Glacier Park August 2009

Wildflowers were in bloom everywhere! It was beautiful.

Sorry for the leave of absence from the blog. I'll continue where I left off.

For summer vacation this year, the girls and I tagged along with my family up to Glacier Park in Montana. This is one of my most favorite places on earth. SO BEAUTIFUL!

Of course vacation wouldn't be vacation without some mishaps! While caravaning up, my parents and I stopped in Idaho Falls to refuel, but Mark missed the message to stop and kept going. We started again and didn't see him, so we turned around to retrace our tracks before we tracked him down ahead of us about 60 miles.

We drove as far as Great Falls the first day to pick up Amber and her kids. While there that night, my parents discovered they left a suitcase at home. After a quick run to wal-mart for some clothes we settled down into a room at Amber's house for the night. About 1:30 in the am, her smoke alarm started beeping because of the low battery. This smoke detector must have a short or something because they are replacing the battery every month. Anyway, they didn't have a battery to replace it, and it was also hooked up to the electrical system in the house, so there was nothing they could do. Finally, Amber got up and drove to an all-night convienence store to buy a battery. After replacing it and going back to bed, my alarm went off 10 minutes later. I was going into the park early to save some caming spots while my dad and family drove in slower behind us with the trailer. Once there, me and my mom put up my tent and took a nap while we waited for the others to join us. So after a rough start, we got 0ur act together.

Glacier is a hiking vacation and the whole family (14 all together, 8 kids, 6 of the kids are 5 years old and younger) hiked 15 miles during the week. We hiked to Avalance Gorge, up to Avalance Lake, Logan Pass, Sun Point Trail to Baring Falls, Sunrift Gorge. We also played in Lake McDonald, and then rented a sit-on-top kayak and motor boat. We saw lots of Mountain Goats and Big Horn Sheep. We even saw a Black Bear.

The first part of the week was fabulous weather, not too hot and sunny. By the end of the week it was raining and cold. But we still got to see everything.

Whitney loved to have "photo shoots". She would stop along the trail, pose and say, "Take my picture here!"

Summer at Logan Pass

All 8 kids on the trail to Avalance Lake (they hiked 15 miles during the week!)

Me and Amber at the Hidden Lake lookout

Me, Mark and Amber at Lake McDonald

I have been to Glacier a few times and everytime I go back I am amazed at the beauty there! Waterfalls everywhere, wildflowers always in bloom, and wildlife everywhere. It is all so incredible.

One of my favorite sites - Avalanche Gorge

Me and the girls at Baring Falls

July 24th

For Pioneer Day we went to the Ogden 24th parade, had a BBQ at my mom's house with a water slide and the annual "cul-de-sac of fire" after the kids lit all of their sparklers.

While at the parade a cameraman from Fox 13 news came and interviewed all of the cousins. Here is Cade saying he likes the floats and horses in the parade. Notice all the cousins lined up to give their interviews as well.

Happy Birthday Whitney and Summer!

These last 4 years have rushed by! I can't believe that my tiny babies are now 4: going to preschool, dance, running races, and now riding bikes! They are busy girls and growing too fast.

Before:

After:

It's like Christmas!

They both wanted a Princess Barbie cake, but after a couple of failed attempts, this is what they got. They were still happy with it.

Cache Valley Super Sprint Triathlon!

I did it! I did my first triathlon with John on July 18, 2009 in Logan. My cousins Darby and Erin introduced me to this race, they did it last year as well and helped persuade me to do it. I have been thinking of doing one for a while, and we just decided to do one. John and I signed up two weeks before and started training. I bought a pass to the Clearfield Aquatic Center so I could swim and little, and we started biking everywhere and running. Now this is only a sprint distance, so don't get it confused with the ironman. (John and I decided after finishing the tri that anyone who does the ironman distance is certified insane!) We swam 500 meters, biked 12.5 miles and ran 3.1 miles. I knew the swimming would be my weakest and running my strongest, so I thought I would just have to make it to the running and then I would be OK. But after swimming and biking, running was harder than I expected. I need a tri with the running first. I did better than I thought I would do. I had fun and I look forward to doing another one.

Me before the race, We'll see about the smile after the race

John and I after the race - still smiling! Trying to look like athletes with our numbers!