Hiking, Biking, Swimming and Sunshine in the Beautiful Saint George

Spring Break 2013



Karson showing Chloe his ladybug

Spring break was a success :) We had a great time and enjoyed some really nice weather. Our adventure started off on Sunday as we drove down to my mom and dad's place. The drive was long and Chloe hardly slept, but Karson did well. We rented Hotel Transylvania and Karson watched it twice! By the time we got into town I couldn't wait to get out of the car...Chloe had been screaming at me for way too long and my nerves were pretty much shot. Apparently Chloe doesn't travel as well as Karson did at this age. But we made it, so that's all that matters!



Karson and Chloe at the hotel

On Wednesday morning, we headed for Saint George....hello sunshine! We checked into our hotel and as we were getting ready to go check out the pool Cris found a cockroach in our bathroom... Gross!!! The manager offered to let us change rooms, but also said it was an ongoing problem so we decided not to move unless we came across another one. Thankfully that was the only one we encountered.

Chloe and Karson LOVED the pool. They both had so much fun swimming, and the weather was so nice! My mom bought Karson some sweet blow up airplanes with squirt guns attached to them that were a huge hit among all the kids in the pool. After swimming, we went out to lunch and then hiked up this cool crack. What a neat place! You had to shimmy sideways through most of it and then pull yourself out (with arm strength that I am lacking!) at the end. Luckily my brothers were coaching me through it and warned me about the narrowest parts. Looking at the pictures it seems like there is no way adults could squeeze through there!

Thursday Chloe and I did our own thing while everyone else went for a fun little bike ride... which reminds me, we really need to get another bike (Craigslist, here I come!).  Mom, Chloe and I went out thrift shoppin' with my grandma that evening, then stopped at this neat little water park and let Chloe play. The "water park" had some stone steps with little waterfalls flowing from them into a pond with small red rock boulders in it for the kiddos to crawl around on. Chloe loved playing in the waterfalls...tooo cute!

Meanwhile....the boys were rock climbing at Chuckwalla. Dad bought Karson a harness at the Desert Rat and when we got there Dalton was belaying him up a huge red rock wall. He seemed to really like it, but I think his favorite part was just clipping in with the carabiners. He looked so cool in his climbing harness! That night Riley, Mom and I went to a Kundalini yoga class at Downtown Yoga. It was all about the full moon, and it was a very unique class. I was lost half the time and pushed to my physical limit the rest of the time, but it was definitely worth it just to experience this type of yoga.



 Friday was the beginning of our mini family reunion at Coral Springs Resort right outside of St. George. The condos were gorgeous! Both of our condos had 2 queen beds, 2 sets of bunk beds, a kitchen, laundry room and 2 bathrooms. The master bathroom had a walk in shower and a jacuzzi tub... which Chloe and Karson had a nice bath in.

Saturday we started off with a nice yoga class taught by Mom. When we were done, the kids went on an Easter egg hunt. Karson was lucky enough to find the egg with a $5 bill in it! Cris carried Chloe around and got her to pick up eggs, but she wouldn't put them in the basket. She chose to shake them and/or try to open them instead.

That afternoon we went to Red Cliffs Campground and hiked up a nice trail to some waterfalls. We took turns jumping into the freezing pool at the bottom of the first waterfall. What a rush! The water was soooooo cold, but it was probably about 80 degrees outside so that helped. Chloe was a little explorer like always and walked around on the red rock with Gramps :) When we got home we ended the night with some dinner and a family talent show... which was actually pretty cool. We have some talented people in our family.


We ended our family reunion Sunday morning. My mom, my aunts and I hiked up the hill behind the condos and did some yoga with the sunrise. It was so amazing! There aren't many places with a view like that! What a great vacation!

Hike up the crack

Climbing at Chuckwalla

Gooseberry Mesa

Gramps and Chloe at Red Cliffs

Second waterfall at Red Cliffs Campground

Family picture...Karson was pouting about not being able to catch a lizard

Dalton supervising Karson and Chloe in the Jacuzzi tub

Coral Springs Condos

9 Months Old!

Chloe is now 9 months old! How did time go by so fast?! She is growing so fast and accomplishes new exciting things all the time! I think it is just about as difficult keeping up with her as it was with Karson...which took me by surprise. I thought my little girl would be a sweet little angel and never give me any trouble! At least not until she was a teenager LOL. So much for that naive dream...I guess I knew better. She is crawling over things, getting into everything, screaming at us for not paying enough attention to her, and so many other troublesome behaviors... but we are loving [almost] every minute of it! She is still working on getting her little tooth to come all the way through...and maybe that's been playing into her attitude. But who knows... Cris took her for her first bike ride ever yesterday, and she seemed to enjoy it. I also found an adorable little Disney Princess umbrella stroller that she seems to be a big fan of. With the nice weather this week, I took her for a little stroll around the block in her cute new Croc wannabes and she just kicked her little feet the whole way... toooo CUTE!!!

Little rockstar princess :)

Chloe's first bike ride!

Look at that cute new stroller!

... and ADORABLE shoes haha

What a happy girl

Giving Bear dog loves

Karson pushing Chloe in her new stroller...good times!

Ice Cream Date With My Favorite Kindergartener

Karson brought home his report card from school on Friday and it was quite impressive... to me anyways. The kids are given a 1(rarely displays behavior), 2 (occasionally displays) or 3 (consistently displays). Last quarter (or trimester or whatever it is that school goes by) he got mostly 2's... except in respect. Sadly he was not very respectful and only got a 1 in that category. I commended him for doing well in the other areas and we then set a goal to work on being respectful. It was tough at first and then he got it and has way more good days than bad. So this report card was made up of mostly 3's- Yay Karson!- and he brought his respect from a 1 to a 2. I was very proud of him and decided to take him out on an ice cream date. He chose TCBY, and we took advantage of the nice weather and rode our bikes there (after having Cris fix both of our tires lol). This is what Karson chose...

Peanut butter chocolate ice cream parfait with hot caramel, M&Ms, and gummy bears!

He enjoyed every bite of it... minus a few bites that he so kindly shared with his ice cream addicted mom :)

Mmmmmmmmmm!

Our conversation was quite amusing... out of nowhere he told me that he loves girls because they dress so cute, but not everbody thinks so. He also said that he can only tell me that he loves me because if he tells other girls that then they will want to marry him! Haha! There is rarely a dull moment around Karson :)

Lady Bug Lady Bug Fly Away Home...

When I was pregnant I had a lot of time to be crafty. One day I crocheted a cute little owl hat for Chloe. Everyone loved it and once she was big enough to wear it, she looked ADORABLE!

My friend asked me to make her a lady bug one for her little girl...unfortunately for her I was a big time procrastinator about it. I used some ideas off of pinterest to help me create my owl hat, and I hadn't seen (or maybe just hadn't searched for) any tutorials on making a lady bug hat. After seeing the slight disappointment on Jamie's face when the hat that I made for her daughter for Christmas was not a ladybug hat I decided to quit being afraid of failure and called upon my imagination to help me make this hat. I think it turned out pretty darn cute...

I think Jamie likes it...McKinnley didn't really want to wear it, but at least I tried!

Chloe in her cupcake hat... I made this for her on our way to Lava Hot Springs last summer. Karson asked me to make a cupcake for it

My brother, Colton in his owl hat...what a great Christmas present :)

Home Brew, Motorcycles and Teething

We have had quite the exciting week. Cris's friend from college, Jim came to town on Thursday from Nevada. The next afternoon, they had their friend Josh come over and they bottled up 5 gallons of home brewed beer. They seemed to be having a great time, and worked really hard to maintain their sterility by utilizing straws so that they could drink while bottling. Men... lol. It was a pretty cool process to watch, and hopefully all of their hard work pays off in another few weeks.

After they were done, a few more friends showed up and Cris and Jim decided to show them their motorcycles. Cris's motorcycle is having some issues right now, so he is borrowing one from his mom's boyfriend. So naturally, Cris had to take it for a quick ride to see what the bike was capable of. About 5 minutes later, he came inside, breathless and with some gnarly road rash on his right arm and side. He wasn't complaining much about it until he washed it off...then he was hurting pretty good. I'm glad he's okay and all, but I wish he would accept how accident prone he is and protect himself from things like that! Needless to say, I was a little worried about the condition he would come home in after going out riding in the mountains on Saturday! Thankfully, he made it home without any new injuries yesterday afternoon.

Since I worked Friday night, Grandma Penny came over Saturday morning to watch the kids while Cris and Jim went riding. She pretty much made Cris's day, and to top it off she made us breakfast! She found this new recipe for these breakfast pockets where you take pillsbury biscuits and wrap them around sausage, eggs, and hashbrowns, then bake them...mmmm! Karson enjoyed spending the day with his grandma, and Chloe was so good for her! Sometime throughout the day, Chloe sprouted a little tooth on her bottom gum. It has barely poked through, and the one next to it is following close behind....which explains why she has been sooooooo grumpy lately! I forgot how much teething sucks!

Last weekend was officially the end of my baylor schedule. No more working every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night for this girl! It will be nice to not have to work every weekend, but I am going to miss the weekend crew...and my predictable schedule. So far it's okay though.

I started planning a road trip up the Oregon/Washington Coast for the summer... I can't wait to go to the beach! I want to visit Cannon Beach, Seaside, and Astoria...then maybe head up to the Forks area. It's all up in the air right now... but I'm excited!!!

So being the "mother of the year" that I am ;) I signed Karson up for a program called "Legomania" at his school that was hosted by the Y... and then forgot that I had signed him up for it so he unfortunately missed the first two days. Oops! But he was able to go Wednesday and Thursday, and had a blast! We can't wait for the next one!

All and all I would say that our crazy life is pretty good right now. I miss my parents and the rest of my family, and can't wait to see them! But other than that things are good...oh ya minus trying to file taxes through H&R Block. What a truly terrible experience! Long story short, they entered false information, we were charged $230 to file a fairly simple return, got a small amount back from federal and OWED the state money! After leaving the office feeling like I wanted to puke... I plugged in our information to TurboTax and got back twice the amount from the federal government, and a small amount back from the state. We are still in the process of getting them to straighten everything out... and hopefully it will be resolved SOON. We will never go through them again and are going to go talk to our local IRS office on Monday about what they did.

That negativity aside, we are all healthy and doing well... and looking forward to some nicer weather, BBQing outside, and being more active!

You Are My Sunshine

I am totally ready for spring weather! I recently checked out a hula hooping class at Lhotse Yoga with my friend Nichole. We had so much fun that I decided to make my own hula hoop, and one for Karson. Cris, the kids and I went to Lowe's for some supplies (PVC tubing, a connector coupling piece thingy, and colorful electrical tape) and the next day we put together our hoops. Karson decorated his with blue, white, green, yellow and red tape, and I decorated mine with blue, green and white tape. Then we took our new hoops outside and started practicing. We are not very good, but it's one of those things that is just fun no matter what your skill level is. Cris impressed us with a few of his tricks, and Chloe just watched like we were crazy.

 (This is the video that I used for making our hoops http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBreLABeqlI)

After Karson got out of school the Friday before last, we went to Subway and then had a picnic at Settler's Park. I was actually quite surprised to see so many children at the park in February, but it was in the 50's... which feels pretty nice this time of year :) Karson worked on his rock climbing skills, and Cris put him to work doing obstacles across the playground while Chloe and I wandered around. Chloe loved being outside in the sun. Cris tried shading her face and she pushed his arm away every time. After a couple times she just held her arm up to block him... it was pretty cute! I can't wait until the weather warms up and we can spend more time outside! Last summer Chloe was too little to keep out in the sun for very long, so we didn't get to fully enjoy the summer days. Of course, with this being Idaho and all, we had  few nice days and then yesterday it snowed! So crazy...but hopefully it warms back up soon!

This is officially my last weekend of my baylor contract... so no more working every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for me. I'm quite excited to get a break and spend some time with my friends and family :) Speaking of family...Riley passed his massage therapy licensing test! I am soooo proud of him, and can't wait to get some energy work done next time I see him! He is planning on getting certified to teach yoga too, so we will just be a family of yogis... I love it! 

Cris decided to put his desire to brew beer into action a little over a week ago, and had some friends over to help him. They set up camp in the shed and brewed awayHe still has about 6 and a half more weeks to wait, but hopefully it all turns out good so he can experiment with different recipes.

Chloe recently started saying "Dadadadadadada" and it is pretty cute. Some moms are sad when their babies dont' say "mama" first, but I don't mind... I have Karson with his constant "Mom...mommy...mom! Mama! Mom!!! I love you." LOL, so Cris can get that from Chloe haha. Other than that the kids are doing great. Karson is still doing well in school and Chloe is just exploring her surroundings in ways that make me wonder if she is going to be as wild as Karson in her toddler years...but we'll see. Until next time...

"The heart sees deeper than the eye."

                              -Yogi tea bag haha

Happiest Kids on the Block

The weather was finally warming up a little bit (by which I mean 30's and 40's instead of the single digit misery we suffered through for a few weeks) and we have been able to spend more time outside...and then it snowed last night haha. Last Friday Cris, Chloe and I walked to Karson's school with the dog. It was such a beautiful day that I couldn't justify not being outside. Chloe babbled to herself most of the way, and Karson got a little too carried away with his competitiveness when trying to race Cris and Chubbs. He stopped and pouted a couple times and we wondered if he would make it home or not. Thankfully he sucked it up and finished the walk with a smile on his face.

Karson's teacher sent me an email the other day to inform me of how well he has been doing in class lately. It made me smile, and I am so proud of Karson. There are not many things that I want more than to see my children succeed in life. Most days he comes home from school every day bragging about not having to go to the office haha. Ever since we implemented the "make it a good day" technique, he has not gotten into trouble in class (...home life is a different story LOL). We recently switched his room with my craft room and he couldn't be happier about it. Little does he know, there is less room for him to play now and more room for me to craft...but hey if he's happy I'm happy!

On Sunday we went to a superbowl party at my coworker, Brian's houses. Karson played with Greyson and Shyloh all night and we didn't see much of him. Chloe was entertained all night and was her cute little self for everyone to see :) There were lots of yummy snacks there and we had a great time! It's nice to do different things for entertainment.

Chloe is now crawling up the stairs whenever she gets the chance. She of course likes the big stairs the most, which is scary but at least we have a baby gate! She is so fun to be around, she is a very smiley baby and so good natured. I get up with her around 7 on most of my days off, and we just play in her room until Karson gets up. I am not a morning person at all, especially not with my work schedule, but I enjoy spending time with her in the mornings. She has started this little growling thing, which is pretty funny. Too bad Halloween isn't coming up or we would probably dress her up as a zombie LOL.

Anyways... my bestest (yes bestest!) friend Ashley is moving back here from Alabama in a few weeks and I couldn't be happier! She and her husband have been in Alabama since 2011, and before that they were in Portland for a few years while she finished up school. It will be so fun to have her back in town, and I know Karson is going to love getting to spend time with her and Duane :)

This week I had some very zen experiences... both in one day. My friend, Nichole and I went to lunch at Shangri La Tea Room and Cafe. We drank a pot of Matejuana tea which is supposed to give you a sense of relaxation and euphoria... which it totally did! Especially along with the live music. One of the musicians played a guitar and a didgeridoo, and the other played an assortment of flutes and the saxophone... what a cool experience! To top it all off, the food was AMAZING! I definitely recommend checking it out! Later that evening Nichole and I decided to try out a Yin yoga class at Sumits, and it was just perfect! The instructor incorporated essential oils, candles and incense into her class and it was all about holding poses for 3-4 minutes at a time. There were a lot of hip opening poses which are always intense, but feel really good. The class started with orange blossom oil and ended with lavendar...it was just a really nice way to end the day :) The kids and I also ventured over to Bounce and spent about 2 hours there having a great time! So all in all, I'd say I had a pretty great week! Now we're off to wash the dog, and maybe get a treat from Cold Stone...mmmm!

Until next time... Namaste!