Month: October 2011

For our Church Enrichment one day during the summer, a group of women went down to the Payson Grotto, and we enjoyed a beautiful hike! I realized yet again, how outnumbered I am! Thankfully, the boys were wonderful, listened closely and stayed close! (and we have so many wonderful people in our ward who helped me watch out for my littles!)

The hike was beautiful, and the waterfall was so fun to see! When we got there, there were 2 men rappelling down the middle. It was freezing cold water, which was perfect for the hot day that it was…

What a grand adventure it was!

We had so much fun this summer, and it truly was the best summer we have yet! It was so busy, but so wonderful! The days we were at home, I NEVER ONCE heard i’m bored! I love that my children can find so many things to do, and play.

Some of their favorites things:

Legos (NEVER gets old to them!)


Elliot took to ‘driving’ Lorelei’s walker around the house, and did that for about a week.

Elliot also found a new love for looking at pictures in his books. And often would put himself to bed, (Mom I go read to myself!, Too bad it only lasted thru the summer!) And dressing up in his cowboy hat

Swings at the park, love that they have a double spot, so they can see each other!

I spent many hours pushing these two!

Feeding this sweet thing!




And watching her discover new foods, (She LOVES apples)

These two yahoo’s make me laugh, they now help each other finish their jobs, so they can play wii together.


Tucker discovered a new talent of cooking and baking. His new favorite thing to make is Sugar Cookies (um, yes please!) He makes them completely by himself, and is so proud of this accomplishment!

Each week, we made the drive to have lunch with Dad 🙂

Sometimes at a restaurant, sometimes we’d pack our own, and sometimes he’d bring us food from the Cafeteria. We discovered a nice little park, around the corner from his office, where we spent most of our lunch time with Dad.

The boys thought this was so much fun this year (they’ve always loved it, but they were always SUPER excited the days we woke up to see Daddy lunch was on the schedule!) We are so lucky to have a father who works so hard for our family, and loves us all so much! Thanks for always making the time for us Toph!

One of my favorite times of the year! I love being at the cabin for the 4th of July.

This year, I didn’t get as many pictures, but it was FABULOUS as always.

The kids were busy, fishing, playing in the stream, riding in the canoe, horseback riding, learning to drive the four wheelers (the big boys), enjoying cousins, eating DELICIOUS FOOD, watching the Rodeo, and participating in the Call-Hunsaker family reunion.

Elliot spent most the time in the stream (like days!), walking up and down, and racing his boat there)



Love the pond

Elliot and Nora spent the entire vacation arguing over Cooper dog.

We baby sat (or Dog sat) Coopie at the beginning of the summer, and Elliot took really good care of him, and claimed him as his own…but Nora knew better, and knew he really was her dog! So fun to watch these 2 year olds trying to rationalize with each other!
To me, this is what childhood and summer are meant to be.
Reunion Pictures



And Tucker, Tucker, Tucker, what a funny boy we have!

Rodeo Night: (the kids looked darling! and loved the rodeo this year, they all got it, and Lorelei loved seeing the horses, and Elliot loved the fireworks)

On the way home, we stopped at the Train Restaurant to enjoy some holiday ice-cream, and delay the return to work, laundry and reality! 🙂





Thanks to the Great Hunsakers for providing such a wonderful place to create family memories!

The bunk beds in the cabin were so much fun! Everyone like to climb up and all be on the top bunk!

We spent the morning doing Geo-Caches around the park…


Here are the boys both looking at the GPS unit:

What good friends these two are

We hiked/looked all over the park


Stopped to play at the playground for a bit





Elliot was so excited about his geo-caching treasure: A golf ball!

We stopped at the dock to throw in some rocks: (Tucker was not happy, he wanted to go fishing and swimming, but there was a storm heading out, so we couldn’t.)

And that day Lorelei, just LOVED going up and down and up and down, and giggled and giggled and giggled. Wish I was stronger and could’ve done it all day long!




After lunch, we headed to town, got an ice-cream,



and continued geo-caching, visited the temple again, as well as the pioneer house built into the side of the mountain.





Afterwords, we went back to the cabin, and the boys really wanted to go fishing. And this is one of my favorite memories of the whole trip….So while I was preparing dinner, and had bathed Lorelei. Toph and the older boys went down to the lake. They fished for a short time, then returned, as another storm was blowing in, and both the boys had fallen in the lake, whilst fishing. I had gotten the coals going on the bbq, and was just covering them up with tinfoil, as the rain was starting to sprinkle. Toph grabbed the shower stuff, and headed to the showers with Tucker and Truman, and Elliot. I finished dinner prep, and then headed to go get Elliot from the showers, and the storm was fast approaching. I mentioned it to Toph, and they finished showering as fast as he could, with Tuck and Tru. I returned Elliot to the Cabin, and then waited on the porch…only to see the boys start coming back to the cabin, right as a MONSOON of a storm hit. They ran thru the rain, and I ran to help, we all returned to the cabin soaked to the bone, and Toph and I were laughing. Truman was crying, as his clean jammies were all wet, and Tucker was kind of in shock, and didn’t say to much. Elliot starting crying seeing Truman crying, and that set Lorelei off. So 3 of the 4 kids were screaming, Toph and I were laughing, and it was a moment to remember. 🙂
The next morning we packed up our car, and headed home.
A great family vacation in 2011. 🙂

After many years of anticipating the arrival of CARS 2 (the movie), it was finally the day to go see it! It was opening week, and we were so excited!

While waiting for the afternoon matinee to begin, we spent the morning racing our cars (Many morning and in between time was spent doing this)

Elliot loved to chase them too!

And Lorelei, was just a delighted to be outside with her brothers.

This day they tried to build a ramp going over the top of the stairs, so fun to watch them learn and figure things out.

We had to drive to a bigger town (about 35 minutes away) to go see it, and along the way, thanks to a tip from our friends (Thanks Madsens!), we stopped to see Mater!

(Elliot talked about this for WEEKS afterwords, daily I’d hear about ‘my friend Mater’)
We saw the show, and all the kids did really great! Lorelei slept thru most of it, Elliot fell asleep at the end, and Tuck and Tru just kept leaning over and asking us questions (The plot was kind of hard to follow for them.)

That evening, we stopped by Walmart to pick out a special toy, Elliot got some Lightening McQueen Squinkies, Lorelei a baby doll, Truman a nerf gun, and Tucker some mighty beans. Fun to see what they chose!

We stopped for dinner at a Frontier Restaurant, and started the drive back to the cabin, where the older kids and parents continued the card stacking competition!




(As you can see, Dad won! 🙂 )
I love the care-free-ness being on vacation! 🙂