Vacation

Hey there!  I have been slacking big time on my posts, but I will catch up someday, I always do.  Besides, I still owe Annika a post all about her.  But, I am going to be crazy busy until about mid August, and then I will be back to normal, so until then it will be hit and miss on the posts.  Sorry!

Ant Farms

Here is Annika's ant  farm.  This is before the Ashton earthquake occurred, they did survive though.  

So, when we got back from Las Vegas, our highly anticipated ants were waiting in the mailbox for us.  Annika was so excited to get her ant farm started.  It was cool to watch, but the ants were just not as exciting as Ryan had hoped.  So, he decided to create his OWN ant farm.  He took a tupperware container that we never use.  He drilled air holes, put part of a box inside, so they would not dig in the middle, put in sand.  He even drilled a hole to funnel the ants, food and water down in.  He created a lid on hinges (you can see it taped down here with electrical tape for the night) so he could open it and watch on his ants.  He put straws to get their tunnels started and for toys for them to crawl through.  Then we ventured to the park to collect our new pets.  He decided to get two kids of ants, so that they could have a war in his farm.  Well, the darker red ants won out.  I will give him this though, we have had Annika's ants about two weeks, and only really one tunnel has been dug.  Overnight, Ryan's ants were amazing.  The dug so many connecting tunnels, it was cool to see.  However, after only two days, they couldn't do much more, so we had to return them to the outside.  I think he is ready to start his next farm, he might go bigger.  

This is Ryan's farm.  Do you like the weight on top to keep the lid closed?

Twilight

OK-I finally gave in and decided to give these books a try.  I just really could not give in and be like everyone else before.  But, Alicia, a girl in my ward, finally convinced me to give it a try.  I read the first one in about 5 days, and now I am about 200 pages into "New Moon".  Also, I made a stupid mistake of scheduling the kids' dentist and doctor appointments for the same day.  Last Friday, we did them for both of them.  Since we only have one car, I have to plan for days to keep the car.  That means getting the kids up early and dropping Ry off at work and then I did not stop the rest of the day, which meant no reading my Twilight book.  I will never schedule that many appointments in one day ever again.  To make matters worse, Ryan forgot his cell phone, so when we were at his work and realized it, I gave him mine for the day, and decided I would use his that was still at home.  However, I forgot how Ashton chews on Ryan's phone sometimes (he is teething, and we always take it away) but I did not get it soon enough.  He soaked the thing with saliva.  So, on my day of errands, I did not have a working phone.  I would have to drive around looking for pay phones, they are not on every corner like they used to be, before cell phones.  Then I had to buy stuff to get enough change.  My phone calls cost me $1 in quarters only since we still have ID area codes and it was a long distance call.  We do not have a home phone, just 2 cell phones, so I had to keep on calling Ryan to schedule pick up times, and the such.  Talk about annoying.  I realize now how dependant I am on my cell phone.  What a convenience!  Anyways, about the book, I am excited to finish the series in time for the 4th and to see the movie later this Summer.  They are easy reads, if anyone wants to give them a try!

Trip to Las Vegas

We drove down to LV with Ken and had to stop in St. George for caramel apples at Rocky Mtn. Chocolate factory, that is a Urry must.  The Moulton side of our family has to stop at Beaver for cheese curds, but the Urry's stop for the apples.  While there we stopped for dinner at Annika's choice, McDonalds.  Here was a cute pic of the kids on Ronald himself.  After taking the bottom photo, I remembered taking photos at this McDonalds before in February of 2005, top picture.  Annika and I took a day trip up with my parents, Megan and her kids for a family funeral, and this photo of Annika and my dad was taken right next to the same Ronald McDonald statue 3 years earlier.  Man how my little girl has grown.  The kids did great on the drive down, that is always a relief.   It does help that the trip is now 3 1/2 hours shorter since our move to Utah.  

Thursday, I went and hung out with my sister in law Michelle and we did shopping and errands.  Which of course meant bribing the kids with ride on the coin train ride thing at Babies R Us.  We met up with our other sister in law Joella and did the lake shopping too.  I got to hang out with my family that night, and the girls ran crazy around Grammie's house making noise and having fun.  Friday, Ryan and I hung out, I went and bought a temple dress (a birthday present) that and my recent Maurice's shopping spree were my gifts this year.  It was fun to spend the day together.

Friday night, we went to Rainforest Cafe with all of our family and the extended Farnsworth family to celebrate birthdays.  My niece Jessica and I share a birthday.  So does my niece Amber, but she lives in California.  We all went and had good food and fun, saw the lion exhibit and then went back to Meg's for cake and ice cream (thanks Meg for planning such a good time).  We were all exhausted and went home to get to bed since Ryan, Annika and I were going to have an early morning driving out to Lake Mead.  My mom had offered to keep Ashton on Saturday, so we could enjoy ourselves a little more and then my in-laws brought him out Saturday to stay, play and camp.

We went out early Saturday morning, Ryan's brother is a pro at the dutch oven and cooked such great meals for us, but the women did a lot of the planning, shopping and prepping too.  It was fun to spend that time with all of Ryan's family and sit around the campfire and just hang out.  On Saturday, we went out on the water, even though it was overcast.  We had fun on the jet ski's and the boys who can, wake boarded.  Annika loved riding the jet ski with Ryan and I love riding them too, until I got lost and could not find the beach everyone was back on.  I got sore though, and probably sleeping on an air mattress in a tent did not help much either.  The water was pretty cold though.  We came back and got to camp in our tent for the first time that we have had over a year.  Sunday we came into town to go to church and then went back and let the kids hang out at Boulder Beach for a bit.  They love to be in the water.  My camera battery died, so we do not have many pictures, I will have to get those from Michelle.  We headed home Monday, and it was great to be back home in our beds again.

Family in town

We have been out of blogging for a bit, so get ready for catch up.  A few weekends ago, my parents were headed up to Idaho to see Grandpa and stopped here for a night, and they brought cousin Jessica to stay for the weekend with us and they picked her up on Tuesday, on their way back down to LV.  We had a blast with her!  Annika was so excited to have her spend the night and do all sorts of fun stuff together.  They actually went to sleep when they were supposed to, they did not fight hardly at all and were really well behaved girls for the weekend.  Here are some pics of our fun together!

We had a blast at Hogle Zoo in SLC with Jessica.  We have been wanting to go, and this was the perfect opportunity.  It was pretty hot though, but all the kids did really well.  Jessica kept telling me how a lion just died at her zoo (the LV one).  I have never been there, but I think Hogle Zoo was  A LOT better than that one.  Ashton, of course loved all the animals. He would point and scream at all of them.  He is too much fun!

I managed to get two girls ready for church and on time.  They loved going to class together.  These two have such a connection that they never forget each other, or how much they love each other.  They had to share clothes and underwear (clean, of course) and do baby doll hair and take their dolls everywhere.  We went to Carl's Jr. to let them play at the play gym there, they did not want to stop and eat.

They enjoyed staying up late, watching movies and eating popcorn.  We went swimming, played at the park, played games, anything they wanted to do.  They played dress up a ton, and they just had a blast together.  On Monday of that weekend, Papa Ken came up with a missionary that he was bringing to the MTC.  It was great to have him here.  He even baby-sat for us Tuesday night so Ryan could take me out to dinner for my upcoming birthday.  But, then we got a call to meet with the stake president Tuesday night too, that will put fear into you.  Luckily, it was for Ryan and he got called as the 2nd counselor in the EQ in our ward.  We had a great dinner out afterwards at Joe's Crab Shack and the kids did really well with Papa.  On Tuesday, we decided to go to LV, spur of the moment for the long Memorial Day weekend.  So, on Wednesday, the kids and I went down with Ken, after he dropped off the new elder and Ryan drove down late Thursday night after work.  But, that is it for now, that will be my next post . . . . . .