The first part of November, Cory had to make a business trip to Gillette. By business trip, I mean he had to drive 7 hours, to work for 2 hours, and the drive home. We figured that since I've wanted to see more of the state, and it was such a long drive for such a short time, maybe we'd all just join him! What follows is the tale of our adventure.
Seven hours in a car with 5 kids sounds a bit nightmarish, am I right? But in all honesty it was a very pleasant trip. We started about 3 in the afternoon and made it all the way to Casper before we stopped for dinner!
Trace loves the car, so it was no surprise that he loved the whole trip. He even let his sister sleep on his shoulder that evening when things got long and late.
Mason was happy, so long as he had a cup full of snacks in his lap (or in his face!). He loved his time in the play place at Mc Donalds in Casper, and he was awake the ENTIRE trip. On the bright side he slept well that night!
I'm not sure what Liv was thinking in this shot. Probably something along the lines of "Mom why is that thing in my face and flashing bright lights at me?" She was happy until just outside of Gillette. What a trooper!
And the buddies! They travel so well together, and they love to play and sing while we drive. It definitely makes trips easier on this momma!
I loved the trees growing out of the rocky crags just outside of Muddy Gap. Say what you will about Wyoming, but it really does have some beautiful landscape.
Martins Cove
This picture was taken on the way to Gillette. We stopped on the way home, and boy howdy was it cold. It was windy and maybe 30 degrees (at least we weren't the people pulling handcarts through a river crossing that day!). It really was an awesome place though and you could really feel the spirit there. It was also a blessing that we ended up stopping, because we would have hit our ground blizzard between Rawlins and Rock Springs, and well, that would have been bad. But that story will follow.
Independence Rock. Not nearly as big and impressive as I'd expected. More like Independence Bump. :)
And here we are FINALLY in Gillette. We stayed in a beautiful hotel, and the kids got to swim (which they loved), but while Daddy was working we found a park to play at. It was 50 something degrees, which was balmy considering it was 30 at home. We found a great park just a few minutes from the hotel, and we actually ended up being there most of our trip. We would have spent more time in the pool, but about 5 seconds after the kids got out, they put up a "closed for maintenance" sign and wouldn't let us in. And every time we asked they'd say "it should be up again in an hour or so. So we left a day early to head for home, in a hopes of avoiding the snow.
These are some more park shots. Trace loved the spinney leaves. You sat on them and centrifugal force kept you spinning.
You can't really see it in this shot, but Kena got an adorable bob haircut while we were there. It's so much easier to care for and she looks awesome.
What more can I say. Who wouldn't love that face!
After our stop in Martins Cove the weather took a turn for the worst, and about 10 miles north of Rawlins we hit, what we here in Wyoming like to refer to as, a ground blizzard. We got a small about of powdery snow, followed by a TON of wind. Put the two together and you get roads that you can't see and limited visibility. It's the only time that I've ever had to use the deliniators to know where the road was, and if there hadn't been a truck in front of us with bright break lights, we may have had a much harder time. It took nearly 45 minutes to get into town. It was a blessing to be just out of Rawlins. There's not anything between Rawlins and Rock Springs and we would have been forced to keep going!
We got a hotel again for the night and thought "well at least we'll have a pool to spend our evening in!" To bad there pool was under construction too. Oh well. We did enjoy our time as a family though. It was a fun trip and we got some real quality time together. All in all I'd call it a success!
Our December started out uneventfully. We finished our Christmas shopping early, and were just enjoying our time together as a little family. And then the sick bug struck! It started with Jaxon. He was simply crabby for almost a week solid. You couldn't even look at his without him tearing out or laying into you, depending on the moment. He'd run a low grade fever, but I didn't think much of it, until he came out of his bedroom one morning with this on his neck! It scared me to death. I've never seen a lymph node that large. Turns out the doctor hadn't either, and we learned that he had strep and an infected node. Luckily with antibiotics, his growth was gone in about a week. Then we had Mason get sick on us. He was so lathargic and sad. I actually had flash backs to him being in the hospital when he was about 9 months old. Super scary. Lucky for us he just needed a few antibiotics to perk right back up. Did I mention that Trace had pink eye too! So much fun!
We spent Christmas this year in Salt Lake. Cory's mother watched our kiddo's while we went downtown for our anniversary. It was wonderful to have some us time. Then the following night we took our kiddo's downtown to see the lights. Mason and Jaxson LOVED the train. There's something magical about it when you're two and Mason couldn't get enough.
Mason liked the lights and he was such a trooper. He walked through all the crowds and people with no complaint. Doesn't he just look angelic in this picture.
And then it was Christmas! I got several shots of people opening presents. This is the older kids with their Innotabs from Santa. I've decided, however, that I'm the worst mommy ever. I didn't get a single picture of Liv, not even one! Her first Christmas and I really dropped the ball. Sigh, hopefully she'll forgive me someday. After a present smorgasbord, we went to Church with Grandma and Papa. It was a beautiful, musical meeting and it was a treat to see Grandpa sing. After chruch, we met Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh back at the house to open family gifts and just enjoy the day. It was shortly there after that I was told that I should be ready by 9 the next day, because Cory's sisters were taking me to a location to be disclosed at a later date. hmmm 
After worrying most of the night that I might come home with a tattoo or nose ring, imagine my surprise and delight when we ended up on the set of Good Things Utah! So much fun. We sat through a taping, and then met the hosts. It was a blast. Followed by a yummy lunch at Johnny Carinos, and then home to a surprise party! One day I hope Cory will learn that I hate surprises, but I'll give it to him that he's great at pulling them off. I had Wyoming friends, and Utah friends, some I hadn't seen in years, all help me celebrate my big 3-0! It was wonderful.
Cory has very fond memories for playing "movie theater" with his Oregon cousins, and so yesterday he set up a theater here for our kiddos. Mr Poppins Peguins played on the big screen.
Grab your money...here we go!
We used money from the game of Life, which is why prices are so high. Pretty appropriate though considering that admission was $100,000.00! :)
Grab a candy...
...and don't forget the drink and popcorn!
Get ready...
Then lay back and enjoy the show!
This year for Thanksgiving, we went and played in NM. I love this shot of Cousin Christopher. I thing one of my kiddos took it. So cute!
Miss Olivia with Grandpa Black. We had a good time with Grandpa and Grandma Jewel. We played a fun new dice game, ate TASTY food, and the kids had a blast rolling down Grandpa's hill on his Wheely Cars. Did I mention the 4 wheeler rides? It was awesome.
These next shots are from our trip to the Farmington Children's museum. They had a whole area of hands on play, and its were we spent 90% of our time.
There was a special baby area and Liv loved it. She especailly liked this ball. Lucky she's getting some for Christmas!
Another good shot with Cousin Chris. It really was a fun and wonderful trip. Thank you so much to Eileen and Ernie for letting us invade their space and play!
The first part of November, Cory had to make a business trip to Gillette. By business trip, I mean he had to drive 7 hours, to work for 2 hours, and the drive home. We figured that since I've wanted to see more of the state, and it was such a long drive for such a short time, maybe we'd all just join him! What follows is the tale of our adventure.
Seven hours in a car with 5 kids sounds a bit nightmarish, am I right? But in all honesty it was a very pleasant trip. We started about 3 in the afternoon and made it all the way to Casper before we stopped for dinner!
Trace loves the car, so it was no surprise that he loved the whole trip. He even let his sister sleep on his shoulder that evening when things got long and late.
Mason was happy, so long as he had a cup full of snacks in his lap (or in his face!). He loved his time in the play place at Mc Donalds in Casper, and he was awake the ENTIRE trip. On the bright side he slept well that night!
I'm not sure what Liv was thinking in this shot. Probably something along the lines of "Mom why is that thing in my face and flashing bright lights at me?" She was happy until just outside of Gillette. What a trooper!
And the buddies! They travel so well together, and they love to play and sing while we drive. It definitely makes trips easier on this momma!
I loved the trees growing out of the rocky crags just outside of Muddy Gap. Say what you will about Wyoming, but it really does have some beautiful landscape.
Martins Cove
This picture was taken on the way to Gillette. We stopped on the way home, and boy howdy was it cold. It was windy and maybe 30 degrees (at least we weren't the people pulling handcarts through a river crossing that day!). It really was an awesome place though and you could really feel the spirit there. It was also a blessing that we ended up stopping, because we would have hit our ground blizzard between Rawlins and Rock Springs, and well, that would have been bad. But that story will follow.
Independence Rock. Not nearly as big and impressive as I'd expected. More like Independence Bump. :)
And here we are FINALLY in Gillette. We stayed in a beautiful hotel, and the kids got to swim (which they loved), but while Daddy was working we found a park to play at. It was 50 something degrees, which was balmy considering it was 30 at home. We found a great park just a few minutes from the hotel, and we actually ended up being there most of our trip. We would have spent more time in the pool, but about 5 seconds after the kids got out, they put up a "closed for maintenance" sign and wouldn't let us in. And every time we asked they'd say "it should be up again in an hour or so. So we left a day early to head for home, in a hopes of avoiding the snow.
These are some more park shots. Trace loved the spinney leaves. You sat on them and centrifugal force kept you spinning.
You can't really see it in this shot, but Kena got an adorable bob haircut while we were there. It's so much easier to care for and she looks awesome.
What more can I say. Who wouldn't love that face!
After our stop in Martins Cove the weather took a turn for the worst, and about 10 miles north of Rawlins we hit, what we here in Wyoming like to refer to as, a ground blizzard. We got a small about of powdery snow, followed by a TON of wind. Put the two together and you get roads that you can't see and limited visibility. It's the only time that I've ever had to use the deliniators to know where the road was, and if there hadn't been a truck in front of us with bright break lights, we may have had a much harder time. It took nearly 45 minutes to get into town. It was a blessing to be just out of Rawlins. There's not anything between Rawlins and Rock Springs and we would have been forced to keep going!
