just us

A couple weeks ago, Ben and I were able to "get out of Dodge" for a few days...just us!  It has been 5 years since we have done a trip together, and it was long overdue.

We started our trip off with hiking to the summit of Timpanogos. 

This was no small hike!  We started up around 10:00am, and got back to the car around 10:0pm.

It was a hard hike, but it was so nice to just be out in the mountains, with Ben, and no worries.  We were able to talk, enjoy the scenery, and do something that we both love.  We saw a cute momma mountain goat with her little baby.  The baby just peeked down over the rocks at Ben, and he got a picture of it.

I wore the wrong shoes, and absolutely trashed my heels.  I had blisters about an hour in to the hike, and by the time we were down, I had scraped layer after layer of skin off of my heels.  They were in bad shape!

When we got to the summit, somehow my phone worked, and we were able to facetime the kids back home with grandma.  It was really neat!  Mary said she was waving a huge stick in the air, and asked if we could see her.  :)

On our way back down, it became really dark, and with about 20 minutes left to the bottom, Ben told me to stop.  There was a HUGE bull moose right smack in the middle of the trail.  Right in our way.

We had absolutely nowhere to go, and the moose wasn't too happy to see us there.  It was snorting and pawing the ground with it's front hoof.

Ben and I were completely freaked out.  Seriously, if we weren't so depleted at the time, we probably would have peed our pants.

We backed up the trail, and waited and waited and waited for the dang moose to leave.  He didn't leave.  In fact, he was probably enjoying himself, while scaring the crap out of us.

We needed to get back to the car, and there was no way to get around the moose, so we decided to pray.  After the prayer, we felt like we should walk past the moose.  We were truly scared to death, and it took all of the faith we had, but we tried to walk past the moose. 

The moose just stood his ground, and we ended up backing down the trail again.

We waited another 10 minutes, and heard the moose move into the brush right next to the trail.  By this point, we had also heard his buddy somewhere in the brush near us as well.  Double trouble.

We decided to just walk past the moose again, and this time we did it.  It was terrifying!

We laughed at ourselves, and we laughed out of relief, but at least we made it back to the car!

We grabbed some food, and crashed in a hotel that night in SLC, and got about 5 hours of sleep before we had to get up to catch our flight.

We arrived in Riviera Maya, Mexico later that afternoon.  We stayed at the Hard Rock Resort, and it was extremely nice!!!  Ben earned the trip with Cintas, so it was an all inclusive paid for trip.  Gotta love Presidents club!

We spent that evening eating dinner at a restaurant that overlooked the ocean and the pools, and hanging out with some of Ben's team for a while.

We learned that back home, Molly was having a hard time, and Mary had been in the ER because she stabbed herself with an Epi Pen.  Yikes!!!  Poor grandma.  She was hanging in there though, and the kids really were doing ok.  I prayed hard that night that things would go more smoothly for everyone back home.  From the sound of it the next morning, things were going much better, and Uncle Devin and Nichole even came for a visit!

The next day, Ben and I headed out to a place called Xplor, to have some fun!  This place was really cool!  We got to zipline, raft through the caves, drive a jeep thingy around, and just play and have fun together.  The place also had an amazing buffet, and I ate 6 fajitas!!  The food was so so so good!  We had a great time, and we literally both fell asleep the second we laid down in a hammock there for a little rest.  ha!

We made it back to our hotel with just enough time to shower and change and get ready for the President's club recognition dinner.  This dinner is always fun, because we get to dress up, eat yummy food, and Ben gets recognized for all of his hard work.  I always feel so proud of him and so grateful for his job, and for all of his hard work during this dinner.  It really shows how blessed we are in this way, and I am always humbled.

Ben and his team mate Brian.  The lighting was horrible..sorry.

Prom picture...haha

Ben's team members that made it to P.club this year

One of the dudes announcing stuff

We stayed up late that night hanging out with Ben's team, and enjoying the night in Mexico.

 

The next morning, we basically just had to get up and go.

 

We traveled all day, and finally made it back home around 2:00am. 

 

It was so great to see all of my sweet babies soundly sleeping, and to give them all kisses.

 

My mom was a super star, and sacrificed a lot in order to help my kids feel happy and comfortable.  She kept Molly up on her medicine, and gave her much needed loves and cuddles, took Sam to scouts, got Mary to her sleepover for tumbling, rented movies, made treats, did laundry, cleaned the house, and kept up with the boys. They had a wonderful time with her, and made a lot of memories.  I am so lucky to have her, and so are my children.

 

It was wonderful to have this trip with Ben, and to be able to celebrate his hard work he does for us every day.  Sometimes it is so refreshing to be just us.

houston, we have a problem

A couple days ago, I was washing the dishes, and I left the water running in to a pot that needed to soak.  Our water pressure is basically non existent, and has been for a year. I knew it would take forever, so I left for a few minutes to do some laundry. 

When I came back into the kitchen, water was pouring out of the cupboard under the sink, and our wood floor was once again under water.  4th time in 2 years.  I let out a huge groan and called Ben, who called our neighbor to come help.

Turns out that the hose leading to our faucet has a hole in it, and was pouring down under the sink. 
Rock on.
 We had to tear the faucet apart to find the problem.

We ended up calling a plumber to come check out all of our dang plumbing issues we have been having for a long time now.  Enough is enough.  We should be able to flush the toilet and have a sink on at the same time right?  or am I just imagining things? I don't think I have had shampoo completely washed out of my hair in over a year.

The dude was here for 15 minutes before he declared that our plumbing is a piece of crap.  Yeah, I could have told him that.

Basically, our pressure valve is completely broken, which in turn broke our regulator, which in turn is loosening and breaking our pipes, which in turn broke our sink hose.  Dominoes anyone?!?!

Oh, and the best part, all of these broken parts are supposed to last a minimum of 25 years...we have been in our house 2 years.  Anyone else banging their head into the wall yet???

So, 4 floods, a broken sink, and 2 broken valves later, we FINALLY have water pressure and normal plumbing again, and the people who did our plumbing better get used to hearing from us, because we have A LOT to say.

Well, we almost have normal plumbing again.  Until the faucet part we ordered gets in, our sink looks like this.

If you turn the water on too fast, the hose flies up and sprays water all over your face.  I forget this at least once a day.  It is great...just great.

re-u, re-u, re-u, reunion

My family reunion was last week.  Not all of us could make it, but my sister and her husband were able to come, and we haven't seen them in a year, so it was awesome!!!

We started it all out at Lagoon!  My kids look forward to this all year, and count down the days to Lagoon.  It did not disappoint. 


Luke and William laughed hysterically on this ride, every.single.time.  They just finished the ride in this picture.
 

Luke and Eli had a blast together.  They called eachother "buddy" and cracked us up.

the crew

We hardly saw Mary and Sam the entire day.  They did all of the big rides with Kelsey and Taylor. Poor Mary got pretty sick for about an hour, and then went right back out!

These crazies did the sky coaster.

After lagoon, everyone crashed at our house, and we went on a fun hike the next morning.

Later that afternoon, Ben arrived home after work and biking.  He said that he had crashed hard and thought his hip may be broken.

We spent the rest of the evening here.

We went to the InstaCare first, and they ruled out a broken hip. They were concerned about internal bleeding though, so they sent us to the ER.

After a CAT scan, they found that Ben hit so hard that he pushed the air that surrounds your guts, out through the abdominal wall, which created little micro tears in the wall.

Ben ended up staying overnight for observation, and another CAT scan in the morning.

Three members of our ward work in the hospital, so we got to see some friends while we were there.
Thank heavens I had family at home, to help watch the kids.

The next morning, after Ben was released from the hospital, and after a good run at the gym with my mom, we all headed out to 7 Peaks...minus Ben.

I don't have any pictures from 7 Peaks, but it was fun, and I actually got to do some of the slides with William and Luke, while my parents helped with Molly.  Mary and Sam went on all of the big stuff with Devin, Kelsey and Taylor.

My mom and I and the three youngest left early.  We were exhausted.  We grabbed some dinner from "The Junction," my new favorite place here in Heber, and also grabbed some ice cream on the way out from the BYU creamery.  We chilled the rest of the night and waited for everyone else to get home.  We stayed up late listening to Kelsey and Taylors medical stories, and making potatoes for my dads reunion the next day.

Saturday morning, well actually, every morning of the reunion, Sam had a soccer tournament.  I took him one day, my dad took him one day, and Ben was well enough to take him Saturday morning.  It was his first time playing in a game with his new STORM team.  He wasn't really into it, because of all we had going on at home, but he did well and had fun.

Everyone headed to Provo Saturday afternoon for my dads reunion.  We stayed behind so we could watch the parade..and see Mary who was in it.

kids were pretty tired and hot while waiting for the parade to begin, but once it started and candy was flying everywhere, they had a great time!

Luke saw tractors!

Fly Mary Fly!

As soon as the parade, we headed down the canyon to join everyone else at the K&K reunion.  We got there in time for games and dancing.  It was fun to see my cousins, aunts and uncles again, and to bust a move.

After the dance, we headed back home.  Needless to say, we got home and crashed.

Sunday, we headed back to South Jordan for the K&K testimony meeting.  This is always my favorite part of these reunions.  There is a huge power in family with the Gospel.  It is amazing.

We ate a big lunch, said our goodbyes, and the kids and I headed to Pocatello, along with the rest of my family.  Ben had to stay behind for work.

My mom rode with me and the kids, and we had to stop to load up on "go juice" just to be able to stay awake for the drive to Pocatello.  We were exhausted.

We arrived to Pocatello in time to eat dinner and enjoy Bop's burning questions by the fire.  Good way to finish a day.

The next morning, I got up early for a canal run.  aaahh, bliss!

We had planned on boating all day, but the weather was really bad, so we ended up staying in and driving eachother nuts most of the day.  The girls did sneak out for some shopping though, which is always fun!

 Meanwhile, back at the house, the boys kept themselves entertained, and William surprised me with learning to go all the way across the monkey bars!

Coming off of such a big week, the night was quite the train wreck for my kids and I.  We were all overtired.  Once everyone finally did crash though, we crashed hard.

The next day I ran at the gym, and the weather was good enough for boating!!
It was an awesome boating day!

There was a great beach for the kids to play on.  Molly and Lacey liked to eat the sand.

I got to ski on glass!

Mary got up on her first try, and skied forever!

Kelsey is the baby whisperer.  Got both babies to sleep.

Mary and Kelsey

Luke and Eli "buddies"

Molly turned 11 months

Mary and Sam floated out a little too far!

Uncle Devin entertained us all with the tube ride of death!

Molly surprised us all and took her first steps!!  It was a bitter sweet moment, and yes, I cried.

As we all loaded the boat for one final run, it didn't start, so we called it a day.

We all came back sunburned, sore and happy. (and yes, the boat is fine)

After a yummy Mandrin House dinner, we said our goodbyes and headed back home.

I am pretty sure the reunion was a success!  I wouldn't trade it for the world. My heart is full.

Now, I need a nap.