Vacation- Part 3

WYOMING was our next stop, to spend some time with our good friend's the Hess family! They were the first family that we met our first Sunday at church in England 10 years ago. Wow, time flies! Back then there were 4 children between our two families, now there is 15! We had a great time with them!

Here is the Hess/Mahaffey kids together (missing one-as their oldest was at EFY)
Sara & Brian, and Colin & Becky
We loved visiting with them again, and of course playing board games together-our favorite past time!
Here is Logan & Hayden. Hayden thought it was so cool that he first met Logan when he was 6 months old. Having moved around, he doesn't have many friends he can say that about.

We went to this great rock formation place with them and had a picnic and fun on the rocks. The night before we went to this park, I fell down their basement stairs and hurt my foot (I felt pretty silly). It wasn't too bad, but after climbing on the rocks I think I made it worse, and it continued to give me problems the rest of our trip. Although it came in real handy when it came time to board our plane home-priority boarding for "medical reasons"!

Vacation -Part 2

The morning we left my parents house we went up into the mountains for a hike. It was a beautiful day, and we had a nice picnic by a river.


Duncan, Morgan, and Ronan in the mountains.
This is where we 'hiked' to-Hessie Townsite. From where we parked our car I think it took us 20 minutes max to get there! That's my kind of hike at 9,000 feet!
After our 'mountain walk' we stopped over at Grandma Swartouts one more time before heading to Brian's mom's place. Here's me and the kids (minus Ducnan who could not be convinced to leave his puzzle for a photo) with Grandma.

About an hour after we left Grandma's, she was taken to the hospital due to troubles with her heart. The kids and I were able to go down and visit her once while Brian took a nap at his mom's (what did he think, he was on vacation or something?) lol! Thankfully she is doing well, and home now.



While we stayed with Brian's mom and John we went to a stake park with them and had lots of fun. The kids enjoyed playing in this 'cave' below:




Ashlyn was wanting to get in on the rock climbing.

Here's Ronan in the river that we picnicked by-great day! Brian and the kids made a little pool of water by moving some of the rocks around. Any activity with water is always a hit with this crowd! This is really the only photo I got, as my battery died right after-but I did get lost of video for us to enjoy!

Here we are with water again! Cousins came to play with at Grandam C's, and the kids had a blast with the slip n' slide in the back yard!



Ashlyn had a near miss here, when Brian went to get her feet wet, and Duncan came thundering down!

There was a great park by Grandma & Grandpa C's place that we visited. Lot's of open grassy space, perfect for a game of tag! It was great to visit with everyone!

While we were staying here, we realized that our rental van was leaking transmission fluid. So, we had to have them bring us out a new van. Let me tell you it was not easy transferring everything from the van that we had been living out of for the past 10 days to the new one. The tow truck guy kept commenting on how much storage that van must have as we continued to unload EVERYTHING onto the sidewalk before it was put back in the new van. The plus side to all of this was that we got a brand new CLEAN van half-way through the vacation!

Vacation!!-Part 1

So we have been home now for 2 weeks from our vacation, and I am finally getting around to posting this! We were gone for 3 weeks, and visited with family and friends in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. When I was looking at our photos after we got back, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of posting everything! I wanted to get in as much as possible, because this blog has become my journal/scrapbook lately, and if it doesn't get written here, the chances of me preserving these memories somewhere else are pretty slim at the moment!

So, in order to NOT feel so overwhelmed, I will break up the trip into four, as we stayed at four different homes while we were gone. First stop was my parents house. The kids and I flew out a week ahead of Brian. The flight went really well, everyone did great! Brian was able to walk us to the gate, and when an older woman getting on in front of us asked if she could help, Brian snatched her up on the offer. I had said "Oh, no, I think I've got it." (Which would be my response to ANY offers of help at ANY time). Brian then came up and said "Yes, please help her, she won't accept the help, but I would feel so much better if you would!" So, she carried a car seat for me, and helped me get the kids settled in their seats-very nice of her. Ashlyn slept for most of the flight, and the other kids watched DVD's-very uneventful. My parents had arranged to meet us at the gate in Denver, which was very nice, as we had to wait around for Ashlyn's stroller to come off, bathroom trips, getting luggage, etc. The only thing that didn't arrive with us in Denver was the base to Ashlyn's car seat-I can't recall a trip I've taken where there hasn't been SOMETHING missing. But, they delivered it to us that night!

For some reason I haven't been able to move the photos around on the blog today, so these first photos are actually from day 8 in Colorado, the day after Brian joined us.

We went on the Alpine slides! Everyone LOVED it. The ride up in the ski lift was just as exciting as the slide down. It was such a hit that we all ran back for another round!

The photo above is Missy & Sara on the left, and Ronan, Morgan, Brian, Duncan, & Papa on the right slide.

Sean and Stella coming down!

There was a race track that Hayden wanted to ride on, so Missy, Sean and Papa all ran to go with him. But when he got in the car, the poor guy couldn't reach the peddles! So he went on a 'pre-teen' track with some other kids there. We were cheering him on, he came in 2nd, the kid in front of him was good and not letting him pass! GO Hayden!

Now here we are on the first day of our trip. We flew in in the morning, stopped by my grandma's to say hi, then headed up to Tiny Town where we met my sister and her family.

Great-Grandma Swartout and Ashlyn

Ronan in Tiny Town

Ashlyn and Hayden.
Morgan's head is peeking out of the window in the church in Tiny Town.
Duncan's trying to go see a show at the Tiny Town theater.
Tiny Town has this train that goes around the property, which is lots of fun. Of course that is unless you are scared of the whistle! Poor Ashlyn just screamed every time he blew the whistle-which was quite often! She did not enjoy her ride, and her and I sat out for the second go around.

We went horse back riding in the mountains while we were there-it was beautiful. It was an hour ride, and we went up another 1000 feet from where we started. I left my camera with my mom (who had Duncan & Ashlyn with her), and wish I would of been able to capture some of the views we saw!

Hayden and Morgan rode their own horses. Morgan was so proud to be the only kid who had actually ridden a horse alone before (her and I visited the stables here in town before). They both did very well.
Ronan was a little nervous about being in control of such a large animal, and opted to ride with the guide. We were telling him that he was lucky, being out front he was the only one who didn't see a horse's backside during the ride!



Another day we went on the Georgetown loop railroad. It was a beautiful ride, and the kids loved being on a train. All except Ashlyn that is. Luckily the engineer didn't blow the whistle at all on the way up, but not so lucky on the way down.

At the back of the train!
Ashlyn finally took a bit of a nap with Papa on the ride.

Halfway down on the train ride we got off at a mine, and toured through it.

Ronan got to help the man demonstrate how the miners would mine for the silver by candle light.
Here is Papa with all 6 of his grand kids!

View from the train on the way down.


The rest of the time while at my parents, the kids just enjoyed hanging out at their house. Papa had set up a range for the BB guns, and Bow and arrows.

Ronan with the BB gun
Duncan having fun on the tire swing.
Ronan with the bow and arrow, and Hayden taking a shot with the BB gun.
Little Ashlyn even enjoyed the tire swing!
Hayden takes a shot with the bow and arrow.


My Grandma Morris was able to come up to my parents and visit with us! It was great to see her and Larry.

Fun times on the ATV!
Hayden was given the safety course on the ATV, and then was able to ride on his own-he LOVED it!
All 5 kids piled on together!
Hayden was better at controlling the ATV than I was-go Hayden!

The last day we spent with my family was a Baker family reunion. It was great to see cousins, aunts, etc.

The theme seemed to be water during the reunion-the kids loved it!

The Baker Family

Sean, Sara, Lee, Kathy, Missy, Heather