Sun Valley --Yeah...but did you take enough pictures?

Sun Valley 2014!
Ahhh the nostalgia of childhood.  This was the first time that my boys were able to go to Sun Valley and it was such a success!!!  YAY!  I'm soooooo grateful for Christy and Jared that they decided to drive across the entire country to make it!  The boys LOVED having Gavin and Emmett to hang out with the entire week of fun  :).

July 30th--The party starts!

Since Jess had days at the beginning and end of the trip that he had to work, we drove up separate, but Scott made the drive with me and the kids.  It was a great drive!  The kids were super happy and occupied with movies in the back, while me and Scott listened to an awesome audio book called, "Moonwalking with Einstein" (it's a book about memory palaces and the way the brain works--pretty interesting).  En route we stopped at the most random  little place called, "The Middle of Nowhere" where we fed some llamas and bought some chips :)

The store had the funniest little random things all over that were funny and surprising. One random box in the store, next to the deli sandwiches was a box that said, "Jackalope-do not open" and if/when you did, it started shaking like crazy and made a huge noise that made everyone who opened it jump...or scream.  Good stuff.  Big disappointment if you're looking for a restaurant, but it was really entertaining.  Then about 10 minutes after we left we had crop dusters flying almost parallel to our van on the freeway! It was scary and fun for everyone involved.

We pulled in and everyone else was there.  Chris pulled out some games for the kiddos which was adorable--something about making cookies?  We had some hamburgers and hotdogs for a quick dinner and then we took the kids to the pool.  Oh how I love the pool!  Besides maybe 3 other people we were the only ones there and everyone was loving it!  There were lots of races and playing "500" with water balls, and "touched-ya-last".

Best 30 minutes of laughing and playing ever--till there was some thunder--- and the staff kicked us outta there so fast!  We couldn't even be in the building and shower the kids or anything!  (cough--maybe someone wanted to go home early from work?-cough)  

Mom found Emmett and Max like this. :)

"Many-a-night was made fun...because of stuffed buns." Kade

By the time they were tired, they had a hard time falling asleep because of the constant loud laughter downstairs---they started asking us to be quiet so they could go to sleep--that was too hard so we got them some ear plugs :)  Then when I went to check on them that night we saw one of the reasons for all the laughing. They had all stuffed pillows in their clothes and fallen asleep like that!  HA!  It was HILARIOUS to find them like that--ha ha ha.

We had planned on having the kids sleep in our rooms, but they all wanted to sleep together so they got the loft--which is the nosiest room in the whole condo cause it doesn't actually have doors and it's right above the kitchen where all the games happen. They stayed up playing with us till around 10:00 then laughed and laughed and giggled sooo much.

"It all started because we tried to make earplugs with tissues from the bathroom, when Gavin came out of the bathroom, he had pillows stuffed in his pants.  And we all laughed like crazy!  Then we decided we should too.  It happened every night."-Kade

"Since my pillow didn't fit in my shorts, I put it in my shirt to make me a hunchback." Luke

(Luke's picture was one that was taken with Gavin's camera :)

Dad, Mom, Christy, Scott and I were playing rummy after all the boys were down.  Dad left after two rounds (which is really good for him) but the rest of us stayed up till about 1:00 playing and laughing soooo insanely hard the entire time.  Best quote of the night: "Did you just call mom the devil?" and every "Classic Scott" comment which made me and Christy laugh with tears.  And the moment when Scott realized that he still only had 7 cards at the end of round and that mom, who was to his right, had bought them all before he could.  Rummy's the best. In the end, Christy won and Scott lost....by a large margin :).  Never sit to the right of mom :)

These two were adorable.  

In the back yard of the condo there is a little teeny tiny stream that was the source of so much fun!  The kids spent hours just jumping from side to side. 

Saturday was the day we decided to drive to some elusive hot-springs that mom and dad had been to once a very long time ago.  We drove and drove, then got on a dirt road and drove and drove some more.....stopping every once in awhile to check over bushes and to spots on the side of the road for any clues.  Apparently our car--which consisted of me, Scott, Max and Rhett--got slightly board.  Me and Scott tried to introduce them to fancy car songs like that--'and the green grass grew all around and around and the green grass grew all around...." one.  WHICH I LOVED GROWING UP! But the two boys did not find nearly as much enjoyment out of it as Scott and I did :/.  After about an hour on the dirt road (and a substantial turn around), we accidentally found when we decided to go home...with a nice sign and everything close by which I have NO idea how both cars missed!  

Turns out....it was like ONE MILLION DEGREES and also super super disgusting.  (see that lady on the far right that's lounging?  I have no idea how she did that and lived...

"I just wanted to leave.  I thought it was going to be clear hot springs--not something that smelled like deviled eggs."--Kade

"So, we looked and looked and drove straight passed it cause we didn't see the sign, then when we saw it on the way home, we were there for like 5 minutes and it stunk.  It was pretty fun."-Luke

Also--the scrumptious smell of sulfur permeated the air.  So overall a very enjoyable time :)  We took some pictures....sat there about 5 minutes....then we went home.  2 hours well spent :)  BUT!!!!  It was SUCH a pretty drive..which the kids don't care one bit about, but was awesome for me :).

We got home, cleaned up and by that time Jess had driven up and joined us! YAY!  So off we went on a bus ride into town.

Rhett was so excited to ride on a real bus!

This picture makes me laugh so hard....see...cause Jess is with us...but just off, wandering around...by himself in the background.  HA HA!  I hadn't even noticed and when we were looking at the picture I was like--what the?  Apparently he wasn't aware that it's always group photo time.

We stopped off at the candy store and all the kids picked a little something out.  Emmett's shooting something into Max's mouth with his candy spray bottle thing....cute stuff.

Chris and Jared made dinner that night--and for dessert did shaved ice with the most delicious flavorings and ice cream to add to the bottom.  MMMMM... all enjoyed and chatted.

More games! HA HA HA!  These two shots make me laugh soooo much!

"Gavin tried to kill me in cards.  He would only go after me.--we were playing Blitz."--Kade

Sunday was  nice, we drove to town, went to church with the locals, had great meetings and just took the day super easy and calm.  Monday morning we went to another swimming pool, played hard again, and got into their gigantic hot tub (probably fits 20 people and was 5 feet deep.  It was awesome. I could stay in those all day!)  The boys earned a few "Man Points" by jumping into the cold water after the hot tub (aack!)  Then went back home and said goodbye to Jess--who had to work Tuesday morning.

Monday night we had a Minute-to-Win-It family home evening!  All of us came with prepared games and it was soooooooooo fun!  I loved watching the boys compete to see who could keep their balloons up in the air the longest! (later the adults had to try to do it with 2 balloons! That's just crazy ridiculous!)

Mom brought bubble solution and straws and strings to make bubbles with!  At the end we did this and it was AMAZING the sizes you could make!  Look at this behemoth one Luke managed!

"Bubble blowing was super fun cause we could make GIANT bubbles!"--Luke

Sponge toss onto a target

After awhile we thoought maybe, just maybe we could fit a whole person in a bubble.  Mostly it just popped a few inches from the ground but cool right?!

My turn :)

Here's the "Junk in the trunk" game where you have ping-pong balls in the tissue box tied to your rump--and you compete to see who can get all their balls out first! Ha Ha!  We told Rhett to do a stink face.  

Popcorn straw blowing race.

Ahhhhh. This little one was soooo covered with bubbles by the end of the day!

Ha Ha!  Chris would throw up mulitple pieces of popcorn and we'd see how many we could catch.  Dad doesn't mess around.

Cookie face!

I don't really know how this even happened. Dad must have put him up there.  I don't ask questions, just take pictures.

This one looks pretty impressive.

We celebrated Gavins, Dads, Emmett's and my birthday while we were there (mine was bit of a stretch since it was after Sun Valley, but they threw me in there too. That's nice :)  Christy made my favorite cake in the entire world!!!  Chocolate Raspberry cake and it's honestly the best thing on the entire planet! 

Dad and Mom had bought the big boys geodes from Yellowstone a couple weeks before.  Dad and the boys went outside to the old parking lot to smash them. They were all so impressive.  I was so happy all week to see these three playing together. I was so worried that since Kade and Gavin are so close in age and so similar in likes that Luke would be left out.  But these boys were soooo great and played sooo silly and happily all week.  It was a Sun Valley miracle.

Mom and dad took them into town on the last night to get little souvenirs.  The three big boys came home with cap guns and all the kids got some amazing t-shirts.

That night we did a Sun Valley picture scavenger hunt with some of our favorite and most recognizable things around the condo.  We split up into two teams, 

Team A: Mom, Christy, Garrett, Emmett, and Max.  

Team B: Me, Dad, Scott, Luke, Kade and Gavin.  (we kind of rocked it...maybe cause we had a pretty able, fast, and not as 'distractable' team--but we like to think it was sheer skill :)

Last night photo.  These kids had so much fun!  Max Still (writing this 7 months after the fact) talks about Sun Valley. Every time he pretends to take a vacation, or call someone that is in another place, it's always Sun Valley.  They can't wait to get back there in another 4 years :)

On our way out I wanted to stop off at the candy shop again.  And a little danish shop that's adorable.  It was pretty fancy inside so the kids acted appropriately :)

Eating snacks...and Kade starting to feel gross--that's what you always want before a 5 hour road trip :/ (after about an hour he was okay...)

Goodbye Sun Valley!  We love you!

Surf'n with My Bro's

July 10-13, 2014

YAY!!! SURFING 2014!  So I've always wanted to learn how to surf....and Jess just so happened to have Fridays off during the summer...what happened?  He was awesome and watch the kids all weekend so me and my brothers could play in the Ocean for the weekend!  So nice. It was SUCH A FUN TRIP!!!  

Scott and I got a cheap flight out of Provo Thursday, flew to Los Angeles where B.J. picked us up from the airport WITH SURF BOARDS ON HIS ROOF and we drove straight to the Santa Monica beach!  He and Kara had even packed a giant cooler with lunch for me and Scott and snacks for the whole day on the ocean!  (BTW, their cooler was amazing--you could pick it up and carry it like a backpack!  So cool)  So so sweet.  And seriously....I love my little brothers so much.  They're so funny and fun and amazing to be with....so that was real nice :).  We just laughed the entire weekend!.

The water temperature was so great, and the waves were perfect the first two days!  Perfect for beginners.  Scott and B.J. had learned to surf in HAWAII years before and had been a handful of times so they were good teachers.  Also Scott had a waterproof case for his phone so that was fun to try and get shots while being bashed by unseen waves :)  

This is what I looked like the majority of the time!  HA! That ocean...I tell you what, it sucks you in and churns you around and spits you out!  BUT IT'S SO WORTH IT!  I tell you what, it's pretty trick to get in the right position to stand up.  I found myself "pearling" A LOT!  (apparently that's what it's called when you sit too far up on your board and the top end of the board goes down first and you end up being sucked/dragged down into the water....)

Also me and B.J. had headaches sporadically.  I thought it was dehydration (but turned out not to be.  The headaches started going away as soon as we left the water, so it might have been the squinting or the tilt of our heads watching the waves from our bellies or...something?  No idea. But every once in awhile I just needed to go in and stop the pounding.

Scott really was the 'Wave Whisperer'.  He caught a lot more then us.  Quite impressive.

After the first couple hours, we had a short little nap, then some beach volleyball!!!  Woo woo!  We walked on the hot sand...like, oh, I don't know, like 50 miles (ha!  not really obviously but the courts looked so much closer so none of us had shoes on and it did get a little spicy on our feet.

One of my favorite memories (which actually just made me laugh out loud because of the visual...but won't be funny to anyone probably besides the three of us) was when we decided to play some beach volleyball.  On tour walk to the courts we saw the bathrooms and decided to detour.  We were coming at the bathrooms from a diagonal angle and had the choice to either continue on our path in the hot sand, or get on a little board walk and do a little "L" shape action to get there.  After no one could decide which would be faster we decided to experiment.  We split up--walking at a normal speed being the rule-- to see which way was faster.

B.J. took the board walk, and me and Scott stayed on the sand.  HA HA--B.J. used the funniest walk I've ever seen!  His top half remained calm and regular but every time we sorta looked away his legs would just book it with his arms straight by his side.  Ah MAN! I really wish I had video or SOMETHING!  Especially since he was walking past random people who just saw this weird-o looking sideways and slightly running to the bathrooms!  HA HA!!!  I laughed so hard the whole weekend picturing his walk.  (B.J.'s was slightly faster in the end when we accounted for the slight run :).

Turns out sand volleyball is a KILLER!  Who knew trying to run and get a ball IN THE SAND could be so hard!  We were all dying but trying to keep the panting to a minimum (I might be projecting here...maybe they weren't laughing and talking, and then quietly so no one could hear gulping in giant amounts of oxygen so I didn't die)  But for reals, those courts are huge area's to cover for only one or two people!  I have a new respect for the sport!

After our first day at the beach, we drove home, met up with Kara--who's a doll and we love her.  She had made the most delicious meal (tomato basil chicken over noodles--mmmmmm) that was hot and ready and amazing when we walked in the door.  She's so so nice.  We took forever to decide on a movie--used the veto method--and eventually whittled it down to Dennis the Menace.  Within 20 minutes the three of us were out! Ha ha!  Good day apparently!

Meanwhile back home: Jess took the boys to the zoo!  This guy hates crowds and I was so impressed with his giddy-up and go getting him to the zoo.  They loved it.  Plus Jess got them lunch THERE--complete with take-home cups and everything!  (that kind of thing never happens when I'm home!)  So they had a good time :)

On Friday we left the house around 10:00, and got to the beach around 11:30.  (We stopped at 7-11 to get free slurpies on account of it was 7-11-14--Woo woo!)  Then we practiced some handstands :)--cause they're always super fun, and got in the water. (Caution--don't do handstands on a surfboard when your hands are still slightly wet and your arms are exhausted....you hands will probably slip, and you will end up doing an awkward neck stand....and then slowly do a sort of crumbally pathetic fall....and you'll think you've died just a little....I mean probably--I'd assume thats what would happen if you did that thing.....)

Friday I could tell it was easier--maybe sleeping helped cement some of the stuff I'd learned the day before?  But I got up a lot more and the waves were super frequent!

Now a little story about Au-bed (he reminded us of Au-bed off of community...).  So there was this funny man before lunch that was just sorta watching us and swimming out into the surf zone (dangerous--I can't control this board! :) and talking to himself the whole time... we all noticed him.  Now fast forward a couple of hours.  We are getting back to the ocean and see something floating in the water a distance out....Conversation goes like this:

Cari: "What's that floating out there?"

B.J.: chuckling, "like a body."

Cari: "No, I think it is a body..."

all have the same realization:  Both brothers quickly hand me their stuff, about to run and dive in Baywatch style--when Au-bed stands up from doing a long face down float thing.......silly Au-bed :).

We stopped mid-day to grab a bite to eat.  We found the most delicious pizza place after a little walk around the block called Joe's Pizza.

Mmmmmmm...I got a basil/mozzarella/tomato slice.  Mmmmmm.....soooooo good!

Ahh  right?  That night we drove home, and after showering went to such a delicious Mexican Food place called Lunas.  BJ and Kara go there all the time so they know what's good there.  The Burritos did not disappoint!  

We got home and had such a good conversation long into the night!  We didn't even fall asleep immediately like every other night!  We talked into the night about the reality of angels and experiences with the Holy Ghost and it was just so nice.

The next day was such a funny one.  It was Kara's day off so we got to have her with us this time. We went to a different beach this time.  It took a little longer to get there (we may have fallen asleep on the way there...ha!  Kara took a picture of us on the car ride there) and parking was ridiculous, but we got on the beach, set up our giant umbrella, and took the boards out and waited....and waited....and waited... There were no waves AT ALL.  HA!  But there was other interesting things.  While we were out there we saw flocks of birds....(don't know what kind) but tons of them swooping down into the water to grab fish! It was amazing.  Another disappointed surfer close-by said something about boats in the area that were dropping fish bait into the water for some reason......  

Anyway, after awhile the thought came to me that maybe that fish bait would attract sharks.  Funny how the mind does that...when you're in the middle of the ocean....and your little brother is paddling away from you out farther into the ocean...and all you can think is! Ahh--what if he get's attacked by a shark and I'm too far away to grab him out of the sharks mouth! And why is he going farther out?  Ahhhh!  

But no worries.  That didn't happen.  Also surfing didn't happen.  So we just went back to the beach and practiced our handstands some more.  See me and Scott had talked about handstands awhile back and wanted to figure out how some people get up and just stay up forever.  While looking-up the how-to's online we saw this awesome picture of someone doing a one-handed handstand on the beach at sunset.  We decided to work on them all the time so by the time our trip happened we could have that picture!  :)  In this picture both Scott and B.J. are working on getting their hand-up...that's why they look special :)

Anyway--we spent the day eating our snacks, watching the waves, and just talking with the four of us! We did some shopping so I could bring something back for the kids, then when we noticed the sun was setting and booked it to the beach again to get our handstand picture!!!  We parked, and RAN down the steps and to the water to get "The" picture before it was too late! (add quiet panting here)

Ahhh! Got it! At least as close as we were gonna get!  (Consequently I fell down immediately after I put that hand up but YAY! B.J. got the shot!

From there we saw dolphins!  We saw cute little fisherman, and the coolest wind-surfing thing ever.  (where people attach themselves to a giant kite thing, and their surfboard, and just go.  It looked pretty intense.)  

That night, on the way home we went to such a funny little place to get food called Mr. Bills Donuts Sandwiches Hamburger Croissants Ice Cream'  Ha!  It was owned by an Asian man and lets just say his glare from the start was very impressive!  HA!  Customer service was not their strong point and we all had a good chuckle about their apparent hate of people.

We didn't even try a movie that night. I remember the conversation starting and feeling my giant eyelids hammering down over my eyes---so we all went to bed.

  I loved every single second and am soooo glad it happened!

Getting home to the family is always such a happy thing!  Look how cute Luke was!  He was feeling kind of gross the day before and Jess had him stay home from church.  BUT--he did feel well enough to make us a "Welcome Home" cake while he was home alone.  He's so funny and I love him.