Beware of the Bears.....

CAUTION!!!!! This is a very long post! I am sorry, but we had so much fun I wanted to share it all with you.

I have learned something about myself: I am horrible at this blogging thing. How is it that I don't have a few minutes to update this?? Anyway, I am sure much has happened since February, but at this point, I can't think of much. I have this new goal that we will visit each state in the U.S. before I am too old to travel. So each year we will try to visit a new place. (Next year will be the D.C. area to pick up Jar!!!!) Anyway, this year we picked South Dakota. We decided to drive....what a long trip that is! 10 and a half hours in a car with two boys was quite interesting. We need a stretch limo in order to give them some space from each other. Sometimes they can be such good buddies and then the next second, BAM they are fighting. I can't figure out how to stop it! Anyway back to the subject. We made sure to get a hotel with an indoor swimming pool, because that is always Breydon and Connor's favorite part about vacation.....swimming. Weirdos.

Because we left Friday morning at 3 am we got to South Dakota around 1:30, had lunch, checked into our hotel, and first words out of their mouths....."Can we go swimming?" So since we were tired, we decided to just hang out and swim. Those of you who know Connor can probably guess what he wanted for dinner. Right, Pizza. In the small town of Custer, where we stayed, there are 3 places to eat....Subway, Dairy Queen and Pizza Hut. I know, big selection. There are a few steak houses that we tried later in the trip...horrible. I would not suggest eating at Cattleman's in Custer. Ryan had been to one in Texas and said it was super nice and delicious. Not the case in South Dakota. Must have been a different Cattlemans.

Breydon laid his head on the table and went to sleep, but Ryan and Connor finished our pizza for us.

Saturday was our site-seeing day, so we went up to Mount Rushmore. I have seen many pictures of it, and have never really thought much of it. It is honestly one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Breydon, being his usual smart self, was rattling of stats for us. One of the presidents, I can't remember which one, has something like a 21 foot nose and a 18 foot mouth. It is really extraordinary. Here are some pictures, but they really don't do the mountain justice.



After a few hours here at Mt. Rushmore, we headed over to Bear Country. It was super fun. It is crazy, there are bears just pacing in front of your car. A bear kind of jumped up and put its front paws on the hood of a car just ahead of us. I would have freaked out if that happened to us! Anyway, here are a few pictures of the animals here.

This must be where Santa's reindeer go during the summer months!

This guy was just loungin' by the road next to our car. Pretty cool.

I wish we could have gotten a better picture of this guy, but he was kind of in an awkward place where we couldn't get a good shot. He was sitting right on his butt with his back legs right out in front of him. It was funny, he looked like someone sitting on the floor watching TV or something.

He was pacing right in front of our car. And he was only one of maybe five or ten bears that were surrounding our car at that moment. They are all throughout the park. Am I normal? I just found this to be so exciting. The boys were loving it also.

There is a baby section in bear world also that was fun. Breydon took this picture of a baby bear. After Bear Country we headed over to Rushmore Cave. I was not that excited about it. I thought it would be lame, plus it is far underground and that scared me a little bit too. It turned out to be pretty neat. I have never seen so many stalactites. Actually, I have only ever seen them in books and pictures, and those don't do them any justice. They are really cool. I will put some pictures here, but like I said the pictures (especially mine) don't do them any justice. They are amazing, and I would recommend this cave to anyone.

While we were waiting for our tour to begin, we walked around the gift shop. It's hard to tell but Connor has a Jackelope hat on and Breydon a raccoon hat. I wanted a picture, and leave it to Breydon to "hunt" Connor! You can kind of see the opening to the cave behind and to the right of Connor. It goes very deep and is HUGE!

There were some tight squeezes and low ceilings but we made it through.

Can you see the pig snout right above Connor's head? They called this "room" the cartoon room. There were all kinds of characters in this room. Daffy Ducks feet, Minnie Mouse's bow, Donkey from Shrek...it was pretty fun.

Stalactites. Like I said, pictures do not give justice.

Ok...I am going to try to wrap this up. I took 814 (no exaggeration) pictures on this trip. It is very difficult for me to only put a few up here. We just had so much fun, and I think my family is so cute, I can't seem to help myself!

After Rushmore cave we were all pretty tired and it was time for dinner so we headed back to eat and, guess what else?............... Swim!

Sunday it was a bit rainy but we decided to venture out since it was our last day to enjoy South Dakota. We went to a place called Reptile Gardens. It was a fun place. The boys really enjoyed it. There were all kinds of nasty snakes, spiders, cockroaches, alligators, etc. that freaked me out. They enjoyed my "girliness" too....they made fun of me pretty much the entire time.

There was this cobra that absolutely hated Connor. Each time he walked by the cobra would flare out his skin by his face like they do and dart towards the glass. I can't figure out what it was about Connor, but it's a good thing he was in an enclosure, because Connor would have been dinner. I can't seem to get that picture to upload, so you don't get to see the angry cobra. Sorry, I'm sure your disappointed; especially since there are not enough pictures of this trip already!

Making friends with some kind of lizard.

They have a crocodile/alligator show where this man was in the crocodile enclosure, pulled out an alligator and wrestled it. It was so much fun.

Can you see their excitement?

"Fishing" for the perfect croc to wrestle with.

"I caught one! I caught one!"

I wish you could see that surrounding this guy is about 100 crocodiles and alligators. As he is wrestling this one, all the others are poking their heads out of the water and just creeping closer and closer. I don't know how this guy does this! I was freaking out and I was sitting in safety on the bleachers!

Time for dinner.

Anyway, they also had a bird show and a snake show. The snake show was pretty lame, but the boys really liked it. We really had a good time up there and I would recommend this trip. It was a lot of fun, and very relaxing. The weather at this time of year was perfect for the boys, a little chilly for me, but with a jacket it was great!

Sorry this is so long! I would have kept going on and on, but I have spent too much time already on this one post, and you have probably spent too much time reading it. I hope you at least enjoyed the pictures! Love ya

Carrie Underwood

The boys had a super funny conversation the other day, and I wanted to share it with you guys. Also, I thought if I post it here it will help me to never forget how funny they are! For those of you who don't know, Connor thinks he is going to marry Carrie Underwood. He and Jaryd both love her and when Jaryd left on his mission, he told Connor to: "take care of Carrie" for him. He has taken that statement to the extreme! Anyway here is their conversation:

Bredyon: Connor, did any girls ask you to be their valentine?

Connor: Ew! NO!!

Breydon: Well, I guess maybe you have to be in 3rd, 4th, or 5th for that to happen to you.

Connor: (with a scowl on his face) Breydon, the only person I would ever let be my valentine is Carrie Underwood.

Breydon: (also with a scowl) Yeah Right Connor, like she would ever want you to be her valentine!

Connor: (still scowling) Just wait 'til she sees me Breydon!

I don't think I have stopped laughing since I heard about this! Connor is SO confident that they will meet and get married one day. In fact up until Carrie was on American Idol, Connor thought I was the prettiest girl in the world and wanted to marry me. Then Carrie had to come around and he quickly found out that I am not the prettiest girl in the world, and he most certainly does not want to marry me!!

Anyway that's all I have time for today.....

Look Who's 30!!!!

Wow, 30! Who would have thought? When I think back to when I was a child 30 was ancient! I cannot believe that 30 is here, and while it seems SO old, I guess it's not actually ancient! Aging, of course, does not even phase Ryan. He is not at all bothered by the fact that we are getting older. I, on the other hand, am completely freaked out by aging. I guess that is the difference between being male and female. Males seem to age much better and become more distinguished with age; while women do not age as well. Of course, this is just my opinion, I am sure many of you would like to argue this with me.

When I was younger, I would always picture myself as being so glamorous by the time I was thirty. I remember thinking I would wear sparkling clothes, live in a gigantic house, and drive a shiny convertible car! It is funny how our desires change as we get older. I am sure Ryan pictured himself as a professional baseball player or something, but I think we are both happy with our "alternative" lives!

I think he had a pretty good birthday. He and I spent last night in Salt Lake (Yes, all the way in Salt Lake City!) We went to the Jazz game and then stayed at Little America Hotel, which I would recommend to anyone, it was pretty nice. While we were at the game, people came in and turned down our bed, laid out bath robes, and placed a chocolate mint for each of us on the bed. I digress, but I thought it was kinda nice! Before the game, we were going to go to Ryan's favorite, Rodigio's, for dinner but Ryan decided he wanted to try a little dive called The Red Iguana. It came highly recommended from some friends. It turned out to be really good, even though the area is not great, and the outside of the building looks somewhat shady. The food, however, did not agree with me. But I have never been able to tolerate spicy food; and let me tell you, walking into the place I could smell the peppers!! Not much of a wild party for one's 30th birthday, but neither of us are real wild people, so it was perfect for us!!

Silly kids.....

I think that Breydon is now starting to really miss Jaryd. Anyone who knows Breydon knows that he has gigantic feet. Right now he wears a mens 5 to 5 1/2 I think (it may be larger and he hasn't told me his shoes don't fit). Anyway, I have decided he is missing Jaryd because he has started wearing Jaryd's old shoes. Before Jaryd left for his mission, he cleaned out his closet and Ryan made off with some of his shoes. The shoes are too small for Ryan so he gave them to Breydon to grow into. Well, if you hadn't already guessed, Breydon has started to wear these shoes. While he has big feet they are not THAT big!! Poor Tina and Dot took the boys to a movie last night and Breydon clomped around in Jaryd's old shoes. They must be at least 3 sizes to big, but he says they feel fine! I can't think of many reasons to wear shoes that make you look like you're a clown other than because he misses Jaryd and wants to be like him.

Both boys are gaining very colorful vocabularies. Many of their words have been learned here at home, but sometimes the way they put them together is super funny. The other day the boys were fighting over who knows what, but it seemed to be pretty major because Connor called Breydon a, and I qoute, "penis hole". While I am not quite sure what that means, it must have been pretty serious because Breydon stomped into his room and locked Connor out. I had to get out my giggles before I could go up and find out what the problem was. Sometimes I don't know the best way to handle these things. On one hand, Connor was at least using correct terminology for the body part, but on the other hand he can't go around screaming it at people!

I came across this picture today, and thought I would put it on here. We needed a family picture recently for a calendar Nanette was making for Jaryd. Our little peach, Connor, does not like pictures. This is the best one we could take of the four of us. The rest show Connor crying like he is a three year old child!

That's it for now, talk you later!

Christmas has come and gone.....

We had such a great Christmas this year. We were able to spend it with our family, minus Jaryd, but we still managed to have a good time!! We are all very spoiled and I am thankful we were able to have another fun year. The boys were so excited to put the tree up and we were trying to finish the bathroom so we just let them go to town.



After great discussion and major decision making they were able to complete their masterpiece!! (of which, I cannot locate a picture, so you will have to take my word for it)




On the 20th we celebrated Ryan's grandma Alice's birthday. She is such a great person and I am thankful that the boys have been able to get to know her and have such a good relationship with her!

Santa Claus comes each year to this party, and the boys are amazed that grandma is so good during the year that Santa comes to her birthday party.

Luckily, they were able to get a last minute list into Santa since they never sent one to him this year.

This was probably our best Christmas morning yet. Santa got it right this year, and the boys were happy and even thankful for all that they recieved. They were so excited to give their gifts to each other and even to Ryan and me. They are growing up so quickly and it is fun to see them actually appreciate what they are given. Now don't get me wrong, they are still boys and sometimes get greedy, but they do appreciate things every once in a while!!

So I thought I would be better at updating this blog than I actually am. I think the problem is that we are a fairly boring family so I don't have many updates! Thanksgiving came and went without too much excitement. I was sick the whole day, so I missed out on my favorite holiday of the year. On the other hand, Breydon and Connor woke up super early in their excitment! It's funny, I have to wake the boys up every Christmas because I am so excited for them to see what Santa has brought to them; for Thanksgiving they wake up early on their own. Go figure!

I am sorry, I have not taken a single picture for a long time...so you will not be able to see my boys' beautiful faces. Maybe this will keep you in suspense waiting for more pictures of them.....

Halloween '08

The years of cute, cuddly halloween costumes are officially over! The boys are now only wanting to be nasty, ugly, scary beings for halloween....I miss the cute and cuddly!