Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

This was such a fun trip! It is the perfect place to go for a ton of activities. It reminds me of Park City but with beaches like Hawaii. They have a fancy rec center where we went swimming, played tennis, and played on the playground; a lake where we played on the beaches and caught crawdads; a resort where we went roller skating, and had chair lifts and

bouncy tramps that you can flip on, etc. We also went into town and looked at the shops, went out to eat, went on walks, and played lots of board games.

I was pregnant at this time so I had the fan on high blast blowing on my face. The beds were tiny and I was claustrophobic, so Drew slept on the other bed. Of course Drew is swaddled like a baby with two wool blankets wrapped around him from head to toe, while I am sheetless and sweating in my silk garments. 

Love runs out- marlee car dancing

Lake Powell '14

Lake Powell

Oh I love this trip. It was so much fun this year (even being big and pregnant) with Mar Mar being a little older. Like I said before, I love seeing new things and exciting activities through her little bubbies' eyes. She loved the boat, in fact she loved it so much that she became possessive over the steering wheel and there was a few times I had to step in to stop a couple baby fist fights between her and Coop.

Mar was a little fearless warrior this trip. She loved surfing, tubing, and Easton and Mar had some good times dancing on the back of the boat. She loved the fireworks! Her reaction was priceless! Even just on the van ride there she couldn't contain her excitement. Every time Easton would say "firework" she would burst with excitement saying "wow" "blue, red, green." This wasn't any small reaction though. When I say burst, I mean an exploding of energy equal to the fireworks. It was so fun to watch, and of course I remembered to get my camera out when it was too late.

A funny story happened when we were waiting to go see the fireworks. The hotel had a movie playing on a big screen outside on the grass. Music was playing so of course Mar Mar decided to dance. She then saw someones blanket on the grass (occupied by a group of people), and thought "oh how nice, someone brought a blanket for me to sit on." So she waddled up and snuggled right next to some random lady and laid her head on her arm. It took her a second to realize after she heard everyone's giggles that this was not someone she knew, so she got weirded out and came back with us.

Not sure where the rest of the pics went...

a lazy hour tube ride with 2 preggos and 2 babies

sharing

Yay for the 4th!!

Park City

Oh I loved this trip so much! We only spent 3 1/2 days here, but man did we party hard; I was completely exhausted by the end. The activities were endless. I made it my goal to never let the kids have a dull moment, and especially never a moment on an electronic device. We stayed in a beautiful condo in the gorgeous mountains of Park City, so why would you want to play on the I pad? :)

Here are some of the activities we did:

Crafts

• Grandma helped us make these cool bracelets pictured below
• ginormous bubbles
• homes for the frogs we found
• painted rocks

Activities

• we went on lots of nature walks/little hikes
• an intense soccer game with 2 preggos and the whole fam
• played at the park
• rode mountain bikes
• a bear scavenger hunt
• story time
• had an obstacle course with flying stuffed monkeys
• swam in the pool and the hot tub on our deck
• battled toy army guys with squirt guns
• went on a night walk with glow sticks
• spent a day at the Alpine slide and did all the fun activities there
• shopping at the outlets
• ice cream in a bag
• a couple funny rounds of headbands after all the kiddos went to bed

bracelet power

This was no friendly game of family soccer. We were in it for blood.

Mar loved all the kid rides at the Park City Resort. I had to peel her off of each one to get her to ride the next ride, especially the carousel!

So I totally thought Todd brought this helmet for the kids to ride the bikes. Mar Mar fell in love with it. I didn't realize it was some random kids' that started playing soccer with us. She wore it for the longest time that her little head was getting all sweaty in it. It sure protected her during that intense game of soccer though.  

25 and still alive

Since I officially turned old this year, I wanted to do something crazy to get my mind off my age. Ha just kidding. But really I wanted to do something fun and different this year. So I told Drew I would really like him to surprise me with a trip to St. George, and that is just what he did :) We scheduled the room Wednesday night and left Friday morning for my birthday get away.

I love being active and love being outdoors, so this was mainly a hiking trip. On our way down we figured out that one of the hikes we wanted to do was in a city we were about to pass, so we pulled right over and started hiking.

The hike was called Kanarra Falls. It is my favorite hike I've ever been on. It is so beautiful and my favorite part is that you have to hike through a river, weave in and out of rocks, and climb a waterfall. I actually liked it more than any of the hikes we did in Zions. And of course both our phones died before we got any pictures!

That night we ate at a delicious taco shop in St. George, and went swimming at our hotel. We spent the whole next day hiking through Zions, then turned around and drove home. We were so exhausted, I'm surprised we made it home alive.

Besides being active, one of my favorite activities is to go out to eat. I love it, and I love food. I actually really love Mexican food. I always crave Mexican food, pregnant or not. So we made sure to fill this trip up with lots of yummy tacos and burritos!

Drew was a champ. We hiked most of Friday and basically all day Saturday, and he had the bubbers on his back the whole time. You can tell he's pretty exhausted in this pic. Ha, poor guy.

Mar Mar loved being in the carrier. It put her in a daze. I think she liked being higher up so she could see everything. She loves being outside just as much as I do, probably even more. This child could live outside in the trees.

April's Fool

This year I was April's fool. I had so many pranks planned for Drew this year, and every last one of them (besides a small few) fell through. He was just too smart this year. He knew he had it coming because last year he got the mother load of April Fools tricks played on him (one of them being sewing Drew to the bed). Actually our old friend from the South Jordan branch texted him the night before and reminded him to be on his toes the next day. He also told Drew that he could sleep on his couch that night if he wanted to avoid my clever tricks. I was so bugged at him. He ruined my whole sneaky sly plan! Drew was skeptical about everything that day. I'm talking everything, everything he used on his body, and everything he put to his mouth.

Here are the pranks I tried to pull on him and his reaction

• cream cheese in his deodorant - totally knew something was wrong. Didn't even put it up to his pits. 
• I painted his fingernails while he was sleeping. He was asking for it. He fell asleep with his fingers splayed and crossed, resting on his chest. The funniest part is that he went to scratch his nose in his sleep and the smell of the fumes from the fingernail polish woke him right up. He absolutely hates the smell of finger nail polish. He would prefer me to paint my fingers outside. And nothing wakes Drew up. Trying to wake him up is like trying to wake a dead man. But that smell popped his eyes right open.
• vaseline on door handles. same as last year. He did fall for this one. And this year I didn't fall for it (my own trick). 
• numerous cold glasses of water dumped on him during his shower. 
• flour in the blow dryer blown at him during his shower. He just laughed at this one, which made me laugh, because it was right after the cold glasses of water.
• honey on the towel he used after his shower. totally guessed it. he said he could see something on the towel, so he sniffed it. 
• food coloring on his toothbrush. didn't even use it.
• froze his toiletries in a bowl of water. 
• lined his side of the bed with piles of hangers under the sheets. again he was skeptical so he felt the bed before he laid down.
• saran wrapped his car to the parking pole next to his parking spot, and covered his car in construction paper. I totally surprised him on this one.
• turned up the volume in his car to full blast. Again I totally got him on this one. He just laughed he was so bugged. 
• put frozen vegetables in his shoes, so when he put them on he would have a cold surprise. 
• bubble bath in the toilet. total flop. didn't even work. it was supposed to explode on him.
• silly string for when he got out of the shower. I totally forgot. 

Maybe the trick for next year is that it won't even be on April Fool's day!

Marlee's First year