Me and My Shadow

At Mount St Helens in July of 2008

Halloween 2005 - my little piggy

I have a shadow that no matter where I go when I am at home, she is there. If I leave the room, my shadow follows. When I try to get a few moments to my self in my room, my shadow sticks her fingers under the door and waves them at me to make sure that she still has contact with me. I love my shadow very much and will miss having a constant shadow when she goes to school. The only problem with my shadow is that when she wants to watch a movie, my shadow wants me to sit and watch the whole thing with her - I have watched High School Musical 3 every day since Tuesday with the help of my shadow. Right now as I type this, she is right here asking me what I am doing, when can I go build with her and the tinkertoys and when we are going to make dinner - it's 8 am.

Here are a few different pictures of my shadow. She also feels left out since most of her pictures are on the computer and not printed out!

I love my Maya shadow!!!

Hiking on Presidents Day

Yesterday we went hiking with the Wolfley's in the White Tank Mountains to see a waterfall. It was about a 2 mile hike and the kids did great.

Unfortunately we forgot our camera but the kids had a great time. After we hiked to the waterfall and back, there was a playground that the kids played on for a long time. We also had a great picnic lunch and really enjoyed being outside.

We are glad that we did it yesterday, because this morning we woke up to RAIN!!! Hurray. It is not something that happens to often in Arizona so we will take it when we can get it.

Back to Reality

Here we are on the bow of the USS Bowfin - submarine

Bryant battling at midnight with the one of the sharks

Watch out for those teeth! They can really bite!

We were up at Haliewa - on the North Shore and there was a huge Munk Seal laying on the beach trying to get a tan. We could not get any closer for our own safety!

Here is Bryant with 2 of the 3 sea turtles that we also saw. We couldn't get close to them either since they have found people on their backs. So no more touching.

Bryant and I just got back from a week long trip to Hawaii with no kids. We were celebrating our anniversary and my Mom watched the kids while we were gone. Up until this point, the longest that we had been away from them was 2 nights. But I HIGHLY recommend a week long get away from our kids if you have not done so.

We stayed at the Ko Olina Marriott Resort. It was great, the weather was nice and we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. With the Pro Bowl this Sunday - the NFL had reserved lots of rooms in the Hotel and before we left on Monday we saw Peyton (as in he waved to us and asked if we wanted to go on the elevator with him) Manning, his brother Eli and lots of other BIG guys who we had no clue who they were. Many were with their families and it was cute to see this big guys with their kids.

We snorkelled 4 times, went shark fishing - Bryant caught 2 sharks - catch and release - went bottom fishing and Bryant caught 4 fish and an octupus, went to USS Missouri, Bowfin (sub) and the Swap Meet.

Here are a few of our pictures from our vacation! We are already planning our next one - but it won't be for a while!

Hiking Silly Mountain

Here they are up at the top of Silly Mountain.

With Bryant and Madi in FREEZING weather and here in AZ, we were enjoying weather in the 70's. We decided to go on a hike of Silly Mountain with the Rapiers, Wolfleys and Scotts. It was a great time and the kids did great. It was a beautiful day and we can't wait to do more hike. The picture of Max and Maya are at the being of the trail - the hike was about 1.8 miles.

- 22 degrees - Yikes

How do you prepare your child who has lived in Arizona all of her life for -22 degrees in Minneapolis?

I have not idea but I am trying my best. Madi and Bryant are going to Minneapolis for a cousin's baptism and I am really worried about the 2 of them. The high today in Minneapolis is supposed to be 5 but right now at 10:45 AZ time it is -7.

I was going to dress up madison like the little boy in the christmas story who can't move his arms but I told her not to stick her tongue to a flag pole even if Bryant dares her to.

Hopefully, when they return late Sunday night - I won't find 2 popsicles at the airport waiting for me.

New Years Day Fun

On New Years Day, we went quading with some families from our ward. It was a lot of fun. Maya liked to go fast, Max liked to shoot BB guns and Madison loved to steer the quad while Bryant was driving and liked to go on long rides! It was lots of fun to get out of town for a few hours!!

Riding the Light Rail!

On Wednesday Morning, we went to ride the light rail. It was free and we got there early enough in the morning that there were no lines. After the ride we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast!! Yum Yum