2012 Blue Jeans Week 23

So welcome to Blue Jeans Momma.  I am a huge Project Life fan and am doing my 4th year of a picture-a-day scrapbooking to document my family's life.  Technology is a wonderful thing, when it works, but ours hasn't been working for a while.  Our old computer died, and we had to get a new one, and with the end of school, vacation, and just life in general I have been absent for a while.  Previous posts show pictures of our National Parks vacation which was wonderful!   But after 8 weeks I am ready and somewhat back to normal (whatever that means, maybe that the laundry is caught up for a minute?) to start posting my weekly shots again, so welcome!  Here is what we have been up to the past week. . .

Sunday:  For summer reading Miss O and Miss E decided to re-read Harry Potter.  What great summer reading!  Both of them can always be found with a HP book in their hands now.  They are both currently on #5.  Love it!

Monday:  Monday nights are family nights at our house.  My sister and her husband where in town and joined us tonight.  We were playing some clapping games--Big Buddha to be precise--lots of laughing and fun!

Tuesday:  Found someone with a really big telescope so we could watch Venus travel in front of the sun today.  It was really neat to see especially with that cool telescope.

Wednesday:  Mr J decided he wanted a buzz for the summer and asked Grandpa to do it for him.  Love his expression :)  

Thursday:  Miss O has the best expressions, and she just loves it when her mom takes her picture (ha, ha).  My sister brought her amazing bead collection for the girls to make necklaces and bracelets to their hearts content today.  Super fun!

Friday:  Mr J's birthday party!  We only have friend parties every other year on odd numbered birthdays, so Mr J was due this year.  They had pizza and got really wet with water balloons, water guns, and dumping buckets of water on each other's heads--summer fun! (this picture is obviously the "before and dry" picture.  I neglected to get an "after and wet" one)

Saturday:  Ben and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend our church's  new temple.  Previously our closest temple had been about 4-5 hours away.  This one is only 2!  Yeah!  What a blessing!  It is beautiful!

Thanks for visiting!  Have a wonderful week!

Capitol Reef National Park

Our last and final National Park on this trip was Capitol Reef NP

It is thus named because of the rocks resembling the capitol building.  We were blessed these 3 days of our trip to have Ben's parents come down and join us.  The girls with their Grandma.

The beautiful park at sunset

One of the many cool rock places to explore

Ben, his mom, and Ella take a break during a hike.

Cool places

Cool spaces

The kids and their grandparents at a bridge which is different than an arch.  A bridge is formed by water.

We went on lots of fun hikes

Beautiful views

We loved Capital Reef NP!  Our national parks are wonderful!

Canyonlands National Park

So after our days at Arches NP we went to Canyonlands National Park.  It is about 40 miles away from Arches.

I didn't know much about Canyonlands NP, and I was amazed when I got there.  It reminded me a lot of the Grand Canyon.  This arch looking out over a vast canyon was beautiful.

Aren't bunny ears over a sibling's head mandatory in vacation photos?

The girls looking out over another canyon.

Beautiful overlooks, and Miss O is getting tired ;)

This area was called the upheaval dome.  The changes in color of the rock were awesome.

Looking out over the canyon with the Green River in the background.  Amazing to think what water can create over the centuries.  We loved Canyonlands National Park!

Arches National Park

So our first National Park we visited on this trip was Arches National Park.

The kids loved the rocks.  This area was the "rock pile" making area.  We made some cool rock towers here.

The kids by balanced rock.

One of the many, jaw-droppingly amazing arches at the park.  Our world is so full of beautiful things.  We are so blessed that the Lord loves us and gave us this beautiful earth!

This is double arch.

While we were there they had the solar eclipse.  The rangers had the special black sun viewing glasses so you could watch the eclipse.  It was really neat.

We did lots of hiking.  

Lots of hiking to see amazing places like Delicate arch

And landscape arch which is the longest arch of its kind in the world.

This is sandstone arch, and it was really completely surrounded by sand--a very fine, red sand that got everywhere, and the kids loved to play in.  I am still shaking out sand from our shoes.

We loved Arches National Park!

Dillon, Colorado

So our first stop going and coming was a new find.  I just found Dillon, CO while looking for hotels to stay at on our way to some National Parks.  It was a awesome find.  We want to go back and just spend a week there for vacation.  It is a small, beautiful mountain town--a ski town in the winter with a beautiful lake to enjoy in the summer. We spent 2 days there and loved it, but it was a little cold some days--32 in the morning, which was quite a change once we got to the dessert, and it was 101!  

At the beautiful Dillon Lake

Mr J out on the pier

Getting the whole family into a picture can be a challenge :)

View from our hotel room--the kids were so excited to see snow!!!  

A fun playground we enjoyed.

On our way home we stopped again for a day in Dillon.  It was really windy that day, and the kids loved throwing rocks into the waves of the lake.

Enjoying a peaceful afternoon at the lake.

So if you are looking for a smaller, cool, mountain town to visit, we would definitely recommend Dillon.  It has lots of outlet shopping and yummy food also.

May recap

So we are catching up here after being without a computer for over a month.  Here are some highlights of May. . .

Miss E had her birthday!!!

Field day at school!  Mr J jumps really well over those hay bails.  Love field day!

Miss A and our Governor.  She won a state writing contest and got to meet him.  Yes, I am a very proud mom!

Got our garden planted!  Those bushes on the right are blackberry bushes, and they are loaded right now!  Yum!

Last day of school "Toyota" jump!  School's out for the summer!

Middle school awards assembly--Miss A got the very prestigious American Legion award given to one girl and one boy.  Way to go girl!  Watch out high school, here she comes!! (ugh!  high school!!!)

First day of summer we went to the city and to the aquarium.  It was fun.

Also enjoyed running through the fountains in the city :)  It is officially summer when you add water

And Mr J also had a birthday.  In our family it is tradition for the kids to decorate their own cakes.  Mr J was very proud of his creation.  

So that is just some highlights from May.  I have vacation photos coming up . . . stay tuned and thanks for visiting!

Yes, we are still alive

Yes, we are still alive and doing well.  We finally got a new computer, but our old one crashed before we got a lot of stuff off of it--mostly e-mails and my address book, so if you think I have your e-mail address, I don't :)  So send me a quick e-mail to benj7395@yahoo.com so we can get reconnected.

School is out--May 16th.   The kids did great.  We went on vacation.  That was awesome.  We visited 3 National Parks--Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef.  I am a huge National Parks fan.  I have lots of pictures to share.  I am still figuring out where everything is on the new computer.  Windows 7 is different.  Not sure I like it yet.

Summer crazy hasn't totally started yet, but will soon.  I am just digging myself out of the 3 days of laundry that I had to do after a week and a half of vacation.  I can't figure that one out.  How can that many days of vacation produce that much laundry?  But it is finally all done (at least until next week) and put away, and we are adjusting to re-entry (life after vacation).  Summer at our house means lots and lots of reading, so in a week's time we have been to the library 3 times.  We love our library.  Any good summer reads send our way. We are always looking for a new good book.  One we enjoyed on our trip was The Clockwork Three by Matthew Kirby.

Have a good one and check back in soon for pictures!!