Thursday, March 12, 2015

Driving for Birds

Today since my Venture kids were out of school we decided to go have a little adventure. 
Since Ryland has become quite the Birder, we decided to head to the 
Bear River Bird Refuge in Brigham City.

It is so beautiful and peaceful out there. I love it.

We had quite a time taking a photo of the four of us with the big camera, but after 4 tries we finally got us all in there. 

It is Swan season at the Refuge. So we saw our fair share of those but we also saw a few other birds as well. 

 The biggest adventure of the day was that I surprised Ally with her first driving lesson.
Since it is a single lane, one-way, dirt road with a speed limit of 25 I figured, WHY NOT!
It was an especially slow day for the refuge so I figured she would be able to keep us safe. She got up to 25 miles per hour a couple of times, but mostly we just inched along, which is perfect for a birding expedition.

She had a bit of a challenge reaching the pedals and seeing over the wheel when she sat all the way back. She was a little jerky on the stop and go, still getting used to the finesse of it all. She only knocked the other 2 kids out of their seats once when she hit the brake a little too hard. Ryland spilled his water bottle all over himself and Evelyn got a little carpet burn on her temple from hitting the back of the drivers seat, but all in all we were A-OK. She has found a sudden interest in Birding now, I wonder why?




Sunday, March 1, 2015

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

The girls of the family go together this weekend to have a little getaway.
It was much needed for all of us.

Sarah invited us all up to her Dad's cabin in Bear Lake. It was beautiful and cozy and perfect. We even had the opportunity to see 3 moose outside the cabin.
There was more food there than we could ever haven eaten. 
We did a Favorite Things exchange. 
That will be a fun tradition. Heidi 
brought the best thing...a massage therapist!
She treated us all to a half hour massage.
It was divine! 
Grandma Hale brought everybody a pair of jammies. The little girls jammies
needed some alterations done so Grandma brought up her sewing machine.  
We watched movies, took naps, played games,
did crafts, made jewelry, 
you name it we did it.  


Speaking of games...we played an epic
game of Sardines. This is a photo 
of all of us hiding in the bathtub.
The girls loved it.
Sunday morning we held a devotional.
Julia and Evelyn led the music.
The older girls did the prayer, Young Women theme, a scripture and a thought. 
Then my Mom talked to us about the importance
of Motherhood and I read a talk by Sheri Dew.

Before we all started to leave we took a 
group photo together. We can't wait to go back. 
Jennifer, Ronda, Tana, Julia, Megan, Ally, Shaylen, 
Evelyn, Sarah, Sawyer, Heidi and Sydney