Sand Sculptures and a Day with Wild Dolphins

We had a lot of fun digging in the sand in Fort Walton, Florida for Thanksgiving break. Here are some of the masterpieces we created.

Luke is a crab and thought it was funny to be in sand up to his neck

Paisley is our little mermaid. She liked it so much she stayed there for a really long time and kept smoothing out her tail fin.

We started to just bury Ethen deep and then decided he would look so funny as a mermaid as well. The sun was right in his eyes

so Dad's shades completed the look.

Phoebe formed a starfish and dolphin, but I didn't get a picture of the dolphin.

This turtle was made by someone else and was what got our creative juices flowing. Eventually the turtle became a cake after a few days.

We were pleasantly surprised, on our first day at the beach, to have a pod of dolphins hang out with us for most of the day. My battery died on the camera so I didn't get any pictures except for this one. There were probably a total of about 12-14 swimming right off shore from us. They were having a good time playing in the water and Ethen and Phoebe even got to swim right by them. They were floating out on the boogie boards and came within 3 to 5 yards of them. It was so amazing and cool to watch. After that day we didn't see them the rest of the week, so we felt pretty lucky to have had such a great day with them.

Ice Skating cool down

It has been a HOT summer here this year. Scott took the kids ice skating for a last activity before school started and had a few hours of cold. It felt great to need a jacket again. Paisley was even able to skate around on her own. There were a few tumbles and scrapes by the end, but everyone still had a great time. It only took Phoebe a couple weeks for her arm to heal and Ethen looked like a tough guy at football practice because he already had scrapes on his arm.
h

This is how we bowl

We had a lot of fun this week with Nana, Papa, Graeme, and Annie visiting. I signed the kids up for some free bowling passes (you do have to pay shoe rental) and we had a good couple hours of bowling. A lot of us even got a few strikes!

Annie looking good

Phoebe and Paisley

Mom was by far the most accurate

Graeme and Luke waiting happily for their turn

The kids with their preferred balls

Country Shop

We went into a little local store on our trip to the lake and came across some fun/funny items. I do love bacon, but this is taking it a little too far!!!!!

Spring Break

This week was spring break for the kids. We spent a few days at a great YMCA family camp with lots of good friends and temperature controlled cabins with running water. My kind of camping. Some great campfires to sit around and perfect weather for the kids to run around with eachother from sunup to sundown. This has become somewhat of a tradition with friends and the kids have such a good time. John came up for a night and a day to hang with the family and almost insane amount of kids that are together at these events. This year we were even served 4 of our meals and it was pretty good food too. We had putt-putt golfing , rock climbing, archery, hay rides, candle making, canoeing, fishing, and games to keep everyone occupied.

Luke baiting his hook with sausage

Paisley collecting arrows

Just a little muddyThis ride is a bit more tippy than the canoe

Family Vacation Time!!!!

We took a little road trip/family vacation last week to Eden, Utah. It was a lot of driving, but the kids were so good and we had a dvd player in the car (that made all the difference). My brother Nathan and his family came up to the mountain with us for a couple days. That worked out really nicely since Jen and I could trade days watching the little kids and taking turns on the mountain. Ethen and Phoebe got right back out there and were happy to be on the snow again. Luke had his first try at snowboarding and did a great job. He was a little stud out there and wanted nothing to do with the bunny hill, so we took him right up the chairlift and he made his way down the mountain several times.

Static car hair (and a messy face)

Bergen's at the top

Luke eating snow
The boys playing games

The girls watching a movie

Paisley had been saying for weeks that she wanted to go skating on our trip and amazingly we found a cute, tiny town that flooded the park and turned it into a skating rink. There was a BBQ restaurant across the street that rented the skates for $2. This day was also Ethen's birthday (he is 11 now!!!!) and so we skated after dark with a lit outdoor rink and then ate some great BBQ for dinner and warmed up.After 4 days at Powder Mountain we went down to St. George and spent a couple days at Nathan's house. It was so fun to be able to spend so much time with them and let the cousins play till they dropped. We had a great time hiking on the red rocks one afternoon. It was so pretty.