Sundance Get-away!!!

Rick surprised me for my birthday and took me up to Sundance for the weekend!

The weather was PERFECT and all the leaves were so pretty.

Here is the cute place we stayed in!!! It was like our very own private cabin in the forest

Okay, so enough pictures of me all by myself... it was time to set up the timer on the camera. This is always a joke to see if we can figure out how to set up the camera and then run back and get into the picture before it goes off!

Here is Rick trying to hurry and sit down....oops there goes the camera

Second try..... (ok, lets change the settings to give us more time)

Oh, perfect.... Rick made it in time and were are both in the picture. We didn't realize that he had set it to take 10 pictures in a row...we thought it was 10 seconds to get ready. ha ha

the camera just kept on taking picture, after picture, after picture

Rick showed off his fire-building skills

We had so much fun, we didn't want to leave!!!

On Sunday, we enjoyed the beautiful Sundance trails on our mountain bikes. It was the perfect birthday treat ever!!! I wish I had pictures of us biking, but we were having too much fun to remember to take any- ha ha.

We had just finished biking and almost to the car when I get a phone call from Lisa (She had my kids). Mallory fell off a table at church (table dancing again), and is still complaining her head hurts. She wouldn't stop crying (which isn't like Mallory). As I was on the phone with Lisa, Mallory said it was hard to see...she described that she could only see 1/2 of Lisa and everything was blurry. This freaked me out, and we decided we needed to get her to the hopsital. Lisa started driving and we started driving, and we met off the freeway. Poor Mallory was sooo tired, her head hurt, she couldn't see, and she started throwing up in the car. We rushed up to Primary Children's to find out she had a concussion. What a fun way to end our get-away, but we were so grateful she was okay. By the end of the night, she was feeling much better:)

Thank you to my loving husband who always knows how to make life fun and exciting... It was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!

Lybberty Days

Lybberty Days - at Park City Canyon's Resort

The whole Gang!

We look forward to Lybberty Days every year. We stay at the Canyons Resort in Park City. I love how Rick's family is all so close... the cousins are all so much fun to be with. We laugh, and laugh the whole time.

Lindsie and Marco eating smores

We loved seeing little Bodie!

Sneaking a chocolate bar

Kick Ball Tournament. I must say, this is a very competitive group. We took our Kick ball very seriously!

Water balloon fight!!!!

Jarom soaking Troy.... hilarious!!!

We took the older kids on a fun Mtn bike ride

Mallory hiked down with grandma

Mallory loves to climb poles....everytime she passes a pole, she can't resist climbing it. It is so funny because she makes it look so easy. We finally had to tell her no more, it was getting too dangerous:)

Another successful Lybberty days!

San Fran!!!

One night while we were laying in bed, I was dozing off and Rick was in bed with his computer googling waterski stufff. I think I hear Rick ask me if I want to take a trip to California.... something about a waterski tournament, all the pros skiing, blah blah, blah.
"sure honey, sounds great"

Come to find out, I wasn't dreaming at all. The next morning, Rick had an entire California road trip planned. He had called his friends in Novato and scheduled the trip. The plan was to spend a couple of days in Novato and San Francisco and then go to this waterski tournament in Sacramento. Sounds like a BLAST!!!!

Not long after the excitement of planning the trip, we found out that Troy's baseball play-off games were going to be that same week! Oh no, we can't miss the play-offs. Troy is the pitcher and we can't let the team down. We told Troy's coach about our plans and he offered to keep Troy while we went, asked us to fly him home and he would pick him up from the airport....basically whatever it took to have him there. Rick's friends have already taken time off work to spend with us in California, and we already purchased tickets to a Giants game. We absolutely have to go and we didn't want to leave Troy behind or send him home without us. After lots of brainstorming, we decide that we will do a quick whirlwind trip to Novato and San Fran, and will rush back home on Wed for Troy's first play off game. We would have to miss the ski tournament -- the whole reason we even planned this trip in the first place. ha ha ha.

So, San Francisco here we come. We left early Sunday morning. (I had Ragnar Fri and Sat, so we couldn't leave any earlier)

First stop: Posing on the salt flats. The kids loved tasting the salt:)

Monday we spent at Stinson Beach with the Perrys and the Stickles. We were soooo lucky because the weather was HOT and sunny. We had a blast:)

Tuesday we went into San Fransicso.
Alcatraz:


The kids really got into this audio tour. It is always so interesting to me to think that we were standing in the same place these prisoners were held.

We tried to lock the kids up and throw away the key!!!

Ghiradelli Square: the most delicious ice cream sundaes ever

Golden Gate Bridge:

The Perry Family

We ended the day at the Giants game.
Right after the game, we took off and started driving home through the night. We were just going to try to make it to Reno and get a hotel. Rick started driving and by the time we hit Sacramento he was ready to pull over and take a nap. I really wanted to keep going, so I decided to run into the gas station and try drinking a ROCK STAR. Oh my, I know what to do if I need to stay awake now. I drank my Rock star and started driving us toward Reno. I was soooo wide awake. My whole family slept and I just kept driving and driving and driving. Once we hit Reno, I was still wide awake. I couldn't have slept if I tried. So, I just kept driving. Once we hit Wendover, Rick woke up and we decided to go get breakfast. So funny, I was not tired at all. Rick drove for a couple of hours, only to get tired and have me drive again shortly. So I finished the last stretch and we were home by noon on Wednesday. Just in time to get a quick nap and get ready for Troy's play-off game!