Thursday, October 29, 2009

Family Pictures



I've been wanting to get family pictures taken for a long time, and we finally found a night to do it while my sister was in town to help. (Thanks Megs and Lou.) With bribes and threats helping us along, I was pretty pleased with how they turned out. None of you probably care to see as many pictures of our family as I posted, but it's so hard to choose between cute pictures of your children.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The American West Heritage Center

On our family vacation to Logan and Bear Lake we spent one day at the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville. It's a 1820-1920 farm replica with all kinds of fun activities and animals. We had tons of fun, especially on the giant slide and with the gourd launcher. The kids loved feeding the horses and riding the ponies. It was well worth the $6 admission. We got to see goats, chickens, turkeys, peacocks, sheep, horses, donkeys, and buffalo, to name a few. They had a little train ride for the kids and all kinds of other things to do. This was definitely our favorite day on vacation. We especially loved having Aunt Megan there to have all the fun with us. The kids said lots of funny things while we were there, but they're all written under "Life's Full of Laughs." Be sure to check them out on the left of the screen.

When we got there it was really cold. Gary kept Jarom warm by bundling him up inside his coat, and trying to face him toward the sun as much as possible. Unfortunately, Jarom ended up with a sunburn, but apparently he was warm enough. He was a great kid the whole time, he never even peeped. I guess he just loves hanging out with his daddy.

There was a giant hay fort for the kids to play in. I was really excited for them to see it, but they weren't so excited once the hay started going down their pants and into their shoes.

Jenzie didn't seem to have any fear when it came to petting the animals. She let them all eat right out of her hand, even the big horses with the BIG TEETH! (I'm not so sure I'd be willing to do that.) These pygmy goats were really cute, just the right size for the kids to pet.
Even with the mother duck right there, Jenzie was brave enough to pet the ducklings. Then when the mother duck started toward her, she was smart enough to back off.

While Jenzie was busy petting all the animals, Colin took time for his favorite pastime. . . carrying a big stick all over the place. There's no doubt about it, he's all boy.

They had a huge gourd launcher set up for . . . launching gourds. We picked these pumpkins from a nearby field only to discover a wagon full of little gourds right next to the launcher when we walked back. Oops. We weren't very good at it (except Gary), but we had a blast.
The only hiccup came when Jenzie and I were stretching the sling as far as we could. Then Jenzie counted to 3 and I let go, but Jenzie didn't. She was launched a few feet forward and face-planted right in the dirt. Sorry Jenz.
There's more than one way to launch a gourd.
The giant sling shot wasn't working so well for me, so I improvised.

Here's Jenzie on her horse. Both kids got to ride the ponies twice.

Here's Colin riding a horse all by himself. Both kids were really brave around all the animals. Of course this is just about all they talk about these days. They loved it!