My Favorite People

I love these guys.

Our Favorite Family Pasttime

BOATING!! of course. greg and i first bonded over our love for boating. neither of us grew up with a boat, but we always had friends who had boats. one thing that both of us loved about boating was the atmosphere of it. it is such a great way for families to spend time together. even when our kids are teenagers boating will still be "cool". they can invite friends to come along and what a great way to get to know your kids friends.

anyway, we feel that the boat is a great way to spend our family time. so whenever we were home this summer, we were boating. carson has learned how to wakeboard and unfortunately i don't have any pictures of him doing it, but it is the cutest thing you have ever seen. i never take my camera to the lake because we go so often it doesn't seem like a neccesity every time we go out. however, on labor day i decided to take it out with us. here are some good pictures of us tubing, wakeboarding and hanging out with some friends on the boat.

Carson and Kristy tubing

Matt and Angie Roylance out for a joy ride

Greg catching some sick air

Not too shabby

Summer Hiking

Beautiful isn't it? Here are some pics of our adventures in Sundance. We enjoyed spending time with our friends the Derricks. This is the hike to Stewart Falls. Beautiful.

Here are some pics of our adventures in Sundance. We enjoyed spending time with our friends the Derricks. This is the hike to Stewart Falls. Beautiful.

Family Photo

a couple of weeks ago we shot some photos in our backyard of Greg's family. It was pretty impromptu and it was actually quite dark, but surprisingly the photos turned out great. In this photo is Greg's two sisters and one brother and their families and his mom and stepdad, and us of course. Greg's got a pretty good looking family huh?

In Memory

I know it might look like I am repeating myself, but I assure you I am not. Last wednesday I attended my grandmother's funeral in Oklahoma, as I was flying home from that, Greg's grandmother passed away. What are the chances? So this post is in memory of Greg's grandmother, Dorothy Metzger. I have to say that I am so thankful for these two women. They raised our mother's. I didn't know Greg's grandmother very well, but I know Greg's mom well, and his grandmother must have been a wonderful person to raise a daughter like Greg's mom. Greg is the amazing man he is today because of his mother, and that directly reflects on his grandmother. I am very thankful for her. She will be missed.

In Memory

My grandmother passed away yesterday. She was 75 years old. Her and my grandpa live on an indian reservation in Oklahoma. She is the one in the middle in the red shirt. She was my moms mom. She is 50% american indian (Choctaw tribe) and she lived there on the reservation with my grandpa for many years. She will be missed and she is very loved. She had 6 children and she's not even Mormon. Crazy. We love you Joyce Campbell. Now is her chance to accept the gospel. I have no d0ubt that she will.

Easter comes at such a beautiful time of year. It's so fitting. It just so happened that our Spring Break came the same week as Easter this year. We thought about going to California. So Greg (always so on top of things) immediately started researching hotels and booked one that looked like great fun for the kids. We tried to get some friends to join us (things are always more fun when there are more people to enjoy it with), but they, I mean he, didn't want to go out of town until he was sure where UNLV was playing in the tournament. Well, UNLV got selected to play in Omaha. Who wants to go to Omaha?
So I overheard Greg and his friend talking about our Spring Break trip and trying to convince him to come to California anyway and his friend said that he just wants to sit all weekend and watch basketball. (It was a very big basketball weekend). So Greg says, "That's all I want to do too, man, we can sit in the hotel and watch some games or go to a sports bar to watch them". That's when I chimed in. Hell no. I'm not going to a hotel in a city I don't know well, with three little kids, just to hang out by myself. I would rather stay home. What a waste of a trip. So I told him this and mentioned that my mom invited us to Easter at her house and that's now where I wanted to go. If he was just going to watch basketball all weekend, I was going to have my mom to hang out with. He was happy with this idea, more basketball watching for him anyway, so that's where we decided to go. Right when we cancelled our hotel, our friends called and said they wanted to go to California now and had booked a room. Of course. I felt a little bad, but going to Utah worked out for the best. Greg kept Cole, my baby, at home with him and watched basketball all day and my mom and I and the two older kids went to movies and shopping and out to lunch. We had a ball. It turned out to be a lovely weekend there too. So sorry to those friends we didn't end up going with, I don't think they ended up going either, but this was a way better Easter for us. Here are some pics of us in our easter clothes.

A Moment to Treasure

Last weekend Greg was out of town, he had to go to a seminar in Orlando. Which leaves me all alone to try to handle church all by myself. We did ok, we sat by some friends who helped out. It was only a 2-ring circus, not a full-fledged 3-ring circus, so that's not bad with three kids 5 and under. After church we were home and it was the most beautiful day ever. So the kids started to play outside. So I go into the computer room to try to get some things done, thinking they will be in there any second asking me for something, or wanting me to play with them. Or me having to leave the computer room to break up the fight that inevitably occurs. But that didn't happen. After about 1 hour, that's right, I said 1 whole hour, I decided to go peek at them. (I didn't go sooner because I didn't want to break the spell that had to have been placed over them in order to play well together). What did I see? The most precious sight ever. I think the picture says it all.

Carson, reading a book to Maile!! My prayers were so answered. I did not know what I was going to do with them for a whole Sunday all by myself, and they played together for over 2 hours that day. Not one fight!! Now if you know my kids, your mouth just dropped, because this is not a normal occurance. Carson is a boy, he wants to wrestle and play basketball. Maile is girl, she wants to color and dress up. And my kids do not like to watch movies or TV, so they always want to be entertained. They typically do not get a long. It was the most beautiful sight a mother could see. They really do love each other!! What a relief for me, it made the whole day so wonderful. So for the record, I definitely believe in answered prayers.

March Madness

March madness.....What can I say, it is that time again. March Madness is when college basketball is at its best. All of the tournaments begin and there are about 8 bazillion games on TV every single day. All I pray for at this time, is that UNLV loses. Why? Because my husband and son go to every single home game, and are obsessive fans. If UNLV wins the Mountain West Conference tournament that means that they make it into the NCAA tournament. Which no longer sticks close to home. UNLV could play anywhere in the country, which means every single weekend my husband and son will "have" to go to where ever they are playing, until they lose.

Now I do think that this is so cute. Carson genuinely loves going to the games. He can tell you the players names and jersey numbers, he'll shout "defence" at the right times, and if the game is too late and he isn't allowed to go to it, he'll make Greg Tivo it and he'll watch it the next day. He really loves it. It provides great father/son bonding moments. However, since there about 15 home games a season and the Mountain West tournament is here in Vegas, I feel that that is plenty of father/son bonding a year and UNLV does not need to continue on in the tournament, so yes, I cheer for UNLV to lose.

Sorry to all of you Rebels out there, but I have a feeling that many of you agree with me, regardless of what team your husband is a fan of.

Is This Las Vegas?

So the other day we woke up and it was raining here, which is unusual in and of itself, so we thought, if it's raining here maybe it is snowing in the mountains!! So we jumped in the car, after frantically running through the house trying to round up warm clothes for everybody, and headed off. We had to stop off at Walmart to get some sleds and don't you know it, they don't sell sleds. At least not in Las Vegas. So we headed off to the mountain in hopes to find some sleds there. Of course Mt. Charleston is only about an hour drive away, but we made some wrong turns and it took us about 2 hours to get there. Then we finally went to the lodge to buy some sleds, and found some!! So we drive to the sledding hill and a cop pulls up next to us and says that all of the parking spots are taken, and that we are parked illegally. He was not nice about it either. So by now we're starting to get ticked. We've been in the car way longer than necessary and we can't even find a place to sled. So we drive around and just see a hill across a canal. We stopped and hiked to it (with three kids, two sleds, a chair, some snacks and diapers, a camera and all of the clothes the kids are losing off of their bodies). But we finally made it and it was a great hill. We ended up having a blast and it is so fun to play in the snow. It is such a novelty for the kids that they can't get enough of it. We ended up having a great family day, and the kids were so worn out afterwards that all of the trouble getting there was totally worth it.