Salem Days 5K Run!

On August 8th, Josh decided to try running a 5K. There was one at the Salem Days festivities, so he registered and ran it! He did well for never having trained for it. He has plans to run in more - he had a lot of fun! The boys and I went over and watched the race.

Family Reunion

August 1st and 2nd we had a family reunion for my mom's side of the family. We held the reunion on Monroe Mountain and went camping and did a little fishing. We also had a couple of watermelon eating contests (one for the kids and one for the adults). We had a great time, and it was good to hang out with some family that we don't get to see as much as we used to!

Pioneer Day & Fiesta Days

For Pioneer Day (July 24th) this year we went to our town's celebration called Fiesta Days. In the morning, we went to the big parade. It was a fun parade. The kids had fun running after candy, although it took Isaac some time to warm up to it. LOL! Parker wasn't scared to go out and get it though!

Gotta love the pink tractor. ;)

This is a float for one of the local nurseries - in case you're wondering. :)

After the parade, we went home for a bit, then headed over to the festival and walked through the booths. We had lunch there and watched some of the performances. One of Isaac's flip flops broke (this boy is so hard on shoes!) so we headed home for a bit to rest and get out of the heat. Josh's parent's invited us over for dinner, so we went to their house and ate, then headed back to the festival so we could go to the carnival. We had to stop along the way and try some deep-fried Oreos. They were SO good!!

I was SO excited because they finally had a different carnival this year. I didn't like the carnival they had the previous years because all it had was the super scary thriller rides or little kid rides... nothing in between. The one they had this year was SO much better and even had my favorite ride - Tilt-0-Whirl. :) The only downfall was that this carnival was really expensive. :( So anyway, we went on a few rides at the carnival then headed over to the sports park to watch the fireworks. They put on a great firework show, and the kids had lots of fun. It was hilarious because Bryce kept saying, "WOW!" and "WHOA!" the whole time. It was funny because I think he was mimicking other people more than saying that for himself. : )

We had a great 24th this year!

Las Vegas Vacation - Day 8

The last day of our vacation was mainly spent driving home. We checked out of our condo that morning and decided to stop at the Ethel M. Chocolate Factory on the way out. It wasn't as cool as it could have been because it was a Saturday the day we went and the factory was not operating. We still got to tour through it. They had a little shop at the end with a sample of chocolate for all the guests. The candy was VERY expensive, so we didn't buy any. They also had a huge cactus garden. It was neat to see, but it was such a hot day and Parker was temper tantruming, so we kind of hurried through it.

This was a cool sculpture made completely of chocolate
that they had displayed in the store:

After we left the chocolate factory and cactus garden, we headed home! We made one last stop in St. George at the In 'n' Out for lunch and then went the rest of the way home. It was such a fun vacation and we were sad that it was over.

Las Vegas Vacation - Day 7

On the seventh day of our vacation, we went to the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort Historic Park. It was once an old fort founded by some Mormon missionaries that were sent to the area by Brigham Young. It ended up being owned and run by a few different groups. It was neat to see and to hear about some of the history of Las Vegas.



After we went through the fort, we went to the Main Street Station Buffet to have lunch with Josh's parents (still in town). It was fun to hang out with them for a bit. The workers at the buffet let our kids eat for free, so we got a really good deal on lunch! It was a great buffet too.

After lunch, we headed over to the Venetian Casino to see Madame Tussade's Wax Museum. I LOVE wax museums, so this was one of my favorite things that we did in Vegas. :) The wax people look SO much more real in real life than they do in these pictures. Some of them were down right creepy. You almost had to look twice to see if they were wax or real and sometimes it felt like they were really looking at you! LOL! Loved it! One cool thing about them is that they were created to be lifesize to the person they portray. It was interesting to see how tall or how small some of them are/were in real life. I couldn't believe how short Michael Jackson was! Like I said, they don't look as real in the pictures - they almost look like mannequins in the pictures, but it was fun to take some anyway. We were a little bedraggled from the heat (at least I was!) in these pics... Oh well. : ) While we were at the wax museum, we got to watch a group of people filming a TV show and the actors and actresses walked by us several time all the way through the museum. It wasn't a show I watch (it's called The Girls Next Door) and I didn't know the main actress that we saw (Holly Madison), but it was still cool to see an actual TV show being filmed! Carrot Top was there too filming with him, so he was one guy we knew of. I don't know why I didn't take a picture of them - a little weird pointing your camera at real people I guess. :)

This is a picture of the inside of the Venetian.
They had gondola rides that you could go on,
but we didn't take time to do that.

Oprah:

Indiana Jones!

Josh and Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie (Brad was one that looked REALLY real)

Josh and Jean-Luc Picard:
Josh and Johnny Depp:
Cameron Diaz (she looked pretty real in real life):Yay, Buffy! Me and Sarah Michelle Gellar (bad pic of me):

Josh and Joe Montana:
Me and Tim McGraw:
Josh and Lenny Kravitz:
Can't remember who this dude was:Isaac & Parker with Blue Man Band:

This is one of the sculptures that did NOT look real at all.
Elton John with Josh & Bryce:

Us with Nicholas Cage (can you tell Parker took this picture?):

Nicholas Cage:

Ben Franklin & George Washington:

Abe Lincoln:
Good Ol' John Wayne:
Josh with President Bush:
The boys with Neil Armstong and the other astronaut:
Josh and President Obama:
Martin Luther King Jr.
Elvis:

After the wax museum, we were walking back through the Venetian and
came across this statue... that ended up being a real guy dressed UP like a statue!
He was kind of cool, but a little creepy. He didn't say a word, just moved once in awhile.

After we left the Venetian, we went to dinner at a yummy Thai place where we had a coupon, then went back to the condo! Awesome day!