Pictures from Durango

When things get quiet around the house I remember to check on Madison and Parker. When I found them, Madison had dressed up Parker in the dog's scraves and coat. They had used every single item that was in the bag in the closet. I must say a picture is still worth a thousand words. I try to remember these cute moments when they are so wild around the house.
One activity that everyone wanted to do was riding a horse. Paige has been wanting to do this everytime we go to Durango. This year, my parents neighbors agreed to let my kids ride his mild horse Taylor. After many years, I still remember how to ride a horse. My mom says it is like riding a bike, once you have learned you never forget.

Meghan was not so sure about riding a horse. She got on went around the field and got off. She didn't need another turn.

Paige loved riding the horse. Twice wasn't enough. She wanted to make the horse run but couldn't get Taylor to do more than a gallop.

Parker and Madison enjoyed riding the horses too.

The real reason we go to Durango every year about the same time is to help pick raspberries. We made raspberry jam and tri-berry jam this year. I can't remember how many batches we made but we came home with 36 jars of jam (raspberry and tri-berry made with raspberries, strawberries and blackberries), and 22 pints of frozen raspberries. We should have a year's supply at least.

Paige learning how the whole processes works. She even passed off a 10 hour project for personal progress.

Parker and Madison loved to help smash the blackberries through the stainer. Blackberry seeds are much bigger than raspberry seeds so straining them would give you a smoother jam in the end.

The outside firepit was a HUGE success. Last year my mom had my nephew build a porch like area in the oak brush just off the side of the house. We had a lot of fun building fires and making smores to eat. Parker loved to fuel the fire and many times it got pretty big that I was watching the tops of the trees. We love the farm and all we can do on it to escape from life for several days. It was so peaceful to watch the fire and just not worry about anything. Life is pretty simple.

Parker was in charge (with supervision) to keep the fire going after all smores where cooked. We sat for a couple of hours and enjoyed it. Later, we all found we were eaten by misquitoes. A large pond was right over the fence from the firepit.

My family with my parents at the Bar-D. It has always been a fun place to go since I was a little kid. The beautiful red rocks and scenery is just as I remember too.... BEAUTIFUL and BREATH TAKING.

The last night we were there we went to the BAR-D. The BAR-D has been a family tradition ever since I can remember. You have a chuckwagon dinner with entertainment. Well, I think Parker was bored so here are the pictures we got of the evening. Never let a four year old be in charge of the camera.

Visiting the farm in Durango

We made it to Durango on Saturday night and was quickly put to work. My parents spend all day picking raspberries while we were driving to Durango and when we arrived the counter was full of raspberries. So after dinner, we made two batches of jam. After driving 9 1/2 hours and making two batches jam, I slept very well. Work began again on Monday when we picked more raspberries. We picked and picked and then made four batches of jam and froze 27 pints of raspberries. Tuesday was more a play day. Parker and Madison were ready to go swimming at the rec center and climb the rock wall. We played a good four hours which made everyone nice and tired. Wednesday, another picking day. We woke up early since it is nice and cool (about 75 degrees). We picked 2 1/2 hours and ending up with 26 pints of raspberries. I asked my Mom how many pints of raspberries they have picked since the 4th of July and the running total is 200 pints to date. My Dad keeps saying this is a bumper crop the most they have picked in years.
We try to keep the excitement limited but yesterday we had a day of excitement. Parker started off by slipping on the gravel road while walking West and face planted in the gravel. Just a few scraps and a fat lip. Madison got stung by a baby wasp while we were playing at the school's playground that I attended as a kid, Jim's flight was delayed in Denver so had to stay over night since all flights were cancelled for the evening due to servere thunderstorms, and finally West decided to play with a skunk at 10:30 in the evening making the whole house to stink. Today, I hope will be not so exciting.

I just love it when visitors come to town.

Last week, June 20-27, 2009 we had a very special visitor. Ariana Baggaley came to visit us from Roy, Utah. Ari was the very first friend Paige had. They met when they were 18 months old. Her family moved in just up the street from us in Tooele. They were very good friends for four years. When it was time for us to move to Las Vegas, I thought it was important to help Paige keep their friendship a live. Thanks to modern day technology they are able to keep in touch. Paige really wanted to share Las Vegas with her very first friend so we invited her down for one entire week. It was a very busy week. We tried to do something everyday to show her the good sites we do have here in Las Vegas. First on the agenda was to take both of Paige's very good friends to the Mall to go birthday shopping since both Ari and Amity have birthdays in June. It was a lot of fun taking three girls to do some fun shopping. Below is the picture of Ari and Amity wearing their necklaces Paige bought for them.

Tuesday we were able to go down to the Ethel M's chocolate factory and walk through the cactus gardens.

Yummy chocolate samples!!! Can we have two?

After touring the cactus gardens, Paige wanted to show Ari the Bellagio gardens. These gardens change every season of the year. Going to the Bellagio is one of our family favorites because it is always so amazing what they can do with flowers and organic material.

Of course, you can't go down to the Bellagio without also seeing the amazing fountains. I could sit and watch the water all night if my family would let me but we only stay for three shows. The water is in sync with music and it flows perfectly with the beat of the music.

Ari is waiting patiently for the next show with the Bellagio behind her.

Wednesday I took the girls and Parker to play in our parks here in Las Vegas. Of course, our parks are just not any parks. Most all come equipt with water features for the kids to play in. Since we can get pretty HOT down here in Vegas it is nice to see parks to help keep the kids cool. This park we went to is in Centennial Hills right next to the new library. It is right next to the "Butterfly" park, but well hidden so it is not usually very crowded (until now since I have told everyone about it).

Wednesday night was young women and young men's youth activity for our church. They went ice blocking and got very dirty. I was not there so picture are not available of the very dirty kids sliding down hills on blocks of ice. It did sound like they had a lot of fun though.

Thursday, was a day of swimming over at my brother-in-law's home in Summerlin. Pictures below are Steven's pool we went to. He does have a very beautiful backyard to enjoy.

I didn't get pictures of Ari and Paige swimming because I forgot my camera, but here is Paige jumping off the rock cliff the week before. My brother-in-law's pool is cool!!

On Friday, we went to Red Rock Canyon and took the hike on the Children's discovery trail. We were going to take another hike, but I missed the turn and the girls didn't want to endure the

13-mile loop twice so we just went on the Discovery trial. It was fun but the temptures starting getting warm so we took off down town to go to the M&M store on the strip.

We finished up the week by taking a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon early morning Saturday. We got up at 4:30am and left the house by 5:15 am. We drove down to Boulder City where the helicopter terminal was located. We had a 7:00am take-off time. It was pretty neat to fly over Lake Mead and fly over the Grand Canyon.

We had so much fun!!!!!! Let's do it again sometime. Thanks Ari for coming down and spending time with our family.

Summer activities

Okay, I really have been bad about keeping up the blog page. I thought I could sit down and update it weekly but I have not. In fact, I have just finished downloading ALOT of pictures from my camera and have found I have left out ALOT on the blog. So here are the pictures of Meghan and me repelling at Red Rock canyon for her 4th year hiking acitivity. What fun we had. There weren't very many girls that came so those that did come had many turns repelling down the rocks. It was so fun it brought back many memories when I was in high school.