Let Summer Begin... (The Zoo, the Fair, and a Dance Recital)

We had a pretty awesome weekend.  Oh how we love the summer! Thursday night was family night at the South Jordan Fair, so we had to go.  The girls had a blast riding on all of the rides!  Their favorite ride was the Ferris Wheel. 
  

 

 

 

 On Friday, we went to the zoo with Grandma for "Fun Friday".  They have a pretty cool dinosaur display going on right now which the girls really enjoy.  Mckenzie has become so curious about everything.  She wants me to read every sign about every animal and comes up with some pretty tough questions. 

 

 

 

Hailey loved this baby dinosaur and thought it was so cool how it's eyes moved.  She could have sat and watched it all day! 

 

 

Then on Saturday, we had our final Dance Recital for the year.  The girls did great.  They are definitely performers!  They love to get all dressed up, dance on the big stage, and of course, they were super-excited about the flowers and trophies they got when it was all over!  We had a great first year of dance! 

 

 

 

 

 



Family Vacation!

 

We go to St. George every year with my family for a vacation.  We usually spend most of our time boating at Sand Hollow, but this year was a bit colder than usual.  Of course, we still went boating.  Yes, the temperature was only in the high 70's, and yes, the water was really cold, but there were hardly any other boats around and the water was glass!  We all took our turns wakeboarding and skiing and then the girls got their turn on the tube!

 

 

 

 

 

It was the perfect weather for hiking and we did a lot of it!  Here we are hiking at Red Cliffs.  There was a lot of water in the pools this year, so it was a lot of fun.  Hailey had to be in front the whole hike, of course!

 

 

 

Playing around with slow motion...

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we went to "Crack Mountain" (as Kenzie calls it).  I don't really know what it is called, but the girls love hiking through the crack.  While we were here it started to pour.  I have never been there in the rain and it was definitely an experience.  At first, we just camped out under a little arch, and then a little bigger cave.  Then we just braved the rain and made it back to our car.  It was crazy to see all the rain coming off the red rocks... it was like a flash flood, waterfalls everywhere... and yes, we were all soaked!

 

 

We ended up coming back another day and finished what we started...

 

 

 

 

We also explored Snow Canyon.  We did the Three Ponds trail, which was a little long for the girls and had a lot of sand.  But, we made it and the girls had fun walking barefoot and jumping off any rocks we could find.   We also saw blooming cacti which was pretty cool!

  After our long hike, we took the girls to the Sand Dunes and just let them play. 

Last, but not least, my dad and Danny went and did a little exploring in the underground caves.  I even convinced Mckenzie to come down and explore a bit!  (Pretty brave!)

 



 And of course, we did a lot of swimming at the condo!  We had a great trip!  It is always fun to get away from normal life and spend some fun time with one another.  It is also always hard to come back to reality! 

 

Date Night!

 

Every once in a while it is pretty obvious that the Hailey and Mckenzie need a break from each other!  Last year, we started doing date nights to help us have some one-on-one time with each of the girls.  It has been a lot of fun!  Last week on our date night I got to spend some time with Mckenzie.  She chose to go to Gardner Village and ride a horse.  (Surprise!)  We got there a little late and they were closing, but the guy was really nice and still let us go for a ride.  He also let Mckenzie help feed some of the baby animals since they were closing up for the night.  She was in heaven.  Grandma was out of town, so we invited Grandpa to come along with us too.  Mckenzie always likes a little special time with her grandpa. 

 

 

Danny got to spend time with Hailey this time.  She chose to go to Trafalga and ride the roller coaster!  Of course the roller coaster was closed, but they had lots of fun on the other rides.  Her favorite part was going down the slide over and over again!

 

Let the games begin...

 

Today was a pretty proud moment for Danny!  Danny loves soccer, and the girls had their first game today!  It started off a bit rough when Mckenzie found out they had to wear the silver side of the jersey instead of the green side... but as soon as we got to the game, the excitement took over!  We have a super fun team with a bunch of our neighborhood friends on it!

 

 

 It was a really windy day and Hailey didn't last the whole game. 

She got too cold and ended up cuddling with her Grandma for a bit!

 

Mckenzie, on the other hand, may have found her sport!  She proved to be quite the feisty player!  Towards the end of the game a little boy from the other team pushed her and took the ball from her.  She stayed with him, pushed him right back and got the ball again!  Usually, I teach her not to push, but for the sake of the sport, I let it slide! :)

April Showers?

 

We had our best snow storm of the year a couple of weeks ago.  The girls were super excited to get one more chance to play in the snow.  I, on the other hand, am definitely ready for the warm weather, but who can resist these cute smiles! 

 

Happy Easter! (and Happy Birthday to dad!)

 

Happy Easter!

We love holidays!  We got to do a couple Easter Egg Hunts this year.  First, our neighborhood does an annual Easter Egg Hunt which is a ton of fun!  Then on Easter, we got to go to Grandma's house for another Easter Egg Hunt!









Here we are showing off our cute Easter outfits with our dad and our dog!

 These two girls know exactly how to push each other's buttons as well as how to make each other happy!  This was one of those happy times:  During the Easter Egg Hunt, Mckenzie would give Hailey any pink eggs she found and Hailey would make sure to give Mckenzie all of the green eggs she found!  It was pretty cute!

 

 We also just celebrated Dad's birthday!  The girls get really excited about birthdays!  We took him donuts at work and then gave him his presents later that night.  The girls were super proud of the cards they made for him!