Reunion Time

We arrived at Bryce Canyon safe and sound Thursday afternoon.  We checked into the hotel, saw some family, and got ready for the evening festivities.  We met in the camping area, roasted hot dogs and ate smores.  It was a fun night and the kids enjoyed getting to know their cousins :).

Sandra and her cousin, "Princess."

Mhari and her cousin "Buddy"

Uncle Vance playing with the girls :)

Weight lifting the girls.

The girls making their own campfire... out of rocks and dirt.  They sure were dirty by the end of the night :).

Grant enjoying an apricot.

Mhari with a cookie smore.

Clark

Clark and I hanging with some of the girl cousins.

My kids bonding with cousins.

Uncle Paul helping roast hot dogs

Hanging with my cute niece :).

Aunt Amanda and her baby :)

Our first night was over and everyone had a great time being outside and eating.  More fun tomorrow :)

The desert and wood....

So that would be the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest and our next main stop along our way to the reunion.  I actually need to add a correction to the previous post;  the picture of Baby and I was actually taken on this day on our lunch break in Albuquerque, NM... oops ;).  

Anyway, so after a long detour, since the off ramp was under construction, we arrived at the Painted Desert.  It was also raining (and since we haven't seen any of that in almost 2 months it was a welcomed site, just too bad it wasn't raining in TX)... with the rain and wind it made getting out more difficult, but we managed a few times - otherwise it was a nice car drive checking out all of the cool parts of the National Park!

I just love looking at the red in the desert.  Makes it so cool and alive looking :)

One of our stops getting all of the kids out - with Grandma.

See, I told you it was windy!

 It was really cool to see the different colors through the dirt.

Talmage

We crossed over to the Petrified Forest side of the park and found lots of cool stuff. 


Newspaper Rock.  You can see the petroglyphs (pictures) on the bottom of the rocks (huge rocks), made by Native Americans years ago.  Really the carvings are so tiny... so you may need to zoom in to see them.  They are in the black parts of the rock.

Talamge

Trying to give you some size perspective on how large the rocks were... at the very bottom of the rocks in the black sections are the pictures.

We were up on a platform looking through the viewfinders to get a good look at the pictures.  Oh, and Clark was being cute ;).

This is the Agate Bridge.  One of the logs that had come out of the erosion and a gully formed under it creating a natural bridge.  The cement under the log is to give it support, but eventually it will wear away.

They call this mound of dirt the Blue Tepees (I think) because it's triangular like a tepee and they have blue and other cool colors in them.

Me and the kids outside the Petrified Forest Museum... look at all that petrified wood!

The kids with a huge piece of polished rock, or wood, or whatever :)

Day 2 down.  Made it to Holbrook, AZ, ate dinner, and stayed the night ... ready to get to the reunion!

On our way to the reunion...

Last week was our Westenskow family reunion.  I (with help from my mom) took the kids across 3 states to get them to Bryce Canyon. Our first stop was Amarillo, TX... more importantly the Don Harrington Discovery Center.  Really it's just a cool kid's museum.  They played and played and played until closing (at 4:30 - why so early?).  

Here's the photos of all the fun!

Playing with the balls!  Mhari and Clark

Sandra, Grant, and Mhari

Clark found a beach ball! - did I ever mention that Clark likes balls?

The spinning discs - Talmage, Grant, and Mhari.

The human bubble.... growing from the ring

almost covering Talmage...

Grant in the full size bubble!  Seriously awesome bubble fun!

Clark and I making a vertical bubble.

Grant and Talmage found the dinosaur dig area!

Sandra and Mhari found the face paint.  Sandra took the liberty of painting Mhari's face for her ;).

Sandra found a stage to perform on ...

and so did Clark :)

 Sandra also found the dress up clothes.  She had a blast... there was always something new to do!

They had a machine that made it so you could be in a cloud.  Here are the boys in the cloud.

Sandra's turn.

Then Clark got a turn.  Let's just say that he was super cute in the cloud!

They had some cool dinosaurs in the dino area.  The boys really loved this part... and they are running away from the t-rex in case you couldn't tell ;).

 Grant playing with the electro ball thingy.

Outside the museum after it closed.  Man, they would have stayed all night if they could!

Clark and I hanging outside the museum.  He's such a cutie!

The rest of the evening consisted of checking into the hotel, getting dinner, and swimming.  Then the kids were nice and worn out for bed.  It was a good night... and we had completed our first day of travel. 
Until tomorrow!

Hat Family :)

My friend Amanda makes some awesome patterns!  I have done this hat pattern for my baby a few months back and my older kids thought they would all like one too... so the time came to make the hats!  I decided to repurpose, or upcycle, some of the stuff I had to do the hats.  The boys hats came from camouflage shorts with the waist band making the band around the hat - I kept the belt loops, I thought they looked cool.  The girls flower pattern was a sun dress that I had bought at a thrift store a while back.  Totally cute!  They each picked a color for the opposite side, since the pattern is reversible!

Here are the pics of how the hats turned out :).  

Talmage

He's so photogenic ;)

Mhari - cutie!

so cute!

Sandra

sweetie!

Grant

So handsome!

Did I mention that Amanda has an adult pattern as well?  Well she does and after making so many fun hats for the kids I had to do one for myself!  Mine came from a girls pair of pants.  I also used the waist band for my hat, but this time I kept the button for the focus and removed the loops.  I think it turned out so cute!

If you ever want to try a pattern and you're not sure if you'll be able to do it... I think Amanda, or Butterfly Tree, does a fabulous job of making a very clear easy to understand pattern with tips as you go along too!  
We love our hats!