Cool Running

We just had our 14Th anniversary on July 7Th and I took the day off from work to celebrate. We were able to get April's sister Karin to come watch the kids for the day so we just needed to come up with something to do. We were thinking of going to Salt Lake and doing some shopping and catching a movie and some dinner but that did sound very exciting since we had the entire day to play. I suggested going to Park City and riding the Alpine slide and spending the day there when April said "Lets do the Bobsled". We had been planning on doing that for our 15Th anniversary but decided that the timing was right since we had a sitter arranged and the entire day to play.

With a plan in place we headed to Park City for some fun. We went straight to the Olympic Park which is where they have the Bobsled/Luge track, the Nordic Ski Jumps, and Freestyle Jumps. You can watch the athletes train as they go off the freestyle jumps into a pool and on Saturdays they even do a show that would be fun to see. They also have an Alpine type slide and two Zip Lines. We were feeling a little adventurous and decided to do the Quicksilver Alpine Slide and the Bobsled. The Zip Lines were more than we thought we could handle all in one day. If you look at the picture of Me in front of the Ski Jumps the Zip Lines go down the sides of the jumps. The smaller line is on the right side and goes about half way up. The BIG zip line is on the left and goes all the way to the top of the K120 jump and is said to be the steepest in the world. No thanks.

The Quicksilver starts up there as well and goes off the the left but you can't see it in the picture. We decided to do the Quicksilver first as a warm up for the Bobsled and going up the ski lift to the top and looking down the zip line confirmed our decision not to do the zip line. The Quicksilver was fun. It is only a single track unlike the one over in town that is two but it is made of stainless steel instead of cement and it said to be the only one in America made that way. You can see a picture of April riding the slide and the excitement on her face says it all.

Then we headed up to the top on the Bobsled track. You drive your car up, ride the sled down, and they take you back to the top to get your car. The ride only takes about a minute but the feeling you get last about an hour after. It was so much fun, at about a dollar a second it better be. I told April she wasn't going to be able to get the smile off my face the rest of the day it was so much fun (like she would have tried to remove the smile anyways). About an hour later we crashed from our high and need some chips and salsa and caffeine to help us settle back down.

Inside the Museum.
Us with our Pilot after the run.

We then went to Main Street and walked the shops and had dinner to finish the day. It was quite the way to spend our anniversary and is going to be hard to top next year. Maybe we will have to go skydiving, just kidding it will probably be dinner and a movie which is more our pace.

Update

Boy, it's been I while since I last posted anything. Not that we've been that busy, it's just hard to find time to sit down on the computer and get anything done these days. We went down to Fountian Green this weekend to take care of the yard and did a little Geocaching while we were there. Riley had the GPS in the back of the car during the drive and made sure to point out everything that it showed as we drove.



Riley is now a Wolf Scout. He received his rank advancement on Thursday along with three arrow points. His birthday is coming up in just two weeks. I can't believe how fast he is growing. He just finished third grade and is preparing to drive us all crazy with his demands for things to do all summer long. He did very well is school even though it is not his favorite thing. He scored in the top ten percent nationally on the Iowa Test he took in October in the area of Social Studies and received a Certificate of Outstanding Performance from the State Board of Education for doing so.



Millie and Brianna are growing fast as well. Brianna is starting to get around on her own and is getting into everything. She isn't quite crawling yet, it is still more of an Army crawl but she can get to what she wants and has total control. We have to start checking the volume on the stereo as she can reach the knob and likes to turn it all the way up, just like big brother. Millie is developing her own preferences and wants. She is still struggling to talk very well but that hasn't stopped her from making sure she gets things her way.



I will try to get some updated pictures posted soon. Hope everything is going well for all of you and we are looking forward to some summer fun in the coming months. I will try to post more often some of the things we are doing.

Johnny Jumper

We have this device, for lack of a better term, that was made by April's parents. It is lovingly called "Johnny Jumper". Riley used it when we lived in the condo and it was among his favorite things. Millie didn't get to use it, as the time that she was the right age was when we moved to Orem and I never got it set up for her (Sorry, Boo). But now Bri is old enough to enjoy this contraption. It is a spring that hangs from a hook in the ceiling and then has a harness that the baby goes in to allow them to jump at will. Riley use to wake up in the middle of the night and want to jump. It seemed like it was about the only thing he wanted to do. Bri is quickly following in her brother's footstep, expect she sleeps thought the night (she goes down between 6:00 and 6:30 and sleep until between 7:00 and 7:30 usually (insert loud cheer from parents)). It is a great babysitter while dinner is being made and lets face it it's just fun to watch the smiles and laughter coming from the baby. See for yourself:

Pine Wood Derby

Well, Riley had his second Pine Wood Derby this past week on Tuesday night. He did pretty well and won most of his races (I think he only had one second place finish in the preliminary rounds). Unfortunately he lost in the last race against the three other fast cars that night and ended up in fourth place. But he did win for Outstanding Sportsmanship and Most Aerodynamic Car. He told me when he was drawing out the design that he wanted, that it needed to be very aerodynamic and he even drew arrows over the top of the car to show how the air would flow around his design. We had a good time and Riley had lots of fun racing. It is always fun to have family come to events like this and this time was no different as Grandma Johnson, Aunt Shelly, and Uncle David all came to cheer Riley on. Millie really got into the fun and was cheering for every car. Thank you to Megan for coming over and staying at our house with Brianna so that we didn't have to keep her up past her bed time (rested babies = happy parents). Riley even led the Flag Ceremony at the beginning of Pack Meeting all by his self. I thought that was a pretty big deal as we have two Packs meeting together and he did an outstanding job. He must have wanted to get back to more racing as he also offered to give the closing prayer when the Leader couldn't remember who had been assigned.

Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a Happy New Year. We celebrated "New York Style". That means that a 10 o'clock mountain time we said "It's midnight in New York so kiss me and lets go to sleep". Exciting, I know, but with an almost 4 month old baby we are still trying to get sleep when ever we can.

We did have more fun on New Year's Day however. We meet with most of April's family at the Chinese Gourmet Buffet here in Orem for Lunch at 11:30. We thought we would try to beat the lunch rush but there really wasn't much of one. After eating lots of food and being loud we came back to our house to play games and talk. As usual we ending up just talking and not playing games but we had a good time and it was much less stressful than trying to have a meal at some one's house. I think we may make it in to a tradition as everyone really had a good time. April's parents didn't make it on New Year's Day so they stopped by on Saturday on their way to Tooele and we went to lunch with them at the same restaurant. I do like Chinese food but twice to a buffet in three days was plenty for me.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, we did. This year we just let the kids open presents and play with them right then if they wanted to. In the past we unwrapped all the presents first before actually opening the packaging and beginning to play. It made it a lot less stressful and it actually took us two hour to unwrap the presents rather than the usual twenty minutes. With the economy what it is we did cut back a little this year but it made it funner to shop as we tried to put more thought into each present we bought rather than how much we had spent on each one. We spent Christmas Eve with April's family and did the traditional reading on the Nativity and singing. Of course we had lots of food and this year it was held at Scott and Nadine's house in Provo. Christmas Day we went to Mark's family at about 4:00 pm. We had more food there and spent a little time playing Guitar Hero World Tour with two guitars, drums, and a "singer". I put quotes around singer since none of us really are but we had a good time trying.

Riley got a Nintendo DS and we have hardly heard from him since except to show us something about which ever game he is playing. Millie got a new Baby Doll and accessories that she loves along with a bike. We are hoping that she will get to ride it by May with all the snow we have received. April got some sweaters, which she can never seem to have enough of, and Mark got a backup camera for our Suburban.

Well New Year's Day in just around the corner so here are our wishes for you that it may be a happy and prosperous one.

Fountian Green

We went down to Fountain Green for this past weekend. It was cold and windy most of the time. That didn't matter much as we stayed inside and worked on tying two quilts. Sam's Club is working on doing 30 quilts to donate to the Women and Children in Crisis Center in Provo. We wanted to help out and thought this would be a great way to spend our weekend and help others at the same time. The kids just watched movies and played most of the time while we worked on the quilts. They did try to go outside once on Saturday, but quickly decided it was to cold and came back inside. We drove down to Manti to do a little shopping at one of the craft stores we sometimes go to. It was nice to see the temple with the fresh snow falling. As with all the temples it is just beautiful to see from the outside even when you don't have time go in to do a session.