Havasu Falls March 2012

In March, Vance and the boys hiked down into the Grand Canyon to Havasu and Mooney Falls. They went with the 14 and 15 year old scouts in our ward. Layton got to go because his dad went.
The picture below is the beginning of the hike on the switchbacks.

Josh and Layton and Loye Willis taking a break:

Loye Willis and Layton:

Josh, Layton, and Loye at the top of Havasu Falls:

Vance and Layton's tent:

Josh and Loye's tent:

Having breakfast, dehydrated scrambled eggs and bacon, mmm...yum!

The hike down to Mooney Falls was very sketchy but so worth it:

Granola bar anyone? No? Ok, i'll eat it all myself in one bite:

Loye, Layton, Josh, Nick, and Zane:

The water is FREEZING!!!

Hiking out:

Random pictures...

When we wake up in the morning of mid-April to find this:

We stay in our pajamas a little longer and make this:

I LOVE having a fire in the fireplace. We haven't used our central heating at all this winter, just the fireplace keeps us warm.

Vance looks a little suspect in this photo because I caught him breaking one of our biggest rules yesterday. We Do Not Feed the Dog At the Table! Its sick! And Vance is the weakest one when it comes to JoJo so I can always count on him to break the rules.

This is a current photo of our family room. We used to have a brown sectional in front of the door and we donated it and bought two couches. It works much better in the room. The walls were already painted this nice brown when we bought the house so I haven't really had to do much in here. We changed out the light fixture, which isn't visible in the photos, put up blinds, and we're planning to face the fireplace in travertine.

Have I mentioned how much I love my house?

Our Friday the 13th Project:

So I just realized all my pictures downloaded backwards so you get to see our progress from finish to start! We borrowed our neighbors dump trailer and got a load of fill dirt to fill in the hole in our backyard that used to be a pond. We will probably need more dirt. It didn't quite fill it. Vance's parents came over for a few hours and helped us move rocks and spread dirt.

Josh was thrilled to come home from school and realize we had some fun things in store for him: shoveling and raking!

Vance used the rototiller to help soften the dirt so it would spread easier.

We took rocks from an old garden area near the house and used them to outline the driveway. The ranger always comes in handy when we need to haul stuff.

This area was created by the previous owners of the house for flowers and vegetables. We are going to build a carport there so we needed to move the rocks out!

While it looks like Vance has been working hard, he just barely picked up the rake when I took this picture. I am actually the one who did all the raking and rock removal to prep the area for more dirt. We are going to plant grass here. I can't wait!

This project started at about 8 o'clock this morning and we are still not done and it's almost 6pm! We are expecting rain or snow this weekend so we're going to hold off on planting the grass. We've really killed ourselves today and I won't be surprised if we can't move tomorrow. I have blisters on my hands and my neck is out again and my arms feel like they're going to fall out of their sockets. But I WILL HAVE GRASS!

What I've been up to this past month...

My sister, Amy, is an English teacher at St. John's high school and is also on the prom committee. The theme for prom this year is "Enchanted Forest" and I am helping them with the decorating. In addition to setting up some of my gazebos and lights and stuff, I offered to paint a 24 foot mural as a backdrop. Their requests were that it include water, a castle, and a big moon. My mom and Amy helped me paint it. It's finished now and next week it will get set up on the stage in the auditorium. I think it turned out pretty good.

And then there was the Pinewood Derby...

And the Relief Society Birthday Dinner...

The Relief Society Birthday Dinner was fun and it's over now. The theme was "Create" and we asked everyone to bring in things they've "created" to display. It was a really good turn-out. I "created" the cake and the decorations. We have a very talented group of ladies!

Then we had our Pinewood Derby and that was a lot of fun too! I wish I had pictures of the food we served because it was sooooo cute! It was all located at the "Pit Stop". We had round sugar cookies frosted in red and green that said stop and go on them. We had rectangular rice krispie treats outlined in black with red, yellow, and green m&m's as traffic lights. We had pretzels as axles, oreos as spare tires, and yellow punch as fuel. We had trophies and medals for all the boys and it was super fun! As the boys arrived, they stopped at the weigh station to weigh their cars, then could go to the Fix-It Shop to add graghite or work on their cars, then re-weigh. Once they were done working on their cars, they had to pass final inspections and go get their driver's license before parking their cars in the Parking Garage. They had chair covers with their racing numbers on them. One of the moms had a couple awesome tires for us to use on our award table. We had checker flags everywhere! It was a lot of work but a lot of fun too and we had a lot of help putting it together!

I'll post pictures soon of the trip Vance and the boys went on with the Scouts. I was pretty jealous that I didn't get to go because Havasu Falls is one of the most amazing and beautiful places on earth and I would love to go back some day. I was 14 when I went down with my family. Vance took some great pictures but I haven't gotten them off his camera yet. So you'll just have to wait!!! :)

Easter 2012

Easter was a little different for us this year. On Saturday, we met a bunch of good friends for a picnic in the forest and rode quads. We stayed out there for hours and even had a little fire when the sun went down. I can't even tell you how much I love our friends up here. Good good people. I wish I had taken pictures. On Sunday, we went to church and then came home and had bbq pulled pork sandwiches. We had an egg hunt with only 12 eggs, which meant that each person could only find 3 eggs each. I enticed Vance, Amy, and Josh to hunt by filling the eggs with money. Layton never needs enticing. Josh found the $10 egg and Layton and Amy each found the $5 eggs and Vance found one with a penny in it. Ha ha! Again, wish I had taken pictures. We totally forgot to color the eggs we hard boiled so Layton did it the next day. He still loves it even at 11. Then Monday night, Vance's parents came over and Layton gave our FHE lesson about the first Easter and the Savior's ressurrection. He did a great job. He had 12 eggs, each with a symbol of the story of the Ressurrection and as he opened each egg, he told us that part of the story. His eggs contained:

#1: a palm leaf (people fanned the Savior as He rode into Jerusalem)

#2: a piece of bread (the bread He broke with His disciples at the Last Supper)

#3: 3 dimes (30 pieces of silver Judas took to betray Jesus)

#4: a piece of cloth (the robe He wore that was ripped and gambled for)

#5: a piece of string (the Savior was whipped)

#6: a thorny stick (the crown of thorns they smashed onto His head)

#7: a cross (He carried His own cross up the hill)

#8: a nail (He was nailed to the cross in His hands and feet and wrists)

#9: a sign that said "King of the Jews" (it hung above Him to mock Him)

#10: a sponge (He was thirsty so they soaked a sponge in vinegar and put it in His mouth)

#11: a rock (to represent the rock that covered the entrance of the tomb)

#12: empty (His tomb was empty and He was ressurrected)

It's such a sad but beautiful story and I am so glad my boys have knowledge of it and believe it. I'm glad they know what their Savior and brother did for them. I'm glad they have a testimony of it. Layton was more excited to share this lesson with the family than he was about his easter basket. And when the lesson was over, Josh asked if he could give the lesson next week. Nothing makes me happier than when my boys grow in the gospel!