Here we go, on our way to our Summer of Utah Fun.

Before we left we decided to have a little pre-Father's day celebration. Here are the kiddies all dressed up for the big day.
After we ate a hearty breakfast we packed up the kids and headed out on the road. We drove for 10 hours and the kids did fabulously. After stopping in Twin Falls for the night we set out again and were able to meet up with Lori Whiting and her family. They were on their way home but our trips overlapped a couple of hours.
I can't believe how much these little ones have grown.


Look how cute all those little kids are!


Here was the last time that Ethan saw Ashley and Angelina. Lori came to help me twice during my pregnancy with the twins, while I was on bed rest. The second time she came I had to go into the hospital the day after she arrived. It made me feel so relieved to know that she was there with Ethan. Mom and Dad Jones came a few days after that (if I'm remembering right) and so they would take turns coming to visit me in Denver and watching Ethan at home.
Even though it was a short visit, I'm so glad we were able to get together.

After we left Lori's brother-in-law's home in Tooele, we drove past the salt flats. I have never seen the water level so high before. We took an hour and a half detour and ran out to the Great Salt Lake by the old Saltair.






And a little side note about Saltair. The Jones family has quite the history regarding this cool place. Mom Jones wrote me an email with their stories and how so many of their relatives' lives intersected.


Mom Jones' Grandfather Kramer (on her mother's side) was one of the first train conductors to ride out to Saltair when it opened. He was a relatively young man at the time. Grandma Kramer also used to sunbathe out there before she met Grandpa Kramer. They both have their pictures up at Saltair living the single life.

Dad Jones' Father, Grandpa Jones used to have a rollerskating show that he held up on the stage during the Great Depression. He was a professional rollerskater and I've seen one trophy that he won in a competition once.

Grandpa Jones rode on the roller coaster on its virgin ride after Saltair was rebuilt the second time. She said that she watched them test the roller coaster with sandbags put into it and when it made it around safely she was the first group who went on the next ride.

Everyone in Mom Jones' family both sides of grandparents, parents, and children would go to Saltair to swim.

Mom helped me out with all the details and in her email she added some more history that I think is interesting. Her is an excerpt of her email.

History: Saltair burned down in 1925 and was then rebuilt. The roller-skating area (Hippodrome) was burned down. G-pa Jones was born in 1904 and performed rollerskating acts in the Hippodrome. The roller coaster was built in the early 1920's and wasn't burned in the fire. Saltair burned down again in 1931. (and then again, and then again)

G-ma Speakman and G-pa Speakman (my parents) used to go out to Saltair to dance on the "largest dance floor in the world."

Saltair was closed during World War II.

Mom Scribner used to also go to the Saltair to go sunbathing when she was a teenager. I told her that she probably crossed paths with Mom Jones without ever knowing it. And I'm betting they wore the same outfit to the lake. :)

That was a fun, refreshing stop before we made it the last hour to Mom's house in Payson. The next day was the start of the reunion and I still have a million pictures to go through.

The dresser saga.

Here is the dresser I bought off of Craigslist. And it looked perfect. In fact, it looked just like it does in this picture when I went to check it out.
Granted, it was pretty crowded with furniture and dark in the original room it was in. The house was straight out of the 70's with its shag carpet, tiny windows and sliding glass door at the bedroom. Yikes! Regardless, I paid the man and then proceeded to help lug it down the narrow, steep stairs and out the door. That took a while considering the weight and awkwardness of this furniture. It wasn't until I was outside by my car that I got an good look at the monster. Although the structure was sound, it was covered with scratches and dents. It looked pretty awful but since I have no spine and despise confrontation, I thanked the man and was on my way. So gutless.
At home we got it out of the car but I couldn't bring myself to bring it into the kids room. First of all, it was SO heavy and Mom and Dad Jones were due to come into town a couple of weeks later. I was willing to wait in order to have someone else carry it back up a flight of stairs. Secondly, I was so disappointed in the state of the furniture. I decided right then that I needed to refinish it.

The process was a little exciting and quite the learning experience. The colors I picked out scared Robert but I was determined.

I started with the primer.
Slapping on paint was time consuming but pretty easy.

I then added the blue which ended up being too bright even for me. I went back to Lowes and got a shade darker (hard for you to tell in these pictures, but pretty obvious in person.) I then painted the drawers with little flowers and bought some knobs and painted them blue. The white was really fun and bright against the blue.
I had also painted the inside of the drawers and glued paper to the bottom of them to make it a little more fun.

I liked the effect but learned a hard lesson of patience. The paper soaked up some of the varnish and oil-stained it and I needed to put a light coat of glue on the bottom...and wait 'till that dried...before I coated with modge-podge. The result came out pretty bumping despite my best efforts but since it was for the inside of the drawers, I wasn't too worried.

The real heartbreak for me was the varnish I put over the white. It said it was clear and I diligently put two coats on it. Unfortunately it turned my brilliant, pretty white, into a dingy yellowing white. Gross. I lightened up the pictures a bit to make me feel a little better but every time I go into the kids room I get pretty sad.

I could sand off the white and do it again. I might do that. Sometime. Until then, I'll let the kids have fun with it. I guess if they don't care, I don't either. I just hate to create something so perfect and then ruin it at the very end. Boo! Guess I learned my lesson on that too. :(



I'm still happy we finally have somewhere to put the kids' underwear, though. And a special shelf for each kid to put all those 'special' things I've been stepping on for the last couple of months. Like tiny rocks, shells and our very favorite, legos. Yeah, for my feet!

Here is Austin's walking boat he put onto to help christen it.

Here are a few more pictures from Mom & Dad's trip. We had so much fun with them here that we didn't want to let Ron and Arianne have them. (They flew straight to Alaska from Portland.)

We spent a day at the OMSI...always a fun idea on a rainy day. Good thing we have so many rainy days.



Here are the twinnies playing in their capes. Apparently they are too warm to wear with shirts. Another time all three kids were playing a energetic game of cape (flag) freeze tag. Once you got tagged you had to throw you cape down on the floor until someone un-froze you to fly again. Funny kids.

We took a trip up to Mt. Hood which had beautiful views until we actually got to the mountain. Mt. Hood, itself, was shrouded in thick clouds the entire time. At the very top we found snow and the guys took the kids on a little snow-walk while Mom and I stayed back in the warm car. I think we all had a good time. :)
There were a few moments that the weather cleared up enough to actually see Mt. Hood. On one of these rare sightings, Dad took this picture. As he sun was setting it lit up the mountain from the bottom up. It was pretty spectacular to watch.
Baseball time with Grandpa would have been every second of the trip, if Ethan had his way. As it was, they spent some wonderful time together playing ball.
Little Slugger.

For some unknown reason, Robert decided that he had to create a weed maze in the back field. He borrowed this monster of a tractor to cut it out. Ethan loved being with Rob but couldn't handle the noise.

May 30th. Sunday morning came and the kids came bounding down the stairs ready to open presents. It was like Christmas morning. Ethan was just as excited to give his presents to the kids as they were to open it.


Enthusiasm was the word for the day.



Ethan got those planes at the dollar store.


And here we are all spruced up for Church. We are already missing G-ma & G-pa. It was so much fun to have them here with us. It is amazing how quickly you can get spoiled. The kiddies are counting down the days until the reunion. So am I.

And here I am with my little baby twinnies. I still can't believe they are six already. I keep thinking how strange it was that by their 1st year I was saying the same things about their personalities. Austin is the lover, the careful one, the mama's boy. Alaina is determined, stubborn and hilarious. With that said, every year I find them both more and more amazing. The things they say and think keep me in the blogging business. :) I know better, but I am always surprised with how different they are. Twins should be the same, right? Somehow their differences bring them closer together...my little ying yang twinnies. They adore each other and love Ethan. I am lucky to have such wonderful little monsters and I'm excited to see how they will grow this year.

Happy Birthday little loves.

The Twinnies turned 6!

We were all so excited to have Mom and Dad Jones here for the twins' Birthday. Because their Birthday is on Sunday, we decided to have our main celebration on Saturday.

The first gift that Mom and Dad gave to the kids was a cool water gun toy. They spent all morning with these suckers, first squirting the lawn and then they finished by washing all of our windows. Not a bad investment for an entire morning of fun.


Mom and Dad took us all to Chuck-e Cheese for pizza and games. The kids LOVED every minute of it. They raced from game to game like little maniacs. It was hard to find them standing still long enough to get a picture taken of them.




Then it was cake time. Austin wanted a lego man cake and Alaina wanted a unicorn. Who am I to disappoint my babies?

Lego Man

Unicorn.
I had a little cake extra and so I made a cake for Mom on the sly. Her Birthday was on the 21st and so we decided to celebrate all three at the same time.

Here they are with their cakes.


We waited to give them their main presents on their actual Birthday but we did give them one early. We bought all three of the kids teddy bears about 5 years ago and they all had a little button that played a recorded message. The twins' message boxes were ruined years ago and just this past month Austin has been begging for me to fix them. I told them it couldn't happen and tried to make him forget about it. Well, we did get them fixed and when we gave them to the kids, Austin wouldn't believe that it was his original bear, Clyde. He asked us if we were going to get rid of their other two bears and we tried to explain how these were the originals...just fixed up. You can kind of see his doubt in this picture.
Finally we made him go up to check his room to make sure Clyde wasn't there. When he came back he was ecstatic. "It IS Clyde! He's all better!" he laughed. We didn't get the first expression on film...which was total and complete amazement. But this is how his face looked for the next hour or so after he accepted the new and improved Clyde.

Overall, it was a very fun celebration. These little twinnies of mine have brought so much joy and happiness into our family. I got pretty lucky with the three most awesome kids around.