Christmas 2011

This Christmas we went to Arizona. We got to see both sides of the family which was awesome! We had a lot of fun at my sister in-laws house. Harper LOVED playing with all the cousins. She was usually being tailed around the house by her cousin Hays who took it upon herself to be her best friend and show her the ropes! She was thrilled with the amount of toys they had as well, she just went from one thing to the other making a mess! She also enjoyed the three Christmas trees that they had! The first and last things she said everyday had to do with the "Tweeees!" The weather was really nice too(considering it is currently 10 degrees outside here). Harper enjoyed Christmas, she slept through Christmas morning for the second year in a row. But she liked opening all the gifts later and went nutso with the wrapping paper.  We went down to Yuma where everyone else was meeting and got to see the rest of the family. It was a lot of fun, we hadn't been able to see Kelsey for a year,  and it probably wont be for another year that we will be able to see all of them again! Harper spent most of her time bullying her cousin Brock, but I think she had fun! 

All in All a good Christmas! 

Yup that's Desitin....

October Visit

Well Grandma and Grandpa did a tour around the US this month and ended their tour here in Missouri. We had a really fun time and it was nice to see them for a little bit, sadly for most of it Blake was in school or busy! We got to see a couple things while they were here though. We went to an old town near where we live and ate and toured. Grandpa had "the best turkey burger he has ever eaten", so that's definitely something! 

Harper got an early Christmas present that she enjoys playing with but I am not going to post any pictures because I don't want to spoil any surprises for anyone else! The weather wasn't great so we decided to tour an indoor museum downtown. It was a neat place. They had a big collection of basically "found" items that you are allowed to climb all over and play on. Their are also a bunch of tunnels throughout the whole building that go across the ceiling and outside and all over the place for kids to play on and climb through. They also had a 10 story slide as well as a slide that went a couple stories that we went on. They had an outdoor area too with a plane and school bus and a bunch of other things up in the sky caged in for kids to climb on. It was really cool and we will return when Harper is older.

We went to a famous old ice cream/food place downtown. It was pretty good, I've been wanting to go there for sometime now and they have chocolate squirrels which I have also been wanting to acquire! 

We went to Independence and toured the sites there like Liberty Jail, Adam-Ondhi-Ahman, and the temple site. They were really cool to see. Its realy amazing what the early saints had to go through. We also brushed up on our church history facts! Grandpa's favorite place of all was probably Quicktrip though which for those not from here is a gas station with a "drink oasis" as I call it! We made a lot of trips there! Harper was happy about that because she got to do some sipping from the cups! Went to Arthur Bryants in Kansas City for some BBQ, it was pretty good but I felt a bit out of place! Despite a few puking episodes from Harper, it was a pretty good trip!

  The next day after another trip to Quicktrip Grandma and Grandpa headed back to Boise. We had a really fun time and we are glad they were able to come out and we look forward to seeing them again! We always wish we lived closer to everyone, the whole family is spread everywhere.    

Nashville for the Fourth

My brother Jeff and sister in law Courtney AKA Linda recently moved to South Carolina. We wanted to get together and since they are now 14 hours away we decided the best way to do that would be to meet halfway in Nashville, Tennessee, which I later found out was actually not halfway and much closer to us than them... but its better than meeting up in Hillbilly, Tennessee. Blake and I decided to leave Friday since we don't have anything else to do. The day before we left we were watching Travel Channel and saw a BBQ place that they said was one of the best BBQ places in the country and it was right across the river! So, obviously, we had to stop on our way out! It was pretty darn good! 

We then continued on to Nashville! We got there and it was stinking hot there and stayed that way the entire time we were there. 

Harper apparently took a liking to the hotel, or she didn't trust the carpet, because she started walking all over the place!  She had taken a few steps at home but nothing like she was doing there! 

Jeff and Linda were supposed to meet us on Saturday but they had a long series of car events and were not able to make it till Sunday. So we toured a bit with out them. We saw some of the downtown scene, it was interesting to hear country music playing out of sidewalk utility covers and to see a street full of bars, full of people with live bands at 2:00 in the afternoon! That's music city I guess! :)  

     Jeff and Courtney arrived and Harper and Brock started to play. They had so much fun together! They were always crawling away from each other because they both thought the other was chasing after them. It was pretty funny. Harper was mainly a bully and spent most of the trip taking away any toy that Brock was playing with and kept trying to swap binkies with him. We went to the zoo, and to the Hermitage which was Andrew Jackson's home and is now a hangout for gabby, old people in period dress. The house and the grounds were cool, its interesting to see old things like that. We went swimming and also ate a lot of good food, we went downtown again, and saw the Parthenon, yes for some reason there is a replica of the Parthenon in Nashville. Seems like a very large waste of money to me, but its as close to the real one as I'll able to get right now! Kinda cool. We also saw the Grand ole Opry which was cool too but we didn't really know the significance of it all... 

The Hermitage tour included a very interesting Audio tour...

A sassy engineer on the tour

A the famous Pancake Pantry, there was quite a line but it was good! 

One of Harper's stolen toys, she REALLY liked this rattle

The littles in their Fourth of July outfits. Harper wore hers for a bout an hour till she threw up all over it and had to have an emergency outfit change. 

Linda was very nice and helped Blake study

And then there were fireworks provided by Jeff and the city of Nashville! 

The babies both loved the fireworks and were such good sports about staying up so late. Harper was thrilled with rolling around on the blanket and Brock was thrilled just watching her going nuts! Harper felt it was necessary to stand up front and watch the show, I was not allowed to move her! 

It was a really fun trip and I was so glad we got to see Jeff, Linda and of course Brock. I don't know when we will be able to see them again so I'm glad we could see them now. Brock is so cute and it's kinda sad that we will not be able to be close to him as he and Harper grow up. So we have to plan as many of these little trips as possible!