Josh's Birthday 2013

For Josh's birthday this year, I surprised the whole family with a little weekend getaway to Salt Lake.  I secretly got everything prepared and packed, loaded up the trunk of the van and hid everything under a sheet.   Friday evening we all got in the van (Josh blindfolded) and traveled up to Lindon to one of Josh's favorite restaurants, The Smoking Apple, for dinner.  After dinner, I think everyone thought we were done with the surprise, but I told Josh there was one more and we headed up to our hotel in Salt Lake.  Everyone was super surprised and excited that we were spending the weekend!  

The next morning was Josh's actual birthday.  He opened his presents, then we went downstairs to have continental breakfast.

After breakfast we headed off for the next surprise.  We went to Planet Hollywood and played miniature golf and miniature bowling.

We took a lunch break and made sandwiches from makings I had brought in the cooler, then we headed to the next surprise:  A hike on the Temple Quarry Trail.  This was really cool!  We got to walk up to where the early Mormon settlers got all of the granite for the temple.  There were still pieces there.  It was cool to see the rock they made the temple out of, and it was a really pretty spot and nice day as well.

Parker wasn't happy about going on a hike, but he ended up having fun in the long run. :)

The rock they made the SLC temple out of:

For dinner we tried a new place: Curry Fried Chicken.  The kids had shwarma and we had the curry fried chicken.  It was really good!

When we got home, we had Josh's birthday "cake".  A key lime pie that I had made ahead of time and brought in the cooler.

The next day we decided to go to Temple Square. It was fun to look closely at the walls of the temple and other buildings and see how it was the same as the rock we had seen at the old quarry.

And of course I had to take a picture of Quinn looking out of the window at the visitor's center.

The First Half of May

Cute Cousins! :)  One day when I was watching my sisters' girls I found them all sitting

on the stairs playing cars. 

Cabbage head! ;)

After church on Mother's Day we went up to one of our favorite little

spots in Spanish Fork Canyon for a picnic.  

Isaac and Parker had a Space Derby for Cub Scouts this year.

They all made rockets and then got help launching them in the air

with an air compressor (I think that's what it was).

Bryce got to make one too:

Bryce had a cute end of year program at school.  They sang songs

and had a filmstrip with pictures from the school year.  He had 

a great year at school!  We sure love his teacher and aides.

The Rest of April

Very random photos in April!  

After church story-reading with Daddy. :)

I had to take some pictures of the temple in Provo being constructed.  I think it will be so cool to look back on someday.  It was amazing how they lifted the whole "shell" of the old Tabernacle building up and were doing construction underneath.

Quinn had lots of fun helping us plant our spring garden!  He loved putting the seeds in.

Quinn is our window boy.  I have so many pics of him looking out windows. (I've probably mentioned before).  This one was at a restaurant looking out at the cars going by. :)

We had a neighborhood/ward clean up day.  We went to our neighbor's house

and helped them clean up all of the walnuts on their lawn under their walnut tree.

Quinn loved this little watermelon we got from Bountiful Baskets.

We got a little bike trailer for Bryce and Quinn to ride in and went on a couple of

family bike rides (we need to do it more often!).  This time we rode to the park and let the 

kids play for a bit.  It was a little weird for me to get back on a bike after 15 years. :)

Yep, Quinn ran up and got in the bath I had got ready for him - clothes, watermelon and all. Haha!

I had to take a picture of Quinn with a straw so I would remember that at this

time, he pronounced straw "Fwah".  So cute! :)  

I tried a new homemade pizza - broccoli cheese.  It turned out pretty good. 

I also made one of our usual ones - barbecue chicken. :)

Another window picture! :)

Our asparagus grew this year. Yay for fresh asparagus!