Catch Up

To me it feels like it has been forever since I blogged. Only been like two weeks. But when you have had family out a lot can happen in two weeks. So after Pioneer day and Lagoon I'm pretty sure we didn't do much. For a couple days at least.

Oh Chloe and I went for a bike ride on the 28th in the morning. We decided to try the Serengeti trail. I now know not to ride that when you haven't been riding at least 6 miles a day with some good uphill in there. It was really hot and some of the uphill was tough. Chloe hadn't rode in years so she was dying and I had done some but not enough to have good endurance yet. We ended up walking our bikes at some parts because it was faster than trying to pedal. But we had some gorgeous scenery. We only did half the trail though. Chloe was dying and I needed to get back to feed Jackson. I'd like to go again and try the whole thing. Now that Jackson is getting on solids I think I have a better chance. And I need to do the Smelter trail to get that hill endurance up. There's always just enough incline with this valley. But here are some pics I took:
This was the top of a little hill we walked up. View of Stansbury Island (another trail I wanna do) and the Great Salt Lake.

 This is looking at the homes in Pine Canyon and Tooele all behind it.

 This trail ran right by where the Flood Canyon Fire was. You can see some of the scarring on the hill. That'll be super green come next spring. There was a road that went back that way. I would love to explore more of these areas but I so don't have the time. Maybe when the kids are older.

 This made me laugh. I swear people in Tooele will use anything for target practice. That or they really don't feel like they should have to keep the gate shut.

Then we had a family party later that day. It was all the Spence's. We headed out to Saratoga Springs to go to Neptune Park. It was a really neat park but it was crazy windy and I really am not a fan of wind. So that kind of made it not so fun. But it was really nice to see everyone. I just felt like a hermit for a bit. I had to feed Jackson in the car for like 20 min so I wouldn't flash the world. Darn wind! But it was a really cool park. I'd love to go back some day when its cooler... and not windy. Oh and I made cream puffs. I used the OBB recipe for cream puffs but decided to do a pastry filling recipe I got from The Roof cookbook. So its more of like an eclair filling but it was good. And I added some cocoa to half the mix to make it a chocolate filling. Not too bad considering I've never really made any kind of puff pastry by hand before.

Everything is so fuzzy. I can't remember it all. I think the next thing we did was go to the aquarium on the 2nd (2 days before my pass expired). The otter's weren't in because they were getting physicals done. They did have the baby sharks though. They're so cute! Charlotte had fun running around with her cousins.
Here's Charlotte with Nolan

 Jack Jack was smiling at himself in the mirror but of course I kept missing the smile

 Baby seahorses! They're sooooo tiny!

 Giant plecostomus! My parents had one named Pickle for the longest time. Somehow she survived the move up here. She was tough and it was a sad day when she died. But this one is HUGE! It's probably hard to tell from the pic but its really big.

 Then they had babies in another tank. So tiny! Even ours was bigger when we first bought her. These guys can't be all that old.

 And a gecko... so cute!

So after the aquarium we had lunch at Five Guys. Then went to Cost Plus. One of my most favorite stores. I'm lucky if I go like once or twice a year. I stay away for a reason. But they have the best candy from around the world. And if I could I would decorate my house with everything from there. Love their stuff but expensive. So I only ever buy candy :) After that we went to my parent's for a bit because Charlotte wanted to play more. Then later on I decided to take Chloe and Cami on a hike up to the T.

I haven't been up there in like 3 yrs so it was kinda confusing which way to go. Rocky Mtn Power is up there installing that Oquirrh to Mona line in the hills and they've got all kinds of roads through there. So trying to remember what the original was and what is RMP stuff was a pain. Took us longer than planned to get up there. At one point we realize we need to start getting closer to the T so we followed this road and it put us right by a big tractor and this huge pole:

Then we had to back track a bit to find the road that leads up to the T and Cami looks over and is like, "Hey look! A snake!" Me and Chloe are like, oh cool! Then I see its head and I'm like, "It's a rattlesnake. Step back." So we're standing still not wanting to spook it. Luckily it wasn't aggressive. It flicked its tongue out a few times then started to head up the hill in the bushes. Phew... it was pretty close to us. I tried to get close to get a pic when I realized it had no interest in us. This was all I could get. It wasn't very big. Chloe and I used to see some that were 4 ft long or bigger when we'd hike in CA so this guy was little compared to them. You can see the rattle in the bottom left of the pic.

From then on we were more nervous about more rattlesnakes so we were a little more cautious as we had to hike through the weeds to climb up to the T. I saw this nasty looking bug. Gross.

And here is where we finally made it!

We had some sweet views of the sunset and it was a nice golden color from smoke in the air. We've had so many fires! This is the view of Tooele. You can see the Salt Lake and Stansbury Island.

 This is the north east end of town and you can kinda see the depot way out there.

 That was the pole I took a pic of and the tractor we were right by. We hiked back down that way since we didn't know where some of the other roads led.

The hike back down was not so good. I slipped on the rocks and my butt landed on a really big sharp rock really really hard. It was bad. It hurt sooooo bad and left a really wicked bruise. That's what I get for trying to hurry. It was getting dark pretty quick. So not as young as I think I am!

The next night Chloe and I drove to see the stars. Of course the moon was up and bright so we couldn't see much. A couple shooting stars and a satellite. Once the kids are gone we're gonna go with my dad. And on a new moon so its much darker out. Hopefully catch a glimpse at the milky way.

On Sat the 4th we had a ward temple activity. We did a picnic dinner at a church by the temple. Then we walked to Temple Square. We got to hear from Sister Stevens who is the 1st counselor I believe in the Primary General Presidency. Her and her hubby took their personal time to be with just our little ward. I thought that was so awesome. She talked to the kids about the importance of the temple. They also gave every family a "My Gospel Standards" poster. I had one up in Charlotte's room but now we'll have one for each kid. She took some pictures with all of us and just the kids after. She walked around and talked to each family. She was just really nice and super sweet and her husband was really nice too. We ended up talking to her again. She came over and talked to us while we were waiting to take some family pics. They had a couple photographers there to take pics of us and they'll get us the pics on a cd. It was free. We didn't dress for the occasion but did it anyway. Charlotte was all shy. Little punk. But it made us think that we need to do some family pics of our own so Scott's super awesome cousin is gonna try to do some for us the end of the month. She's a great photographer. You should check out her work here:http://kl-photo.blogspot.com/. Awesome right? Charlotte has done some okay ones in the past but she gets all weird about posing and Karly is awesome with kids and has worked with little kids so I think Charlotte might be better. I hope!

But anyway, the activity was great. It was nice to be able to hear from Sis Stevens and to meet and talk with her. Charlotte had fun too. We went to the visitor's center to see the Christus. She loves seeing that. Scott took some pics that came out kinda blurry but that's ok.

She didn't want to hold still for a picture :)

Since then we've had dinner a couple times at my parents. On Monday we went shopping at the new Target on 56th (yay!). So nice to have a Target just a little bit closer. My mom got the kids some back to school stuff and Charlotte needed some pjs. She's had 4 pairs that she's been wearing that are 2T (whoops!). Then we wanted to try Culvers. My brother used to go there when he was on his mission in Wisconsin. I guess they've expanded and are now open out here. And they have some yummy frozen custard. You can buy 4 pints for 8.99 which is cheaper than Ben and Jerry's so I did that and we've been loving it. We've only eaten one (thank goodness) since Monday so it lasts. I rarely buy ice cream so this is a very yummy treat for us.

I think that's about it. The kids go back Sat. Things will definitely quiet down for us. We refinance our house soon. Thank goodness. And we have a nice little trip planned the end of the month to St. George. And hopefully getting my car all fixed before then. Its making some really loud noise and I hope its an easy fix. Hoping to get it looked at next week. And I need a new windshield. And my registration is up this month... I can't win. But I really don't want to rent a car for our trip. It'll probably cost the same in the end anyway and I just need mine in good working order. So yeah... I think that is it for now... phew... I'm tired.