A Relaxing Sunday

We finally made it up to the mountains!  Last weekend we drove the Alpine loop which is a must see every year.  It was SO BEAUTIFUL that we made plans on our way back home for the following weekend to go up Hobble Creek Canyon for dinner.  So we gathered a bunch of family together, packed up TONS of food and went up!

After Barry cooked our tin foil dinners we started the traditional "roasting of the marshmallows."  Koen LOVED roasting and eating them as well.  Kael just roasted and then went on to find rocks and logs to jump off of.

Reed, Raquel and Baby Jace joined in our adventurous dinner.

Kael INSISTED on wearing his moon boots.  Even after explaining that sneakers might be better, he disagreed and proudly wore his moon boots.

Dad and Kael snuggling by the fire.

This is his "Magnum" look.  It's mostly for catalog work....

Koen lately has loved making faces at the camera whenever one is pointed at him.  At least he's looking and not shying away or scowling.  Makes for some funny pictures to look back at.

Quick family shot.

As the fire was dying down everyone was getting creative on what they wanted to see burn.  Reed is roasting a gummy alien......yeah, I don't know.  It looked cool for a while  :)

We brought little people camping chairs but our boys only wanted to sit in the big kid camping chairs.

I only took my camera out for a couple minutes and I wish I got more shots of everyone but only turns out I took a few.  But at least I got Kyrsten and Mike!  Love you guys!  We'll have many more mountain adventures this summer together!

The Salt Lake City Arts Festival

So, my work is awesome and I get hooked up all the time with free stuff.  *That's what you get when you work in the media*  Friday we all went to my work for lunch for "Pig on the Plaza."  It's where you get lots of yummy food and proceeds go to charity.  Afterwards we took off to the Arts Festival!  The boys were ecstatic because from my work we hopped on a TRAIN and rode over the the artsy festivities.

A close-up of Kael-zer!

I apologize, I quickly took out the camera to grab these shots of the boys playing in the fountain and didn't even look at my settings.  I had my camera set to florescent lighting so it made my pictures blue trying to compensate for "florescent" lighting.

We got V.I.P tickets so we got all the food and drinks we could eat and our own private area of the festival to relax and cool off.

Koen

Kael

Mine and Koen's feet!  I love toes!

Camera-shy Kael.

They thought some of the musicians and art were strange but they LOVED the fountain.  We spent quite a bit of time there.

One Point for Twins.....One Point for Mom!

With the many different "phases" and "experiments" the boys have attempted, this is the latest.  And by latest I mean back in January.  I totally forgot to post this so now's a better time than ever.  So back to "phases".......Kael and Koen experienced many.  They went through a "go through mommy's purse" phase where they emptied  EVERYTHING out.....change, wallet with all cards and even was nice enough to pre-tear all my checks out of the check book for me.  Than there was the "dump a bag of cereal on the floor every morning and see how fast mom can jump out of bed and stop me".....which we lost a good vacuum in that phase from all the sucking up of cereal we did from various surfaces.  So moving forward we enter this particular phase.......the "take wads of toilet paper, dip them in the toilet and chuck it at something and watch it stick....no really, it DOES stick!"  phase. 

So after coming home from a LONG day of work after my sweet little angels are asleep, I always go through the house and do a damage report to see exactly how their day went.  *gladly I'm doing less of those these days*  Many times through December and into February I came home to their bathroom being "decorated."  Gladly this phase has passed and they are now into some new "fun" habits that I'm not going to take pictures of but will tell in a later, more current post.

As much as I want to grow their hair out, nice and LONG and see all the curls and waves their hair has to offer, Barry's threats to shave their heads comes more frequently.  "You're going to come home from work one day and find them with their heads shaved."  :)  *love you honey*  So I broke down and took them to get a hair cut.

*Koen*

I figure at least a trim would keep Barry happy about their hair length as long as it looked kept up.

So, not wanting to enter into a horrible war with me verses the boys and the clippers/scissors I went to Cookie Cutters!

LOVE, love LOVE this place.  Inside there is a slide and games and all kinds of stuff to sidetrack a child who is weary of cutting their hair.  And it mostly worked.  First, they get to pick a movie to watch on their own TV or a game to play on a PlayStation while trimming their locks.

*sorry, these pics were taken with my phone*

Then, they get their pick of either sitting on a motorcycle, a squad car, an airplane, a truck a pink '57 Chevy or a firetruck.  They both chose to watch a Thomas movie and Kael sat in the airplane and Koen in the squad car.  Kael did pretty good, he just sat and glared at the guy cutting his hair and watched his EVERY move.  Koen, however, cried for the first few minutes, but stayed still.  Koen is not up for doing things he's unfamiliar with but he got better as his haircut went on. 

A short time later, I have nice clean-cut boys, they get a balloon of their choice with a sucker tied at the end and their sent on their way.  We since have been back twice and I'm happy to say that Koen no longer cries and the last time Barry started with the hair comments the boys came up to me and ASKED for a haircut and within an hour we were on our way!

Handsome Kael who didn't want his picture taken so we compromised with this   :)

Koen enjoying his new fresh look!

Lagoon!

We were lucky and got an opportunity to take the kids to Lagoon!  The last time I went to Lagoon was nearly a decade ago.  After going nearly EVERY year for a decade prior, you grow tired of the same stuff.  So when Barry told me he had a work party there I figured they've gotta have some new stuff by now!

Now this was Kael and Koen's first time on ANY ride.  I went on their first ride with them which was in the kiddie section...The Mini Tidal Wave.  (not quite sure what it's really called, but you get the point)  We were sure at least Koen would be a little scared and hesitant......but we were so wrong!  After, that ride we grabbed some grub and knocked out the kiddie section of the park first!

This is the twins second amusement park ride, Hannah with Kael and Dallin with Koen.

Riding the Sea-planes!

Cruisin' in old fashioned cars.

Dallin and Kael cruisin' the countryside.

Koen ducking trying not to get soaked....

Finally over and feeling a bit refreshed.