Ouch!

A little while ago, we were at my mom's house for family home evening. Ethan was sword fighting, or wrestling or something in the living room with Mart when I heard a crash. I turned around and Ethan had tripped/fallen backwards into the corner of this end table.

Within about a minute, his head started to bleed and the tears set in.

Poor guy! He was so upset and I'm sure he had a wicked headache. It was deep enough that it probably could have gotten stitches, but we all agreed that it would probably be fine if we cleaned it and glued it up really quick and kept it covered until it scabbed over.

We only left the bandage on over night and by the next morning he was good to go without it. It healed up totally fine. He'll have a little scar, but nothing bad.

Summer toy!

We are getting excited for the summer, we have a handful of new summer toys this year!

Besides our new boys and Mart's shot gun, we also decided it was time to finally purchase the canoe we've talked about forever.

When the shipment arrived, I had no idea what to do with it. It was gigantic! It just sat on the front lawn until Mart got home later that day. 

Once we unwrapped it, I swear all of the neighbor kids came flocking and everyone had to try it out.

Jade loved it! She thinks it's really fun to sit it. We'll see how she does when we are actually on the water. :)

Once everyone had a lovely ride on the lawn, we had to try it out on top of the car. Bring it on summer!

New hobby!

A while ago, I told Mart how I've always wanted to learn to shoot a bow and arrow. When I was little, I always thought it would be awesome, but I never really told anyone. I just never thought it would become a reality, not sure why.

It's an activity that both Mart and I can both get into, and include our family in as well. We got both of the boys a bow for Christmas. They were happy, but because it was too cold to go out and actually use it, they weren't overly excited or anything. Once we were able to get out and try them out for the first time, they were hooked. Ethan loved it! We made a lovely ghetto target and shoot in the front yard every now and again.

This day, Ethan magically hit the bulls eye and needed to have his picture taken with it!

I got Mart a wooden recurve bow, and he got me a fancy pants compound bow. We usually take turns with both, but stick to our own because it fits us better.

Trying to figure out what I'm doing.

When we actually got our bows, Traves decided he needed to get the one he's had his eye on forever too.

I tried out Traves' bow, it pulls back super easy, but shoots a little crazy for me.

We have a real target now and have gone shooting up in the canyon once. Excited for summer! Lots of new fun activities this year. :)

Arizona

The end of March, Martin and I loaded up our rental car, dropped off and kissed our children goodbye and headed off to a wedding in Arizona. Originally the plan was to take our children with us and do a mini spring break (spring break started the following Monday). After making those plans, we found out that it was an adult only wedding and we had to rearrange our plans. They were going to have a Grandma weekend and a sleep over with Dee the last night, while we had 4 days of adult time!

We had a few sticky situations with our rental car, but ended up barely making it out of there on time. We were off to a late start (all me, as usual ... ) and didn't get out of the valley until 9:30 or 10. Luckily we had made plans to drive to Beaver and stay the night and continue on the next morning. We arrived in Beaver around 2:30ish in the morning and I swear Martin was asleep within 5 minutes. We slept in later than we planned and got back out on the road around 8 I think. We had an 8+ hour drive ahead of us, and I don't do very well on long car rides. Mart had been dreading riding with me, but I was a trooper. ;)

Once we hit hoover dam, we both needed to get out and stretch and switch drivers. Mart needed to get some muscles working and blood pumping, so whenever we stopped he dropped and did some push ups. Both of us had been sick leading up to leaving, and were both having a little bit of stomach problems. It made it for a not very comfortable drive, but thankfully we felt better once we arrived and were fine the rest of the trip.

We thought our boys would like to see the dinosaur tracks, so I made Mart pose with the fossil. He was thrilled. Ha!

The bridge over the dam is pretty awesome

After a quick stop, we were back in the car for what felt like a never ending back road

After Mart had a small nap, he was board of sitting and wanted to pull over and look at some Indian art on the side of the road. We bought a couple homemade trinkets for our kids and a bracelet for me and headed back out.

 This is where everything seemed to go in slow motion. It didn't feel like we were getting anywhere fast. By the time we finally made it to Phoenix, we hit rush hour traffic and it took us over an hour to go 15 miles to our destination. We went through this tunnel that was maybe only a mile long, but felt like 10 miles because we weren't moving very fast.

We definitely were in Arizona! We went from a lovely 70 degrees in Logan to a not quite as lovely 101 degrees! Wow, what a difference.

We were staying with Mart's uncle Pat, but they were at the rehearsal dinner when we arrived. We headed out and met up with his cousin Brianne. We went to dinner and walked a strip mall realizing that everything closed crazy early for some reason. Mart's inner 13 year old boy came out and he got a really big kick out of this sign ...

After dinner we went back to Grandma's house and chatted with his Grandparents and uncle for a bit before heading back to Pat and Karson's house. We stayed up pretty late just talking and catching up with Pat and Karson, and it was so nice to just have some relaxed time with them. Whenever we see them, we never have time for long chats because there are so many people.

The next morning/afternoon we spent hanging out and then went on a hunt for some flats after finding out the wedding was 6 hours long. We tried Target first, where we didn't find any flats, but lots of other things we didn't go there for. Like new dress clothes for both of us and a pint of ice cream. Apparently I had forgotten where I was momentarily, because we got back in the car to go to the strip mall down the road, and by the time we had gotten back to the car, I had a pint of cream soup. We walked from one end of the strip mall, to the other. We went in a couple of different stores along the way and stopped at Ranch Market to get some lunch. The doorway smelled amazing! By the time we reached the end of the strip mall, it was so hot my eye lids were sweating! If we moved to Arizona, it would definitely take some time to adjust.

We headed back to the house to get ready for the wedding.

After the ceremony, there was about an hour long cocktail hour while the bride and groom went off to take pictures, so we tried to catch up with more family.

Hanging with Brianne

We laughed at this picture once we got home, because Mart's would be doppelganger (if he had chosen a different path in life) was right behind us.  They were even dressed very similar!

After lots of drinking and snacks, it was time to go inside for dinner. After dinner and even more drinking, the party started. And it lasted a very long time.

Grandpa having a dance off with the grooms brother, until he realized that he was dancing a little more provocative than he wanted to be a part of. That guy though, he had some steam! He partied right until the very last minute! (Which was 11pm by the way ...)

After it was over, we stayed and sent off the bride and groom with sparklers and helped clean up while hanging with cousins we rarely see.

The next morning, everyone came over and we had a big family low key breakfast so we could hang out with everyone else before we took off. Around noon, we packed back up and took off for Vegas.

Before we left, Ethan told me that he wanted me to take a picture of a cactus. I remembered all up until I was actually there and then forgot to take one. Luckily, on our drive out of town, about an hour out of Phoenix, we were on a back road and there was a big patch of cactus on the side of the road and a pull off. We stopped and took a few pictures for him.

We made it to  Vegas and checked into our hotel. We stayed at Trump Towers, which was awesome! They said it was a 5 star hotel when I booked it, and it did not disappoint. The room was gigantic! Without posted a million pictures, here is the room itself. The picture obviously does not do it justice, but over by the window is a kitchenette and a decent sized living room.

The bathroom was enormous, complete with a huge jetted tub, a separate shower and a sectioned off toilet. And the mirror had a tv built into it!

After we checked in and got settled, we took off to explore for a little while. I have never been to Vegas with the exception of sitting in the airport. We were originally planning on going to a show, but we decided to just walk around instead. We ended up spending the bulk of our time wandering around Caesars Palace.

We walked down and watched the fountain show at the Bellagio and then headed back to get some dinner.

 

We still needed to get up and drive home the next morning, so we called it a night and headed back to get some sleep.

Goodbye Las Vegas! One day I would like to return and spend a little more time looking around.

This drive was so much better than the drive to Phoenix, but still very long! When we came down that hill into the valley and I saw this lovely sight, I was VERY excited to be so close to home!

We were cutting it really close to our car return time, so we picked up our kids from Dee's house, drove home and picked up our own car, and then straight to the rental place. We unloaded and moved everything to our car and made it just in the nick of time.

My children were a little worn out and some were happy, and one in particular was a bit grouchy and exhausted.

After we got home, I headed to my mom's to pick up the dogs. When I walked in the door and they saw me, they were over the top excited. Kya started crying through the door and about knocked me to the ground when she saw me.

Even though majority of our trip was spent in the car, we had a great time. I was really glad we were able to make it to the wedding. We ended up being the only family who could make it from Utah.