"Mom, you gotta see this!"

My kids never miss an opportunity to gross me out. For some reason, every time they find something slimy or wiggly the first thing out of thier mouths is "Mom! You gotta see this!" They often forget in thier excitement that anything alive or dirty isn't allowed in the house. And one of thier favorite things is finding a rubber snake or insect of some kind in a toy store and throwing it at me. I don't know how many times we've had the talk about how we shouldn't scare people with things that they are already scared of. Usually they say "but Dad told me to."

20010 Ogden Marathon

On May 15th, Nate ran the Ogden Marathon (That's 26 miles) His time was 3 hours 49 minutes. This is a picture of Nate coming up to the finish line. You can barely see him, he's the second person behind that GIRL.

Nate mentioned to some people at work that he was going to run this marathon and before he knew it, they had a big team of people signed up. Then most of them dropped out. So it ended up being just Nate and 3 of his co-workers. This is Roger and Wayne; the other guy had never ran more than 3 miles in his life...ya we didn't wait for him to cross the finish line to take pictures. I think he finished about 5 hours later.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Evan's second grade class did the shakespeare play "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Narrator #5 stole the show! Way to go Evan!

It was very impressive how all the kids learned to say thier lines so well. And Shakespeare isn't easy to understand. They spent months preparing and it showed. Thanks to the fabulous Mrs. Hull for getting it all put together! We couldn't ask for a better teacher!

Goblin Valley

In May we took a trip to Southern Utah to go camping with Ben and Mikki.

I know you're thinking, "Wow, what a barren wasteland to camp in!" Anyways that's what I was thinking.

It only took about 10 minutes for Ashton to fully experience the joy of being dirty.

And get to know some of the local wildlife.

(Just so you know, lizards don't have eyelids so it's no use trying to win a staring contest)

Yes, the lizards were the highlight of the whole trip for the boys. Especially when they discovered that mom doesn't love lizards. They named the first one they caught America, and then every time they'd catch more, they'd say, "America? Is that you?"

No, we are not finished with the lizard pictures yet...

Nate found his dream home...(that's right...in your dreams, Nate!)

On our second day in hell...oops, I meant camping...we drove to Goblin Valley and did some hiking.

That's when we realized it was probably a bad idea to dress Evan in camouflage...

Then we went back to camp and Nate and I killed everyone else playing ladderball.

We all know I hate camping, but I love seeing my kids have fun. When we were packing up, Ashton stomped around saying, "I don't want to leave! I want to stay here!" I don't think they'll forget this trip for a long time. Knowing how much they love it makes it all worth it!