Catch up...

It's been a while since I posted. Life has just been so busy. I have started my summer semester at UVU and my classes aren't hard they just require A LOT of reading so when I'm not at work I am usually doing homework. I try to spend as much time with the kids as I can too. We have been going to the park a few times a week and they just love it. Joe and I also bought Lagoon season passes! We bought them last year but didn't use them as much as we would have liked to so this year we decided we would buy them and go on the weekends the kids are with their dad. We've only been once so far but we are planning on going alot more. We took a trip to Denver to visit Joe's mom over Memorial Day weekend. It was tons of fun. We got up at 3:30 on Friday morning so we could be out by 5! It was crazy but worth it to have the kids sleeping for half of our long drive. They did really well until we were about 30 minutes away. I think that they could sense that we were getting close and they got really anxious. We got there about 12:30 and just hung out at his mom's house. We went to a restaurant call The Elephant Bar for dinner and it was so delicious. The best part was the desserts. They were so good that I would plan a trip to Denver just for the desserts. On Saturday we went to this really cool ampitheater called Red Rocks, it was gorgeous! We took the kids to a park and went shopping. We went to dinner and watched the Lakers/Nuggets game. On Sunday we went to a town south of Denver called Breckenridge. It looks just like Park City. They had a main street just like Park City that has a bunch of little shops that were all way cute. It started to hail and rain really hard. We were quite a ways from the car and we covered the kids with some jackets and ran all the way to the car. We were soaked but the kids were pretty dry, Cadence actually fell asleep. I don't know how you fall asleep in a stroller with a jacket over your head and pouring rain but she managed. As we were on our to Joe's mom's house it was still raining but now there was lightning and thunder with it. I've never seen so much lightning in my life and it was so close to us. We went to dinner at Carinos which was really yummy. Cadence was stealing my salad and noodles off my plate, she didn't want her own dinner. She is the only 2 year old I know that likes salad, most of them just spit it out. After dinner we went back to the hotel and decided to go swimming which was a really bad idea. There was WAY too much cholrine in the pool and hot tub and it gave all of us chemical burns. I felt so bad for Braxton he had it really bad. It mostly just burned his private areas, and we tried to put him the bath to wash the chlorine off but he just wanted to take a cold shower because it felt better. Poor guy. I was so mad that the hotel didn't test the water before letting people in the pool. We were all pretty much better by the next morning though. Monday was Memorial Day and Joe's mom and Cousin Julie were running in the Bolder Boulder which is a 10k race they hold every year. It was a really fun atmosphere to be in and they did great. We enjoyed cheering them on and watching them finish the race. There were so many people there, they had about 50,000 people in the race and then all of the people that were there just to watch. It was crazy. Joe and I are going to do it next year, I am really excited. After the race we went to downtown Denver and walked around, ate lunch and bought souvenirs then Julie had to catch her flight back to Ohio. We just hung out at the hotel for the rest of the night. We had to be up at 6 so we could catch our flight (Joe's dad flew out and was driving the car back). Braxton was really excited to fly. We made sure to get window seats and the kids got to watch us take off. They loved it! Braxton thought it was the coolest thing ever and Cadence wasn't really sure what to think. They were surprisingly good, I thought they were going to disturb everyone by being loud and obnoxious but they didn't. It was a fun trip and it was great to spend time with some of our family.

VEGAS!

We went to Las Vegas over the weekend and it was tons of fun. It is a tradition in my family. They go to the Nascar race every year. (I go shopping =D) Everyone but me, Joe and Cadence went down on Wednesday night. I couldn't go because I had a test for math. Braxton wanted to ride down with my mom so I let him. Wednesday morning they had a parade of all the semi-trucks that haul the cars to the different tracks. Braxton loved it. We left Thursday and had a nice trip down and stopped in St. George for In 'N Out. I love their burgers they are so good. We finally got to Vegas and into our hotel. We were staying at the Stratosphere so we decided it would be fun to go to the top to the observation deck. It was gorgeous. Then we decided to go on the rides. They were awesome and scary at the same time. They next day we went to the pool it was really awesome. It was on the roof. It was kinda chilly because the wind was blowing but we had fun playing and I tried to teach Braxton to swim. He didn't really catch on but he had fun. As we were leaving the hotel we were trying to catch an elevator but it was pretty much impossible so when we finally got one all 19 of us decided to squeeze on. It was really funny to see peoples faces when they saw how many of us were on it. I was in the corner so I decided to take a picture of everyone. We wanted to take the kids to see the fountains at the Bellagio but they didn't start til 3:00 and we were there at 12 so we just decided to go to lunch at In 'N Out again. After lunch we went to the race track and walked around and looked at all the different trailers with the drivers merchandise. It's also a great time to check out all the really redneck people. You can find a lot of them when you are around Nascar. We had to drive to Mesquite because that's where we were staying the other 2 nights. We went to a Mexican restourant in Mesquite, it's really good. We were pretty tired by the time we got to our hotel so we just went to bed after. Saturday morning the guys woke up and went to the first race. We didn't want to fight the crowds or traffic in Vegas so we decided to go to St. George and go shopping and then take the kids to the sand dunes in Snow Canyon. I got some great deals on clothes for the kids for summer and bought some toys for us to play in the sand with. The sand dunes were lots of fun. Cadence had fallen asleep and was really cranky when we first got there and didn't want to touch the sand but she came around and she really loved it. We buried each of the kids in the sand (except Cadence) and dug a really deep hole. We all got really dirty but really enjoyed it. We drove back to Mesquite and had dinner as the Casa Blanca. The kids wanted to go bowling so my mom and my aunt took the kids and we decided to do some gambling. I don't gamble much because I hate to lose money. My brother was the only one to win any money but we all still had fun. On Sunday the guys woke up and went the 2nd race and we again went to St. George for more shopping. We got home at about 9 that night exhausted but happy from a great trip with the family.