Star Valley and Jackson Wyoming

Our good friends Josh and Megan Rittmanic invited us on an trip to Star Valley where Meg's parents own a fun cabin. We went October 13-16, 2011. We went up this beautiful canyon with the most gorgeous fall leaves and saw this amazing water fall. The water fall was amazing because, similar to guisers, it shuts off every 15-18 minutes and the water stops flowing through and then it starts up again. You can see from the pictures here it just starting to start up and then really flowing.

Steven helped me up this hike. We've been hiking a lot lately and he does a lot of pulling as I hang on to him when we go up. He is such a good husband:)





Steven, Josh and Thane shot some clay pigeons for fun and practice for the upcoming hunt they'd be going on the next week. They did great and we barely made it with the sun going down. Meg and I watched...

One day we went to Jackson and took the standard deer-antler-picture. We enjoyed shopping around the stores and some good meat at Bubbas for lunch.

That night we played some minute=to-win-it games. It was a lot of fun doing the "cookie unicorn" as we balanced cookies on each others foreheads (Steven wouldn't stop laughing so we lost that one!) and tried to keep 3 balloons up by ourselves (I think the record was Thane with 10 seconds). And we wrapped ourselves in toilet paper "dizzy mummy" I am the proud winner of that one. And sucking skittles our of a cup with a straw- Chels and Thane won that one and they won overall! Good job Chelsea and Thane.

It was a fun, relaxing weekend and we had a lot of fun!

Camping and Fishing at Maple Lake

We took Steven's little brothers Joseph (12) and Jacob (10) to Maple Lake to go camping September 30-October 1. This was only about 20 minutes away and look at the beauty we were in! It was breath taking! I love the fall leaves.

This will probably be my last camping trip-- I'm just too uncomfortable 32 weeks pregnant.

We fished right when we got there and only caught one. We ate our tin foil dinners and the lone fish.

The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to fish some more and caught a total of 9 fish. We didn't stay too long since we had to get back for conference. What a fun weekend!

Lake Powell September 22-24, 2011

Josh, Thane, Chelssea, Melody, Steven and I squished into Thane's Dad's tiny coup of a truck and headed off to Lake Powell with Uncle Dawn's boat hauling in the back. When you're that cramped for 4+ hours you get pretty close- and we did!

It was a lot of fun enjoying the beautiful clear blue lake and the gorgeous red rock surrounding us while staying in the Oldham's House Boat.

Steve had a lot of fun in this canoe.

Meg had to word so we missed having her with Josh- but glad Josh got to come!
Melody kept us all smiling. So cute!






There wasn't a whole lot I was allowed to do but I enjoyed cheering on everyone on the skis and tube.

Going off the water slide on the top deck with Shamoo

Melers hated wearing a life jacket.

I did get on the tube for a few minutes with a promise from Josh that he would go very slow- for the baby's sake:).

Steven was pretty worn out by the end.

Visiting Theron, Lisa, Brady, Kaleb and Cameron in Albuquerque

Steven and I had been looking forward to visiting my brother and his adorable family all summer and finally got to September 15-18, 2011

They spoiled us first with my brother's expertise as a dentist. I got a cap on a molar and a cavity filled. Steven got 2 cavities filled and his front tooth that had chipped fixed up.

When Steven was numbed for his filling the shot must have hit a nerve or something because his mouth was swollen for a week and bruised blue, yellow and purple for a few days. We just told people that I won the fight:)

This is the county fair that we're at watching a very (un)entertaining lion show:)

Cute Brady and Caleb playing in the corn kernels at the fair.

This was my first real time with my new little nephew Cameron and boy is he cute! He is like a little kangaroo the way he loves to jump. Every time you stand him up on your lap he just starts jumping like crazy!

Cameron is sleeping in the stroller right next to us and Brady was not wanting to be photographed... but they were there!

Some other fun things we did:

• Babysit the boys while Theron and LIsa went on an awesome hot air balloon ride
• Get some roasted chiles and scrape the skins and seeds and wash and chop them- yum! Boy did our hands burn afterwards though!
• Bowling- Steven and LIsa were the champions
• Play with their Kinect and have a dance-off. This was so fun!
• Get slaughtered by Theron in "Cities and Knights"... big surprise
• Theron and Lisa spoiled us taking us to Tucanos
• Played at the park
• Went on a walk through the desert- their backyard
• Relaxed, ate great food and watched a movie-
• Enjoyed Theron ruthlessly teasing Lisa with very unhelpful hints of what her birthday present was-- a grand piano that she received a few days after we left:)

Thanks for a fun weekend Theron and Lisa!