Mini-vacation to Utah

Last month Tim took a couple days off work and we drove down to Utah for a few days for a real quick vacation. His dad's siblings were having a reunion in Logan that Saturday, so we decided to make a long weekend trip out of it. First we went to the Sweet Candy Factory to see how they make taffy and other sweets. It was fun and the kids really enjoyed it (and it was free, always a plus in my book!). There were no cameras allowed, though, so no pics from in there...

Next, we drove to temple square. We hadn't taken the kids there in a long time, so it was kind-of new to some of them. Later that afternoon, my sister Maggie and my niece Megan came up and we all went to the Joseph Smith movie together. It's always so fun to see them! Once we were all super-hot and tired, we all went to the hotel and went swimming. Our hotel turned out to be really nice, and the pool was open 24/7, which was real nice. The next day, we went to Lagoon. The last time we went, there were huge thunderstorms that day, and the water park was closed. It was a let-down, to say the least. No let-down this time! It was a super-hot day. Maggie and Megan again joined us, which was awesome!

I realized when I was going through these photos that I have no pictures of Brandon from Lagoon. That's because he was always on the big rides, while I was not. :) Tim took him around at the beginning, then later Megan and Brandon buddied up and hit all the big stuff. It was great she could take him around to all of that. Tim and I are just too old for big roller-coasters these days...we're too old for a lot of things these days...

We spent most of the really hot hours at the water park, where my camera stayed in the locker, so no pictures from there. We all got to go on everything we wanted. Ryan and Sydney went down the kiddie waterfall/slide like a hundred times. SERIOUSLY. With 4 adults, we were able to take turns watching Jake in the shade and split up to go on things with the other kids. It was so nice to have the extra help! And company!

Once it was dark outside and we finally left the park, we all went to McDonald's and had a late dinner. Then we said goodbye to Mags and Meg and hit the sack. We slept way in the next morning. :)

Day #3 was Reunion in Logan day. The park we were at had a creek running along right by our pavilion, and the kids jumped right in! Ryan and Sydney could have stayed in there all day. They built a dam on one end with a bunch of rocks and had a great time. My niece Alyssa was able to come up and pretend to be a Bryson for the day. It was so great to see her!

Five of the eight Bryson siblings were there. There is definitely a family resemblance among all of them! I guess I know what Tim will look like in about 40 years, haha! We also realized that there were 3 different Sydneys there, all with different name spellings. We had to get a picture of all the Sydney Brysons. Syd thought that was pretty cool. She kept saying to people, "You can only be in this picture if your name is Sydney."

This last picture is just for your viewing enjoyment. I loved it to begin with, but then I started tweaking it on Picasa and this is the final result. Pretty sure I'm going to print it real big and frame it. His pink cheeks and blue eyes just melt my heart!

Fourth of July

For the Fourth of July, we went to the trailer and spent 5 days there. I'm pretty sure that's the longest I've ever been camping for. Thankfully there was a pool and shower. :)

We had a great time. Lots of other Brysons were there, plus our friends, the Lewises came up with their trailer for the weekend. It was great to have lots of other kids for our kids to play with. We rarely saw Ryan. He was always in the woods with Conner and Cullen shooting his BB gun. That kid has finally decided that maybe it won't be so bad to be a hunter someday. That makes Tim REAL happy. :)

On the 4th, we drove up to Stanley (my first trip there) to see Red Fish Lake and watch fireworks later that night. The lake was beautiful, despite all the mosquitoes, and we vowed to go back later this summer and spend a whole day there. The fireworks show was surprisingly good. They lasted over half an hour. We even convinced Uncle Kippy to come and watch them with us, nothing short of a miracle. Stanley fireworks on July 4th might have to be a new family tradition...

I decided to make a collage of each of the kids rather than post a gajillion pictures on here. These are some of my favs. For those of you who don't know (I'm talking to you, Brittany Nicole, haha), you can click on each collage from Blogger and it will make it full-screen so you can see it better.

First off is Brandon. He's trying to get enough nights in a tent for his camping merit badge, so he set one up and that was his home for the whole time we were there. It sure makes our trailer seem bigger with one less person! He had a Harry Potter book with him on this trip, so he hung out in his tent and read a lot, but he did come out to play occasionally.

And now for Ryan. I realized I didn't have quite as many photos to choose from for him, since he was always back in the woods with his BB gun... He did make three big memories on this trip though.

1: Accidentally falling into Bull Trout Lake while we were fishing--fully clothed (and it was quite chilly that morning...). Oh, that I had had the camera with me then! It was pretty hilarious! I'm glad he's a good swimmer!

2: Shooting his first bird.

3: Losing his first molar.

All in all, a very memorable trip for him!

Now for my girlie.

***Disclaimer: never-mind her hair...I DON"T do it when we're camping!***

She LOVES camping!!! Especially when there are a lot of people there! She especially enjoyed playing with Caylee and the Lewis's dog Bella. Our dog, Molly, is way too hyper to let you lay on her back, but Bella would just let Sydney climb all over her and was cool with that. Syd loved it! She also loved making her patriotic shirt with Desiree. Tim and I had gone on a 4-wheeler ride, and when we came back, Des had all this paint and sponges and shirts out and was being all crafty with all the kids. I sure wish I was a cool mom like that...maybe next year!

And now for Jakey. Tim and I were remembering the other day how hard it was to go camping with him last year. He wasn't walking yet, so you had to hold him like ALL THE TIME. This year he has done awesome, though. He and Hunter, his cousin, get along really well, and he sleeps awesome in his little crib. He wanted to shoot guns like the big boys, so he would find a stick, hold it up in front of his face, and pretend to shoot. It was so cute! He also really did good with the fireworks. I was afraid he would be too scared, but he seemed to like them.

Ending the drought...

So last month I was this crazy-good blogger and had a ton of posts. Now that July has arrived (o.k., almost ended, for that matter...it's whatever...),

NOTHING.

I think the time has come to play catch-up and end the drought. So hopefully by the end of the week, I will be ready for August. Since it's coming, whether I'm ready or not.

I remember being so busy during the school year and being so excited to get this long list of things done once summer came...painting rooms/redecorating, scrap booking, blogging, crafting. What a joke!

Don't get me wrong--it's been a really fun summer--perhaps the first one in a long time that I didn't dread coming. The kids are old enough now that it's not quite as hard to have them out of school as it used to be. It just takes a lot of time and energy keeping them busy and entertained and still keeping up with the housework, etc.

We have done a lot of fun stuff the last month or so, and I hope to post something each day for the rest of this week and catch up...that's the goal, at least...

Ryan turned 10!!!

I just did this whole post and it disappeared before I could publish it...thanks a lot, Blogger! Ryan had his 10th birthday on Friday! A child entering a new decade makes you a little melancholy. Sometimes I really wish I could pause my life. Why must my children get bigger??? Of course it's so they can grow and progress and learn...blah, blah, blah. I just want my little babies back sometimes. But watching them grow and become independent is fun, too. Luckily for me, Jake has been such a little baby Ryan repeat that it's like getting to watch him grow up all over again. :)

Favorite gift: WII game--big surprise!

For our kids' birthdays, we let them either have a friend party or a nice dinner out with the family at a restaurant of their choosing. Ryan chose dinner out at Chili's. And like the Super-Mom that I am, I totally forgot to take the camera. Just know that we went, we ate, we enjoyed. :) And we spent...our family is growing, and a night out at Chili's costs a lot more than it used to...

Requested birthday dessert: Texas Sheet Cake. I don't blame him--I make an AWESOME Texas Sheet Cake. But it makes this whole huge pan, and it's like a gazillion calories per serving, I'm sure... Oh that I had more will power! Notice how he licked every single morsel from his fork! ( He is SOOO my child!)

All his loot. He had a great birthday and is excited to be in Webelos now for Cub Scouts.

Some of my favorite things about Ryan:

His calm, quiet temperament.

His blue eyes (they remind me of Tim's, sigh...).

His awesome piano abilities.

The way he helps with Jake.

His snuggles.

The fact that he actually sleeps in (which is more than I can say for the rest of my kids).

His love for puzzles (like me).

His awesome back-flips on the trampoline.

He is just a great kid and I can't wait to see who he becomes over the next ten years!

Our summer home

For many years, Tim's parents and some other members of his family have been parking their camper trailers for the whole summer in the mountains at a place called Grandjean. We've been up several times and love it there. The best part is the hot springs pool that our kids thoroughly enjoy (never mind that one time many, many years ago when Brandon puked in it...). This year, we joined the bandwagon and left our little trailer up there for the summer. Mostly because Tim drew a mountain goat tag not far from there and wants to be able to scout out the area whenever possible. It's not something we were planning on doing this year, but we've been up twice now and have really enjoyed the convenience of the whole thing so far. I'm sure we'll make a lot of great memories, which is the main goal in my opinion.

Some fun things the kids did were go for rides with Dad on the 4-wheeler, lots of swimming, BB gun shooting, playing with cousins in our "neighbors'" sandbox, building a fire pit, hiking, playing games, and fishing. And eating s'mores, of course...

Our spot up there had a fire pit once upon a time, but had been almost completely covered up with dirt and such. We really wanted our own little fire spot, so that was our project last weekend. Tim brought a few shovels up with us, and the boys carried, rolled, and kicked big rocks we found to help make it. One of my favorite pics is the one of Syd with her shovel--she's totally posing--why am I surprised?? Anyway, our fire pit turned out awesome and did the job once it was time for the campfire that evening. I look forward to many more nights around that fire pit...

When we were trying to decide on Ryan's name 10 long years ago, Tim really wanted to name him Ryan Fisher (after all, Brandon's middle name is Hunter, and he wanted to continue the theme...). I refused and eventually won that battle. Perhaps I should have let him have his way. That boy loves to fish! He caught several the first night and I cooked them for dinner, and he also loved eating them (note the fish scale in one pic). The only downside to the whole fishing experience was Ryan "hooking" his finger. He didn't like that too much, to say the least... I think next time he'll be a little more careful when removing moss from his hook.

All in all, it was a great weekend and I'm sure there will be many more to come.

Vacuum Treasures

I love my central vacuum. Really. What I don't love is that Jake loves to stuff things in the wall-suction-socket-thingy. I've caught him more than once trying to do that. Obviously, though, I haven't caught him in time sometimes. Last week, my vacuum wasn't sucking so well. I kept hoping it would get better on its own, since I just had to have a new garage door opener installed and get my satellite TV repaired. I wasn't exactly anxious to pay yet a third person to come fix something. But alas, I couldn't take the dirty carpet anymore, so we had a guy come out this morning. Here is the collection of things he found:

THREE (yes, 3!!!) mini glasses that go to Sydney's old tea set
One huge rock
A toy hay bale
A toy rake
A bouncy ball
A child's-sized spoon (it's about 4 inches long...)

SERIOUSLY?!?!? Nice!

So, after paying the nice man $73.24 (could that amount be any more random?), I now have a vacuum that is in tip-top shape. :)

Guess what I'll be doing the rest of the day...

New 'do--times two

So I've really been needing a new look, and Sydney has been begging me to let her cut her hair like her friend, Jessie's. As in, right at her shoulders... I kept hoping she would change her mind, but no luck, so I asked her like 100 times if she was sure, and she said yes, so we had a little girls' hair-date today and got new 'dos. Before the haircuts, we went to the dollar store (her favorite place) so she could spend some of her money, and I found some cute luau stuff for her birthday party next month.

Anyway, I'm proud that I was willing/able to let go of control of her hair and let her do what she wanted to with it. If there's one thing I've always said, it's that ,"It's just hair...it will grow back." Heaven knows I've had like every hairdo in the book. I think it'll be fun for the summer. And I guess it will take less time to do her hair now, which is a big plus. :)
My new look. I've been trying to grow out my bangs for a couple months, and now they actually look like they are part of my style. :) My brown-eyed girl.
I. LOVE. HER.