although I think she was actually pretty scared.)  Jared and I went on Tower of Terror just once, and I lost one of my expensive (non-disposable) contacts on that ride, so that pretty much turned me off to it.  I had to walk around with only one contact in the rest of the day and got a bit of a headache from it.

The Mater ride--not really worth the line

King Triton's carousel

Jellyfish ride--not worth the line, but Maggie loved it.  

This was seriously the best trip ever!  Jared and Maggie were troopers (with only a little bit of grumpiness here and there), and Jared was big enough to go on everything, and Maggie was big enough to go on everything but two rides.  Jared's favorite ride in California Adventure was California Screamin', and Maggie's was the Ariel ride and the "elevator ride" (Tower of Terror--yeah, right.)

I'm already feeling the post-trip blues and longing for our next trip to Disneyland (probably two or three years out when Evelyn is big enough to enjoy it, too).  I was also bummed that some of my favorite rides were closed this trip (Splash Mountain, Peter Pan, and Soarin' over California), so I can't wait to go again!

February

This is me trying to get Evy to sing "Once There was a Snowman," which she has gotten so good at.  I guess the camera is a big distraction for her.  :)

We had a very busy February!  Alan and I had something going almost every night this month.  Not too much of it was picture-worthy.  However, there were some things that were picture-worthy, but I forgot to take pictures!  Sheesh.  

We had our fun fondue night with the Stouts.  I really love fondue (and I also love the Stouts!), so this is a favorite tradition of ours to host everyone at our house and eat yummy food.  This year I made peanut butter fondue, chocolate fondue, and cheese fondue.  

Another exciting thing was that Alan's sister Amanda married her sweetheart Todd this month.  We are so excited to have them married and have more cousins for our kids!  We love them and their little family.  

 This was Jared's first year to make his own Valentine box. In past years he has just decorated a paper sack or something at school.  Thank goodness for Google Images!  I'm kind of a dummy when it comes to arts and crafts, but this was simple enough for even me to help him with.  :)  Jared was the winner this month for his class in reading the most minutes for their reading contest.  That meant that he and all the other class winners got to go on a special field trip with the principal to Chick-Fil-A! (This is the third year in a row that Jared has done this and been the winner for his class.  He reads sooooooo much!  Lately he has been flying through Star Wars chapter books and also the Calvin and Hobbes books. He requests to go to the library at least once a week.)

This is Maggie in one of her Hawaiian dress-ups.  Maggie has grown up so much lately!  In February she got her kindergarten shots and check-up, and I have registered her for kindergarten next year!  I am amazed at how much she has learned lately.  She writes her name very legibly (MAggiE--we need to work on lowercase letters--ha ha), is working on writing her other letters, and she is just beginning to read.  I think in the next couple of months that reading will "click" for her and she'll be off!  :)  I'm so proud of her.