A Memorial Day weekend with Cousins

Over Memorial Day weekend my brother and his family came from Colorado, and my sister came from Provo. All 12 of my parents grandkids came together for a fun filled weekend. I have a lot of memories playing with my cousins and it was so fun to see all of them together. They played and played and played. My sister and her hubby and 2 kids stayed at our house and we kicked off the week by going to the Hogle Zoo. I got to be a zookepper for a day!! Really, I hoarded kids more than watching animals.

Arlo and Cache with their cousin Caleb

Nana with some of the cousins at the watering hole.
(That's my monkey on the Lions back)

Check out this Lemur's eyes

Papa with cousin Sienna

On Saturday we had the Norman Family Reunion. This family is so large!! When my great grandparents died they had 44 grandchildren and 1oo great grandchildren and now they all have children, and their children's children. Seriously, there's a lot. I only knew about a tenth of the people there. But still it was nice to look around and see all the amazing people that came from my great grandparents. I feel lucky to have known them and especially for being named after my great grandmother Alice. They were wonderful people who did a lot of good in this world.

On Sunday and Monday we spent more time with cousins playing at Nana's house on her big water slide and play set and played a little baseball. All in all it was great weekend with family! I love my Family!

Preschool Graduation

I consider this blog as my journal and would be sad if I didn't post about the events in my childrens lives. Arlo graduated from preschool a couple weeks ago and I wanted to share these pictures. Arlo loved school and it breaks his heart when I tell him he's not going back for another 3 months. My earliest memories are when I was this age in preschool and I hope Arlo remembers these days as well.

Arlo's teachers Ms. Peaches and Ms. Addesa

Arlo and his friend Aiden

Cam's new groove!

This morning as the boys were watching cartoons, George of the Jungle came on and with it the theme music. Cam, out of no where, starting busting some killer dance moves. This is the first time I've seen him dance and I'm glad I got it on video. He's 10 months old now and it's just crazy how time flys. Arlo's graduating from pre-school and Cache is now officially potty trained!! This summer I'll have a 5 year old, a 3 year old and a 1 year old! I don't feel old enough for that!! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little video of Cam gettin his groove on. (You might want to stop the playlist so you can here the George of the Jungle music.)

Zion National Park

AJ finished up a semester of school and we decided to head out for a family vacation before the summer semester started up. We loaded up the suburban with our tents and sleeping bags and headed south to Zions National Park. I've lived in UT all but 4 years of my life and I've never taken advantage of beautiful southern Utah. The views were breathtaking. Zions was absolutly beautiful!! We stayed in a campground inside the park and took the shuttle through the canyon to the many trailheads and explored as much as you possibly can with 3 small kids. The kids did great, especially Arlo. He's going to be a mountaineer just like his father. We took 2 kelty packs for Cam and also for Cache if he needed a rest. We are in the process of potty training Cache and he did really well. Except for the time he pooped while on AJ's shoulders. That was hilarious! We went on a lot of different hikes and drove through the 1.1 mile long tunnel. These 2 pictures we took from inside the tunnel. It was pretty amazing.

We spent one day in St. George and took the kids to the Aquatic Center to go swimming. It was 102 degrees there so it felt pretty good to get wet and especially to shower after two days camping. We also went to lunch at Pirate Island were we all got drunk! Really, here's proof:

Here's some pictures of the beautiful scenery at Zions:

Here's some random pictures of the fam:

On Wednesday after hiking a 2 mile trail along the river, we got back to camp pretty tired. I took a nap with Cache and Cam and AJ and Arlo went for a "walk". Well that walk ended up being a 3 hour hike to Angel's Landing. If you've never been to Zions or heard of Angel's landing, it's the most difficult trail that's 5 miles long and ascends almost 1500 feet. The last stretch of the hike is across a skinny steep ridge where there is a chain to hold onto so you don't fall the 1200 feet to your death. From the top of Angel's Landing you have a 360 degree view of Zions canyon. I was pretty upset that AJ took Arlo on this trail, but he said that Arlo did awesome and not once was he ever scared. He also said all the other hikers were very impressed with Arlo and his ability to hike such a strenious trail. Overall AJ and Arlo hiked over 7 miles that day. Here's are the pictures that AJ took while on Angel's Landing.

This is the narrow steep climb up to Angel's Landing

When we stopped to take a rest at the end of Riverside Walk trail there were some friendly squirrels looking for a handout. You can get fined for feeding them so we made sure we didn't but they just wouldn't leave us alone. One even jumped on my lap! I was lucky to get it on video.

This last picture is my favorite. Cam was getting cranky on our way back to our camp site so we pulled him out of his car seat and he rode on dad's lap. (Don't worry we were in the campground and only going 10 miles an hour, and besides, he rode on our laps while in the shuttle around the park.) He thought it was great fun to stick his head out the window.

All in all it was a great trip and the most important thing we did was build memories!