Spring Break 2011

Warning: THIS IS LONG! I don't scrapbook or do photo albums anymore (too busy or too lazy, not sure which) so this blog is intended to be our family journal and photo album, so if you don't have hours to pour over our family vacation, please feel free to scroll on through to the bottom and pretend you read it all. I will never know.


We set out to Southeastern Utah last Sunday, the 10th, which happens to be my little bro's b-day (Hi Ira!) It was my first trip that direction. My mom, as you may know, married a super neat man from Blanding (way down in the SE corner of the state) so we went to spend a few days with them and Gary played tour guide for us.

Day one: Anasazi ruins near Blanding

Natural Bridges National Park- if you are like us, you may not have known this place exists-- it is worth a visit. We loved it.

Owachamo Bridge (I probably spelled this wrong, my mom, who may be the only one who loves me enough to read this entire post, will tell me if I did)
This is Kaeleb being sworn in as a Junior Ranger at Natural Bridges. He took the program very seriously. He had to fill out a workbook and look for items at the park and pledge to pick up litter, recycle, conserve water, and hug his brother on his birthday. He and Bren both went on to become Junior Rangers at two other parks we visited during the week. You'll see...
The boys in the backseat of Grandpa Gary's truck where we spent many an hour, and they were sooo good!
Muelle Point (again spelled wrong, most likely) Gary help up the rock so we could walk under.... then Kaeleb took a turn...

The view here was incredible! These are the goosenecks of the San Juan river
Mexican Hat- To some this is an upside sombrero... we were partial to the idea of a UFO.
Kaeleb wearing the Mexican Hat
Bren Guy wearing the Mexican hat
Bluff Utah, where the Hole in the Rock Pioneers first settled
Day Two: Mesa Verde Colorado, where the ancestral Puebloans SOMEHOW scaled down or climbed up the cliffs and built cities in the rocks.

This is the Cliff Palace dwelling which they estimate housed 150 people
The ranger who guided our tour saw Kaeleb's Jr. Ranger badge and gave him the ancient tomahawk and invited him to lead the way
Brennan climbing the ladder to exit the Cliff Palace

This is the Spruce Tree House where we got to climb down inside the Kiva (you can see the ladder poking up) It was very dusty down there!
The first of many self portraits you will see... We are inside the Kiva
Little Ironman guys blasting lasers with their hands...
The inside of one of the rooms in the Spruce Tree
Ah, the Sun temple-- this is a view from the window, we loved the rows of doorways.
The Square Tower House, my personal favorite, it's just aesthetically pleasing.
Day Three: Imagination Hill. Kwint made me post this one of me hiking.


The rocks look like petrified versions of animals, we had fun imagining what animals they were. This is an alligator. We also saw a chicken, a frog, a dove, a rhino and more.
Then we hiked Butler Wash and found a cactus that is obviously Mickey Mouse.


At the end of Butler wash there are ruins similar to Mesa Verde
Kwint found this view at Butler Wash
He also found this view...
Kaeleb, Nana, Gpa Gary, and Bren Guy
In the afternoon we toured a local pottery shop and saw how they create all the fancy pots we can buy in gift shops all over the world who sell Indian artwork. This lady did the hand painting and she looked like she could have done it with her eyes closed. Amazing.

Day Four: Arches National Park... On the way we drove past the Monticello Temple, first of the mini temples announced by Pres. Hinckley years ago.
Church house rock outside Monticello
Arches-- The 3 Gossips (aka Relief Society Meeting said the men)


Turret Arch
The North and South Window arches-- you may notice the people wearing jackets and hoods-- it would have been a sunny, warm day if it were not for the biting Arctic wind that chased us all over the park.
This is all of us beneath the South Window Arch
This is the underside of the South Window
Balancing Rock
This was our favorite hike-- The kid friendly version of the hike to Delicate Arch-- this is a zoom across a canyon that overlooks Delicate Arch.
Ah, another self portrait. We love these.
The kids favorite arch was Sand Dune Arch, these are my guys who found a good rock to climb on the way...
Where's Kwint? If you can spot his hat on top of the rock you get a star. He climbed Sand Dune Arch (probably against the rules, don't tell the Jr. Rangers). I wanted a picture of him on top, but sand flew into the lens of my camera and locked it up for awhile.
Double Arch
Tunnel Arch (We think it should be named Elephant Arch, don't you?)
Our collective favorite, Pine Tree Arch

Thursday night we parted ways with Gpa and Nana and went to the Holiday Inn in Moab. Here the boys are sporting their new duds, matching Moab shirts and hats.
We went to dinner at Pasta Jay's, which by the way, is the BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT EVER!! We decided it may have been the best meal we have ever tasted anywhere. Get the manicotti or chicken pomodora if you go there. And you should go there.
We had planned to stay in Moab on Friday (Day 5) but received a call from a dear friend of ours in St. George who decided last week to get baptized on Saturday. We gladly cut our trip short and drove across the state to be there for her baptism. On the way we found the San Juan reef. Neither of us had ever spanned I-70 to see this before and the view was incredible. One thing we learned on this vacation is that Utah is an incredibly diverse state!

We had planned on being home for church so we had to go shopping (oh, what a pity) for new fancy duds. Don't they llok great? We spent the Friday and Saturday night at Aunt Tam's and although we neglected to take pictures and are kicking ourselves now, we had a great time. We spent Saturday at our accountant and best friends of the South finishing up the doozy of a disaster our taxes turned out to be, and then on to the baptism that afternoon at 4pm.
Kwint and Shelley. Kwint met Shelley over two years ago at Fitness Ridge and was able to introduce the gospel to Shelley. At the time she was living in Ohio and over the next few months made friends in St. George and learned more about the church, ultimately deciding to move to St. George (to our old house, which was our little miracle) and now is the newest member of the Red Cliffs ward in St. George.
We love our Shelley. The Spirit of peace that has accompanied us is a reminder of how true this gospel is and how much the Lord loves us all. I am so grateful to have this church and for my testimony.
We finished off the vacation with a pizza party with Tam's family, Kris' family (who were on their way back from Disneyland) and Barbi's brother Chris' family (who lived in SG). Kris, Chris and Kwint took the kids fishing while the girls enjoyed some girl time.

We are finally home and unpacked and sooo not ready to go back to school!!!!!

St. Patty and My birthday

Karate Kids (and man)... I love watching these guys practice. Kwint is loving help instruct and working on his fast track to black belt and Kaeleb is working hard toward his orange belt.

This lovely portrait was drawn by Brennan on the back of a wooden puzzle. He loves drawing, writing and coloring and is having a hard time learning the lesson that we "only write on paper", not toy boxes, floors, walls, tables, counter tops or Mommy's pants. But in this case, I thought it was such a cute picture that I decided not to scold him. The one on the far right is me, with the longer hair and big hips (I am sure, or at least I hope, it is symbolic of me being the biggest-as in most important person in his life, and not that I am the fatso of the family). Next to me is Kwint, notice the beard. I just love it.
On St. Patrick's Day a little leprechaun sneaked in through the window and left treats and crayons for the boys.
We had shamrock pancakes for breakfast to celebrate!

Friday night we had the pleasure of a sleepover with the Jacob's! Kris, Dan, and Kwint went to the cabin for a weekend of snowmobiling fun, so I invited DeAnne and the boys to stay with me. We had the best time! I love this pic of the boys watching Megamind. I didn't notice that Tracen is picking his nose until I posted it. Ha ha! Sorry Trace, this will be used as blackmail later and/or in your wedding video. Hmm, looks like maybe Kaeleb is too...
This is my little buddy Trev. He just sits quietly smiling at everyone under his binky. Love him.
Dee and I were so much enjoying our chatting time that we let the boys stay up until 11 (don't tell our husbands) and they played hard! They played the Wii, they sword fought, they drew pictures of ninjas, they played Harry Potter and Indiana Jones. The next day they played equally hard on not enough sleep,and we hooked up with Barbi and her kids for ice cream and a tour of their new being-built house. We wore the kids out, so here we have Brennan and Tate relaxing... right before they dumped all the legos on my bed.Saturday night we celebrated my birthday. I needed a haircut and looked pretty ragged so I couldn't find a decent birthday shot of myself, but I did find a picture of the cutest girl at the party... Baby Gracie. She is getting so big and is so sweet!
This is my cake. The decorator wrote Happy Birthday Tina, so this is Tom's attempt at re-spelling my name. Haha!

It was a truly Happy Birthday and I am slowly coming to terms with the idea of being 34... mid 30's... means I am a grown up now, I guess... I appreciated all the phone calls, FB messages and texts I got. I love you guys all very much!

New Supers in town...

Introducing the hottest new Superheroes in town...
Kaeleb Klassic and Brenny Bravo... capes specially designed and begged for by the heroes themselves.
This was a project brought to us by Grandpa. Wooden dragon puzzles... very intricate with many, many pieces. They had fun putting them together and painting them.

The snow is starting to melt, revealing lots of fresh mud... but the blue skies are cheery and we are enjoying the beginnings of an almost Spring. :)

Our Garfield- Style President's Day

We really wanted to do something fun this President's Day... but since we recently took a trip to St. George we didn't want to leave town. So, we decided to go sledding. I didn't get any pictures, but it was a memorable day.

It began as most days do, with a good workout. Kwint was using the door gym to do pull ups. Kaeleb wandered down the stairs and walked through the door it was attached to. Kwint called out to him, "Don't close the door!" Kaeleb thought he said "Close the door!" So, he closed the door. The door gym came crashing down gouging a hole in the wall and tearing through the laminate flooring below. What a way to start the day.

When the time came for sledding, the house was a mess and I didn't want to go sledding at the time of day that Kwint wanted to go, so I was very grumpy. But we suited up and I was determined to let everyone else have their fun in spite of my bad mood.

We got to the sledding hill and trudged up. Kwint helped both boys into the sled and gave them a little push. They barely moved. So, he moved them to a more packed path and gave them a bigger push. This time they went barreling down the hill at light speed. Un-be-knownst to us was a jump someone had built 2/3 of the way down. It had recently snowed and the jump just wasn't visible from where we were standing. But, the boys found it... and rather than catching some good air, the sled crashed into it and stopped. The boys didn't. Brennan bonked his head on Kaeleb's chin, did a full flip in the air and landed 10 feet away. Kaeleb flailed through the air landing on his face a few feet behind Brennan. They were both sobbing, but not badly hurt.

So, I was even more grumpy and now the boys were terrified to get back in the sled. But Kwint persevered and coaxed us all into another hour of good fun. And we actually did have fun.

Glad to have won the battle against the grumps, we loaded back into the car, ready for lunch. Unfortunately, we hadn't noticed that we had driven off the beaten path into a snow drift on the way in, and we were stuck up to our bumper in the snow. Try as we may to get out, we were spinning further and further into nowhere. We got out and dug as much snow as we could from under the tires and bumpers. Then I got behind the wheel and Kwint tried pushing the car while I hit the gas. Still no luck. Kwint finally hiked over to a nearby construction site and rallied 3 big construction workers to help him push. This time it worked! Phew!

We drove home deciding that we had better not try anything else that day and we both agreed that Garfield was right-- some Mondays you should just stay in bed.

Today Brennan started gymnastics. He has been so excited, so I thought I would take a few pics to remember the occasion. Tumbling very much suits his personality and he had a great time. Halfway through he came bounding over for a drink and I asked if he was having fun. He said "I sure am, Mom!"

Here he is waiting his turn for the vault. I love how straight and tall he is standing. :) When the teacher yells "Pineapples!" the kid on the purple circle makes a run for it. The girl standing next to him is one of his little Sunbeam friends, Ashton. We were glad to see that she is in his class, and I was glad to have her mom to chat with while they played.


Here is a happy smile after demonstrating a knee tuck off the wedge.
This part is his favorite-- a somersault down "the cheese", as he calls it. I love his ready pose.

My babies are growing up. *sigh* They are getting minds of their own. Both have decided they want to grow their hair out (Luke Skywalker style, of course) and have certain clothes they want to wear. Kaeleb is gone at school, playing with friends, and karate so much, and now he wants to take basketball, piano, and soccer. Brennan, of course, wants to do everything Brother does and I am beginning to realize just how precious the first 5 years are. It's all we really get! Suddenly, they are big and busy, and I just have to hope I get in enough influence when they are actually home!!

One funny story and I am off to get the boys from the neighbor's house. One evening last week Brennan said, "Buff guys don't wear shirts." We were amused, but didn't think much of it until the next morning when he sauntered into the kitchen wearing blue jeans... and no shirt. Kwint said "Where's your shirt?" Bren replied "I don't need it." I said "Oh yeah, cuz you're buff?" He said "Yep. I sure am a buff guy." Now it is all I can do to keep a shirt on the kid and if I want him to do anything I only have to say "Buff guys always eat their vegies" or "Buff guys always listen to their moms." and he jumps right up to do whatever I ask. I did have to tell him that when it is cold outside or they go places, buff guys do wear shirts.

Our All-American Weekend

While I would consider ourselves fairly normal people, we tend to be an atypical American family in the sports arena. Translation: We don't follow sports. At all. We like to be active and play sports of many sorts, but we don't watch ESPN, read the sports page, listen to sports radio or know what to say when conversations drifts towards any sport at all.

But this weekend we have felt very All-American and typical. Last night we went to a Jazz game. Our brother-in-law had a good deal on tickets (sort of) and a big group of our family decided to go watch the Jazz play the Oklahoma City Thunder. The game itself was rather upsetting since they lost, but we had a really good time.

Kaeleb especially loves basketball. He was on a city team last year in St. George and can't wait to play here in Heber. (They don't have a team until 2nd grade, so that will be next year.) He was super cute to watch during the game. Whenever the Jazz had the ball he would timidly yell "Go, Jazz, go!" and when they scored he would nearly jump off his chair with a hoot and an arm pump.
Brennan however, felt a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. We were up high, which could be intimidating to a 3 year old, he had never seen so many people in one place in all of his life, and it was pretty noisy. This is the expression on his face most of the game.
Until the end when he barfed on the stairs as we were leaving. Yes, it was great fun. We think all the nerves mixed with too much candy and Sprite were a not-so-winning combination. Or, it could be that he was so disgusted by the loss that he wanted to tell the team what he really thought of their lack of defensive action. Either way, we were slightly embarrassed, though everyone in the stands around us thought it was hilarious.

This hard to see, but we were so impressed that I have to include this picture of the Jazz Bear. (Why is our mascot a bear?) As you can see he is upside down, doing the splits on top of a really tall ladder. That would be hard, even without the bear suit.

Today we were even more American and actually watched the Super Bowl. Mostly we were looking for a reason to coerce our good friends Dave and Staci over to our house for salty snacks and lots of chit chat. Kwint and Dave have been friends since 8th grade drama class and we have had a lot of fun over the last ten years since we got married and he met Staci. Our house became a grand mass of chaos when the kids (our boys and their two daughters) put on knight armor and chased each other around with swords. They also have the cutest baby boy with dark eyes and dimples who crawled around getting stuck in the furniture. In between the food and catching up on life we sort of watched some of the game. At least, I know that the Packers won. So, thanks for coming guys, that was so fun!

I didn't blog last week because we were out of town and I forgot to bring the camera, so we have no pics; but we spent last weekend in sunny St. George. We had dinner with our best friends of the South, Nathan and Mary Lynne and their cute little guy McKay, which was another funny ordeal of sword slinging, train building, drum playing racket, but very fun. We spent a couple days with Kwint's sister and their family and did some hiking in our old stomping grounds. We hiked an old volcano and when we got to the top we walked in the crater it left when it erupted how-ever-many years ago. It was cool. The boys were amazed and only agreed to hike it once they were convinced it was not going to blow up while we were on it.

Kaeleb had a great week-- I went to parent teacher conference and was very pleased and proud of how well he is doing. That same day he tested for his gold belt in karate and passed. He was very enthusiastic about it. He actually slept with his belt. He said Sensei Josh said he could.
I am very proud of what a good boy he is and how hard he is trying.

Kwint has been busy with trying to balance his multi-faceted business and helping to open a new dojo with Kaeleb's karate teacher. He is rather excited about it. He is working on getting a black belt in Kenpo within a couple of years and is also contributing his Aikido experience and helping teach and write curriculum.

I am busy trying to keep up with everyone else and keep order in the house. I keep cleaning and cleaning and never actually finish. But I like the illusion of order in my brain. I have actually felt a great deal of stress over taxes this year. Our book keeping system is different in Park City. It took me two years to figure out the old system and now I am clueless again. Accounting and I just don't get along and yet I am doing the books because who else will? Luckily, I am not an accountant and we have a good one (Hi Nathan!) who is patient with my ineptitude.

My favorite Brenny story of the week is this: He picked up a pen and a piece of paper and said "Mom, close your eyes. How do you spell 'I love you with all my heart'?" I melted. I wanted to hug him. He yelled "Close your eyes!" and then as I spelled it he wrote chicken scratches on the paper, and then said "Open your eyes, Mom, this is for you!" Amidst the chicken scratches he did write 4 actual letters, which surprised me. lool and an upside down v. I loved it.

Well, apparently I needed a little journal time. I love blogging for myself, even if no one else reads it. Sometimes I wonder if I leave out all the junk and make it sound like life is too good here at our house. Trust me, it is hard here like it is at any one else's house, but who wants to read all the crummy stuff, and why would I want to remember it anyway, unless it is to learn from it? I will wait until I learn a few things to write the crummy stuff and use this as a place to count my blessings, because I really am thankful for the 3 guys in my life and all of our opportunities to grow.

This Is Why We Are Here...

Yesterday we spent the day in the snowy woods of the family cabin... This is my favorite "look" in all of nature!
The snow is piled pretty high...
and the boys had fun playing "Three Kings" which is a game they made up by fashioning three thrones in the snow pile you see here.
We spent a good chunk of time snowmobiling with Kris, Talan, Barbi's dad and her brother Preston. Here are Kris and Talan...
Kaeleb, Kwint, and Brennan ready to ride...
Me and my Brenny guy... No, he wasn't driving, just posing...
Kwint hookey-bobbed up the hill and snowboarded down...
A fun mode of transportation...