Summer!!

Wow, this summer is flying by!!  I LOVE IT!!  Between hosting a garage sale, S. Utah trip, trips up to SLC & Bountiful and various other activities it hardly feels we've had a chance to relax!  Here's some fun things we've been up to:

The day school got out we went ice skating to celebrate.  It was pretty awesome though we have no pictures to show for it!  The next day we headed up to J's parents and B found dressing up in different themes all too much fun.  This is her crazy 60s-ish rock star outfit.

That night we went to a wedding reception in Bountiful for my friend from my college days.  Yes, she had a mechanical bull ride.

We all braved a ride

Even my little man (& big man but his pics didn't turn out)

Luckily the operator didn't pull a fast one on me and I managed to stay on!

Four of my old roomies made it to the reception!  (3 in the pic) SO much fun to see them again!  And the bride and groom threw quite the party with a choreographed hilarious first dance, the mechanical bull, a popcorn stand that included yummy orange-creme popcorn, delicious spice cake, a kissing booth you could do with funny pictures, sequenced quilt squares showing the progress of their relationship drawn in stick figures.  My kids reaction, "BEST wedding reception ever!"  I agreed.  I'll have to remember those ideas for my kidlets!

The SLC Aviary!  I love this place!

One of my favorites!  I believe this was a white-faced Ibis?

That blob in the tree was the tiniest, cutest little owl I had ever seen and the day out was even better with a cousin, aunt and grandparents to share it with.

Real Salt Lake Game!  We're here for R-S-L!!  (sadly, they lost)

Little bug ready to leave for her recital

All dressed up.

Little Bug's dance studio put on "Swan Lake" with the Utah Ballet and it was superb!  My favorite part of the show?  Watching my little cutie pie perform her dance of course!!!

Southern Utah Trip

In a nutshell:

5 days
4 nights
3 campsites
3 National Parks (Zion's, Grand Canyon & Bryce)
41 states' license plates + D.C.
4 Canadian provinces license plates + 1 European (Germany)
18+ miles we each hiked
24 birds species identified
Many wildlife--favorites include the Kaibab squirrel, bats & various lizards
3 skinned knees
0 accidents from little Bug! (a true camping miracle)
$4.50 to shower
800 or so miles added to our van
5 happy & tired family members

Zions National Park

Happy hikers

On the trail to the Narrows

Begin water part of hike

Good thing it was warm this day because the water was COLD!

Cool water fall

Posers

This was the coolest hike ever

We love Zion's National Park!!

Trailhead to Middle & Upper Emerald Pools

We saw SO many lizards!

And at Upper Emerald Pool the kids caught many water skeeters and tadpoles

Weeping Wall hike

Grand Canyon National Park

Bright Angel Point

B wanted to take this butterfly home

The Grand Canyon

Pretty bird, pretty bird  (Stellar's Jay)

The "Ant home" the kids built.  They built big walls on all sides in case the ants got invaded, collected "wheat" for them to eat, made play areas for the ants and caught several red & black ants each to put into the home.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Rainbow Point

Before the Loop trail at Rainbow Point.  A nice couple with a gorgeous husky loved all our hats & offered to take a picture for us.

Little Miss

Going down into the canyon on the Navajo Loop Trail

Tree seat

What a cool hike!

We loved looking for shapes in the hoodoos.  Big J saw Rayman in this one from the Wii game Raving Rabbids.

Post-Navajo Loop picture.  What a neat canyon!  We loved this trip and camping & hiking together as a family with no electronics for a full 5 days! (well, ok, except for the portable DVD player in the car and listening to Magic Tree House on CD)

Scotland 8:  Glamis Castle, St. Andrews & Falkirk Wheel

Glamis Castle

Glamis Castle was very elegant and majestic and we thoroughly enjoyed this castle.  The dining hall was amazing and there was a armor room as well that was pretty cool.  This was one of the first places we heard of castle ghost stories & some of them were pretty spooky!  The castle is still a residence for the Lyon family, which it has been since 1376!, but obviously that part of the castle was not on our tour.  

Our tour guide was a lovely Scottish woman and when we got to the castle's game room she asked if anyone played the piano.  Of course I spoke up for J and he played the lively American piece, "Maple Leaf Rag".  The piano is dated from 1899 and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother played on it as a child.  Pretty neat!

Glamis Castle also has some nice gardens and they were fun to walk around.  They had a fun tree tunnel, to my left.  The castle also had a room for some of the gowns and outfits The Queen Mother has worn and a bit of her history.  I was more interested than J in that stuff but he humored me and we browsed.

St. Andrews

Can you tell he's excited to be at one of the most famous golf courses in the world?!  He played the old course on a trip with his family a number of years ago and I'm sure he remembers about every hole on the course.....in great detail.

Awwww.  So cute, right?!  This was officially our 10th anniversary trip so we had to put it in writing, even though I'm sure it was washed away by morning.  Nine years into raising children, though we love them dearly and missed them every minute, we loved reconnecting with just us two for such an extended trip.  Ah, young love.  Funny to look back on how we've changed in the last ten years and it seems like it has flown by.  J still means the world to me and I'm sure in another 10 years I'll still feel the same.

We stayed at another hostel in St. Andrews and this one was more accommodating--bigger room and they pushed our twin beds together we could be sleeping next to each other instead of on bunks.  So nice.  We took a walk around town and found this fun tunnel and checked out the castle and cathedral quick before dinner at a pub where we watched a futbol game.

The cathedral must have been absolutely enormous!  

We ended up having a little time to kill so we decided to check out the Falkirk Wheel

This thing is Nuts!  The wheel was only built in 2002 but it is engineering genius.  The wheel connect the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal so that Glasgow and Edinburgh could be connected by canals.  The elevation difference between the canals is about 159 feet and a boat transfer used to use a series of 11 locks and took all day.  Now it takes only 24 minutes or something like that with the wheel and a couple locks still needed.  

We made it just in time to see one of the last boat tours of the day use the wheel.  It is incredibly quiet and they say it uses very little energy.  

We then decided to eat in Paisley near the airport but unfortunately everywhere we tried to go in they had already closed the kitchens (at only 7pm!)  So we ended up at McDonald's!  Not the way we planned to eat our last meal in Scotland but ironic that it would be the only place we could find that was still serving food at 7:30pm.  Still, this was the trip of a lifetime and I hardly ever thought during the long 8 years of nearly-starving student mode and all that we've been through that we would have this opportunity so soon into "real life".