4th of July in Hiko- the land of my forefathers :)

I realized I never posted anything from this event! I took the girls to my extended Hansen family reunion in Nevada for the 4th of July. Eric spent the weekend with his fam because I promised him he never had to go to hot, hot Hiko and hang out with a bunch of strangers again. :) Okay so he didn't have a terrible time before (twice), he just wasn't excited about it so I let him off the hook. Anyway, the girls had a blast, they got to see their COUSINS and grandparents and aunts and uncles and great-grandparents and sleep in a tent and swim in the hot springs and do crafts, play games, watch fireworks, so many fun things. I just love that it's a relatively short drive (4.5 hours) to see my family there. And I really do love Hiko, we used to go there every-other summer growing up, it was our big family vacation. I have many good memories there, and I learned so much about my ancestors there. It's a beautiful, special place to me. So we had a good time.

Here we are at the hot springs, Melissa took some very cute pictures, as usual! She got this cute one of Whitney, who kept trying to kiss me for some reason. :)

and this one of Donny with his nieces, I don't know what my girls are worried about in this picture!

then we had fun doing crafts with Aunt Jenae, I guess I didn't get any pictures of Aunt Melissa!

the girls and their cousin Natalie about to shoot off these water rockets, you can see them holding the strings-

and then they pulled the strings and this was their reaction when the rockets shot up!

silly girls sticking their heads out of the "drink hole" in the tent
all my immediate family who were at the reunion
The girls just love all their uncles! They are so fun, especially when Dad's not there to play with them. Here's uncle Donny,

and Uncle "Fop" (now she says "Fehwup") and Aunt Katrina

Katelyn crying in her blanket because she was afraid of the fireworks....30 minutes before the show started! She fell asleep soon after this picture, so she was okay.

In contrast, Whitney LOVED the fireworks!! Here she is while watching them.

My parents with their 4 grandchildren!
I love the ranch.

The next day (Monday the 5th) we went to the hot air balloons and parade in Provo with Eric, so we still had some good little family time for the holiday.

love

When we went out to dinner for my birthday, Whitney scooted close to Katelyn and put her arm around her and said "I love mine sisser, mom." It was the sweetest thing ever, so I had her re-enact it for the camera. For the record, Katelyn is usually a very sweet big sister too.

Girls Camp!!

Have I mentioned how much I love being in Young Womens?? It's the best ever. I went to Girls Camp for a night and 1.5 days and loved every minute of it. Thanks again Mary and my wonderful husband for letting me go!

Here's a few of my cute girls at dinner.

And here's our impromptu chimney sweep dance troupe of 28-year-old leaders- I love these girls! Jodie and Jenise are always up for a good time. And the fact that they love Newsies, and Jodie can quote it as well as I can (very impressive) made for quite the exciting night. The young women thought we were a little crazy!
all packed up, in front of the cabin. Fun activities, such a great testimony meeting, the outdoor cooking show with Buella and Juanita, and of course lots of crafts, singing, and eating chocolate-covered cinnamon bears, and beautiful nature. Love it.

The Countertop Project

My birthday present to me this year was new countertops! and for only $59.70, 8 hours of labor, many hours of waiting for coats to dry, and a week of having everything that's usually on the kitchen and bathroom counters sitting somewhere else, we went from this teal, pink and gray masterpiece:

to this black bottom layer....

and then to this! As Whitney says, duh- DA!
Okay so I didn't do "light enough taps" with the color sponges, so it definitely doesn't look like granite... but it still looks cool and we like the change. Eric teases me that it looks like camouflage "oh no, I can't find my hand!" ha ha. very funny.
Anyway I'm glad to be DONE and I'm pretty happy with my new counters!

Uncle Curses

So I'm wearing this running shirt the other day and Whitney comes up and looks at it like 2 inches from my chest and she says "you-have-Uncle-Curses (Kurtis) on-yours-shirt?" (a hyphen stands for a short break between words in whitney-speak)

So I looked a little closer, thinking "what?"and sure enough the Footlocker guy does slightly resemble Kurtis- I think it's the hair?? I was dying laughing and told her no, it's not Kurtis. She said "oh. whats hims name?" It was just so cute. So there you go Kurtis, at least you know she's thinking about you. :)

Park City Getaway

Last month, for the first time in our children's lives, Eric and I went on a little getaway! Previously I had been concerned about leaving them and we hadn't wanted to spend money on a big trip. But now the girls are so "old" we weren't worried about them AT ALL, and we settled for an inexpensive 2-day 1-night adventure in nearby Park City.

And it was so, so, so fun! It was amazing how many things we could do in such short periods of time! We didn't have to take breaks because the girls were tired or grumpy or hungry. I love Eric and it was great to be alone with him for 2 days.

So the first thing we did was go to the Ski Museum and Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Museum, both located at Olympic Park where the Ski Jumping and Bobsled (and Luge and Skeleton?) competitions were held. Eric laughed at my dorky idea but it turned out cool, of course. :) There were fun exhibits and of course photo opportunities:

I sat in the drivers' seat of this sled and almost couldn't get out! It's harder than they make it look!

The most entertaining part of Olympic Park though, was watching skiers practice their jumps into a pool! They have these big ramps and there were a bunch of teenage kids with their coaches there practicing, it was so cool. There was even a couple of classes of little kids going off this tiny jump. We sat and watched for a while, thinking "I guess this is what rich kids (or just kids with ambitious parents) do in the summer instead of swimming lessons- they take ski-jumping lessons!"

Then we walked around the outlet stores and shopped a little, went to dinner, walked around downtown Park City, got ice cream, and went to a movie! And got back to our hotel at like 9:30! What a great day.

The next day we watched lots of world cup soccer until we had to check out of our hotel, "hiked" a little at the ski resort (and found a patch of gross old dirty snow),
sat on some grass and read, had lunch, and went river rafting! We couldn't take our camera, so here we are before getting on the water. It was really fun, we were on a raft with a man and his teenage son, on vacation from Chicago. And we had a "guide" who paddled so we were just along for the ride.
Lastly, we went to dinner at a great Japanese restaurant called Shabu. I got us $75 worth of gift certificates for only $33.75 on citydeals.com. It was delicious and so fun to watch Eric enjoy nostalgic Japanese food.

Thanks to Mary and Brad for babysitting, the girls had the time of their lives and didn't even miss us. :)

kate faces

since I have so many videos of whitney, I've gotta post this one of Kate's faces too.

mean face

here's whitney's mean face and other gems!

The Outer Space Party- one month later!

FInally posting about Katelyn's birthday party! In my defense, the last month has been the fastest month of my life. Where did it go?? It was good though! And so was Katelyn's birthday. She said it was "the best day ever". Thank you everyone for the wonderful gifts!

So here's the pics from Katelyn's party, all taken by my wonderful mother-in-law Mary who came to help with the party.

Kate in her decorated space helmet.

Whitney decorating her UFO.
The rocket ship cake, with the candles coming out the bottom! And planets and sun cupcakes.The kids in their decorated space helmets ready to go out on a moon rock hunt!
Kate picking up moon rocks
and opening them to find treats and prizes.
Doing the UFO throw (plastic plates stapled together) (they had just let go of their plates)
The space obstacle course!
Wally running- he got the fastest time on the course!
Ethan starting by jumping off the deck! while Wally and Addi look on.

Kate enjoying her new Buzz Lightyear slip and slide.

The boys just wanted to play with the water shooters!

Whitney and Allison crawling through the tunnel

Whitney eating her "planet" cupcake.

opening presents- I FINALLY caught her excited look on camera! (I mean Mary did...)

so cute, her friends gathered around her and were telling her all about her present.
She has such cute friends. We also went out to dinner and went bowling that night. Happy birthday to my sweet, hilarious, genius, great big sister, adventurous, helpful, creative daughter.