Twin Lakes 2012

Twin Lakes was an awesome adventure as always!  For those of you not in the know, Twin Lakes is located on the Colville Indian Reservation in Northeastern Washington.  Our family, on my dad’s side, has been going there since my dad was a baby.  We stay in a mixture of the “trabin” (single wide trailer built onto like a cabin), and some campers, and tents.  We play with the cousins, share meals, swim, waterski, tube, wake board, canoe, fish, ride bikes, and generally have an amazing time.  Despite a few cases of of strep throat, and hand foot and mouth (post Twin Lakes), and my Dad breaking his ankle, it went off fairly flawlessly this year.  My Dad is awesome though, I mean what other almost 70 year old wake boards on a regular basis?  And has a seasons pass at a ski resort?

Hyrum paddling the cousins around

James jumping off the dock

Cousins jumping off the dock

Underwater Eric

Hyrum trying out my marshmallow roasting invention

Grant--too sleepy to wait to take off his life-jacket

Hula Hoop-Diving a 2012 addition

Jimmy showing off the "spear" Hyrum made
They speared a bass but he escaped, minus a couple of scales

Hyrum ready to spear fish--seriously, do you even have to ask why I married this man?  Hubba Hubba.

Nicole waterskiing

Mark Gardner--another 2012 addition.  Be there in 2013 Mark!

Our family tubing--James didn't want to come so we added Lukey instead.

The MEN ready to spear a fish in the channel

The last day we had to get in one more ski, and ran out of gas on the other side of the lake.
Thanks to the anonymous wake board boat who towed us home!

Bear Canyon Academy

Our church group (ward) has a really cool program a couple of moms started last year.  We call it the Bear Canyon Academy, named after the local, fancy, expensive, private school Albuquerque Academy, and their summer program.  Any school age kids can participate if one of their parents are willing to teach a class for 6+ kids of the age group of their choice.  Scottie got to participate in some really fun classes: swimming, one about the weather, and one where they did water play.  Hyrum and I taught a class for older kids ages 10-13.  We, mostly Hyrum,  taught a class “Build your own electronic gadget.”  It was a lot of fun.  The boys (no girls signed up for our class), made Franklin’s Bells but instead of lightning we harvested electrons from our old-school television.  We also made our own motors using magnets, and a little canon that shoots b-b’s that uses the circuit out of disposable cameras.  It was actually really cool and the boys loved it. 






Our homemade motor—it uses the magnet from a speaker
A boy wrapping wire for his gun.

Father’s Day 2012

Yeah, I know that Father’s Day was F'OREVER ago, but this is for me, and the Grandma’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyrum requested a pomegranate cheesecake, which though it doesn’t look amazing, tasted amazing.  We sure love our Dad.

Fathers & Sons camping/fishing in Jemez mountains

Hyrum, Lance and the older boys extended their fathers-and-sons overnight campout to do a little fishing in the Jemez watershed.

James reeled in the first catch at the 12-and-under pond at the nearby hatchery, a pretty decent rainbow, and again was surprised and a little terrified at the beast on the end of his line.  That was lunch.  While Hyrum was cooking it up, Lance and Scott ventured to a nearby creek where they reeled in 4 more rainbows—two each.

On the drive home, we stopped for several hours at our new favorite fishing hole on the Guadalupe river.  Somehow, we managed to find a way with our gear and small kids down the cliff face to the water’s edge.  Lance reeled in a brookie on his first cast, then another later on.  Hyrum finally absolved himself from becoming the weak fishing link, and reeled in the last—and not smallest—catch of the day: another brook trout.  (Obviously, as facilitator of this expedition, Hyrum was always busy taking care of the kids, setting up camp, cooking, taking photos, etc.; otherwise, he naturally would have brought home a lot more.)

Total fish count: Lance (2 rainbows, 2 brookies); Scott (2 rainbows); James (1 rainbow); Hyrum (1 brookie, which, although not the largest, turned out to be the fish with the most “intangibles”)

Besides the fish, the location was beautiful, sporting waterfalls, sheer cliffs, large boulders, and cool running, refreshing water.

And this is how you know that you’ve had a great trip:

Mother’s Day and Grant’s Birthday

Last year on Friday the 13th, Grant came into the world.  This year due to leap year, Grant and I got to share our special days.  It was a beautiful day.  Hyrum and Scott were up early making the table pretty and Hyrum and James made pancakes for breakfast.  Lance and Hyrum had a pancake eating competition which Hyrum would say he won, and Lance would say that was only because there were no more pancakes.  We went to church, flew kites, and ate birthday cake.  All in all, a great day!

Scottie in front of the breakfast table.  The boys picked out two lovely kites for my Mother’s Day gift, Transformers and Spiderman.  How did they know that I am a huge fan?  I picked out a nice cake platter for myself since I don’t have one and have wanted one.  They picked some beautiful flowers from our garden too.

Grant enjoying his cake.

Lance--interning at Sandia National Labs for the summer--is a lot of fun and the boys LOVE having him at our home.  While kite flying, he came up with the ingenius idea of connecting the kite to his fishing pole so that Hyrum could stand at one end of the cul-de-sac with the kite and he at the other end, and then reel real fast and the kite is in the air.  It may be the lazy man way (no running required) but it was super funny and worked like a charm.

Scottie’s first primary talk

Living Prophets Teach me to Choose the Right

I am thankful for President Monson who is our prophet today.

I read a story where President Monson told us that we can decide right now to keep the commandments

I have decided that:

I will never play soccer games on Sunday

I will obey the word of wisdom

I will help my brothers and serve others

And I will be worthy to be baptized when I am 8, to get the Priesthood when I am 12, and to go to the temple and to be a missionary.

I am thankful for our prophet who teaches me to choose the right.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Happy New Year!

Pasadena, California

In high school Hyrum had a group of guy friends that he was real close to.  The last man standing, Matt Gardner, (ie, the last one single) got married over Christmas break, so we took a family vacation to Pasadena, California.  Unfortunately we missed the Rose Parade by a day or so, but still had an excellent vacation.  The day after Christmas we drove to Needles, California, the first town you come to when you leave Arizona and enter California.  It is a podunk place on the Colorado River at the start of the Mojave desert.  The best part of that town is a nice Best Western with a sweet pool that we enjoyed, and a cute diner for dinner and breakfast.  The hotel had a deal with them that instead of a continental breakfast, you get a breakfast at the diner. 

Tuesday, we drove into Pasadena and enjoyed swimming in the pool until it was time to go to a wedding dinner.  Matt is a semi-closet Proclaimers fan, so Hyrum played on the accordion and his friend Sam, sang a remade Proclaimers version to “I’m on my Way to Misery to Happiness Today.”  I think the Proclaimers should consider adding accordion to the mix because it really added something to that song.  Unfortunately, all the pictures I took of them were blurry because Grant wanted to help out. 

On Wednesday it was wedding day, but since it didn’t start until 1pm, we decided to spend the morning at the beach.  When you live in New Mexico, you have to take every opportunity to be next to the water that you can get. 

 

 

 

 

The boys had a blast playing in the sand.  Scottie loved playing in the waves.  James did at first too but he got knocked over so he got a little nervous of them after that.  We also saw a bunch of dolphins in the water jumping which was cool.  Overall, awesome, and I wish we lived by the sea.  No wonder people pay an arm and a leg to live in California. 

 

 

 

After the beach we had to high tail it home and shower and change in approximately 20 minutes so we could cruise over and make it to the wedding.  We arrived huffing and puffing but we made it.  It was a beautiful wedding.  I had never been in the LA temple and it is enormous and so beautiful. 

Our handsome boys dressed up for the wedding.  We had one mishap on the temple grounds.  James, excited with all the kids around, waiting for the bride and groom to come out, fell over backwards off the temple stoop into a really, really thorny bush.  He was pretty sore for a bit and it involved digging out some pretty long thorns from his back, ouch.

Matt Gardner and his beautiful bride Sarah Marie.  We had a ton of fun hanging out with one of Hyrum’s other high school buddies, Sam and his wife Elizabeth.

I have to laugh at the picture because James is in bliss right here.  At the reception they had one of those tables with all sorts of candies that you can put in a little bag and take as a favor.  Well we let the boys help themselves and they thought that was pretty great.  They don’t usually get to eat as much candy as they want.  The reception was cool.  It was located in Sarah’s parents backyard and it was beautiful.  Best of all, there was an IN-N-OUT truck in the front yard and you could order anything you liked.  Fun. 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, we did one more great vacation thing, we took the boys to Disneyland.  I would NEVER plan a vacation to Disneyland at Christmas, it was insanely packed.  Since we were already there however, we thought we would brave the crowds for a day and take the boys.  Scottie’s favorite ride was Star Tours.  He is currently really into Star Wars though he never has seen the movies. 

Scottie with his Star Tours 3D glasses.

Grant enjoying eating a Disneyland pin.

James in the Finding Nemo submarine. 

We all had a blast on the carousel.  James’ favorite rides were the carousel, the Casey Junior train, and the flying Dumbos.

Overall we had a great day.  It left us so worn out however, that we couldn’t make it all the way home to Albuquerque, and instead had to stop and sleep a night in Flagstaff, Arizona, on the way home.  We had a great time.  Who can get married next so we can have an excellent family vacation?  Karissa?  John?  Rosalyn?