California Here We Come!

Wendell went to Youth Conference the last weekend in June, and so the kids and I headed to Long Beach one last time to help Natalie. Besides saying good-bye to the Long Beach house, we also ran the kids ragged. We swam a lot in the hotel pool, went to a Pirate Festival on the beach (imagine a Star Trek convention for anyone wanting to dress as a pirate), visited the Adventure Playground (yes, they give hammers, nails, and saws to small children and tell them to pound away as well as lots of mud), rode in a hot air balloon for free, and of course visited the Balboa beach via ferry. And to think we did all of this in 2 days.

Happy Birthday Tyler-Again!

The day after we got back from our National Park tour, Tyler had his friends over for a party. (He was a little upset that we were gone on his actual birthday of June 11th). Wendell got a screen and projector and we set up a movie theater for the party. Of course there were presents, and...

....lots of pizza. Boys can really eat.

Games were played to earn tickets for the "Rich Snack Bar."

Megan and her friend Rylee ran the snack bar. There was candy, nachos, popcorn, and soda. Even after all that pizza, the boys still managed to eat what I thought was pounds of candy. I guess that is why most of them said they had a stomach ache when they left.

This was the Rich Theater for the showing of "National Treasure 2". We started out real well, but about an hour in some of the boys went outside to play. I figured as long as they were having fun it didn't really matter what they were doing. Tyler of course stayed and watched the entire movie. He has a really long attention span.

This was Tyler's favorite part of the evening. He opened all of his presents and went to town. Most of them were Lego sets so he was in heaven putting them together---after the majority of the party left of course. Another year done and another year older. I can hardly wait to see what he wants to do next year.

Bryce Canyon

On our tour of the National Parks we stopped in Bryce Canyon on our way back home. The views there are amazing also.

Tyler, Megan, & Emily loved all the arches and rock formations.

There were also lots of fun hikes. This is the top of the "millions" of switchbacks to the bottom---millions was the number from Emily when she finally reached the top again. I must say I was very proud of the kids for making it to the bottom and even more excited when they made it to the top again.

Also I need to mention all this hiking was done in flip flops by all 3 kids. We love this sign at the top of the hike (which we didn't see going down) that says boots recommended. Yes, there were many comments-especially from the foreign visitors-on the idiot family in flip flops trying to hike.

After the switchback hike, Megan did change her shoes for this hike to a cave and waterfall. Emily and Tyler stuck it out in there flip flops. I think Emily did it knowing she would get a piggyback ride from me on the way back.

We always have to have a picture by the river. Emily and Tyler sent lots of rocks, twigs, and leaves down this one. Emily was making sure the fish down the waterfall had plenty to eat. We loved Bryce Canyon probably the most of all the parks we saw. Definitely worth the drive.

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Old West!

While traveling through Kanab on our way back from the Grand Canyon, Wendell wanted to stop and see some old Western movie sets. The kids didn't want to drive through desert to try and find something. So we were lucky enough to find some of the sets had been brought to downtown Kanab for everyone's viewing pleasure. I had never heard of half the movies that these buildings came from, but then again I'm not a real Western movie fan.
Megan found the noose right away and had to have a picture.

No old-fashioned dress-up pictures in this town. This is as good as it gets.

Every Western movie has to have a jail. This one even had creepy looking stuffed jailbirds. My favorite was that the bars are actually pvc pipe. No wonder there were so many breaking out of jail.