We’re sure many of you are wondering why there are so few posts coming in here as of late. We may refer to it as the ‘Facebook effect’ – since the vast majority of our friends are on Facebook, a lot of the smaller updates go there, and the blog goes without updating. But every once in a while, we will get on here and post photos – because a lot of our extended family doesn’t do the whole Facebook thing, but they will visit the family website to see pictures of the kids. Hence today’s blog post.Instead of just putting up a block of 80 or so pictures without any explanation, please bear with us as we give a little background this time.

First are a number of pictures taken in August at Murray Park. We had promised the kids an activity that evening, bowling. But they wouldn’t take our coupon, so we went to the park instead. It turned out to be a great activity, and we got some good pictures. In particular, one really good picture of a very unhappy baby Glen… it was taken near the end of the visit, and he was tired.

Okay, so we ended up taking a lot of pictures of Glen…but hey, This baby is hecka-cute!

Okay, okay, we took pictures of the other kids as well…hold yer horses…

Alright, the next set of pictures is the biggest, but it was worth it. We took a Sunday afternoon drive up to Silver Lake (a very nostalgic place for Johanna and I) for a relaxing hike. The kids love it because we can skip rocks and feed ducks there. Johanna was excited because we were going to get pictures of Glen that match some family photos we had taken last year before he was born.

Those last two of Aiden were some of the only ones where he wasn’t making a completely rediculous smile at the camera. It’s like pullilng teeth sometimes, trying to get a good smile out of the kid…and Mike is the same way! Enough of that…more photos!

There were some great shots we got while feeding the ducks up there, and also a few where we found this really, REALLY cool fallen tree which was just the right size for the kids to sit in. Incidentally, while organizing these photos in Picasa, we discovered that it really does an amazing job when you ask it to suggest how to crop a photo – some of these things just turned out great! The thumbnails below will be square, but let’s hope the full-sized ones don’t get re-cropped when they are published to the blog!

And now for that fallen tree we found (and a few others.) By this time we had discovered how to turn on the ‘multi-shot’ feature of the camera, and it made it a bit easier to get a good smile out of both Aiden and Glen (the little wiggler).

The rest of the photos from the lake were just some that looked good when we cropped ‘em. They don’t come from any particularly interesting part of the hike, but they are still worth sharing.

Fast forward a few weeks, and we get to our ward’s Primary Carnival. There was a face-painting booth there, but nobody running it when we arrived. The kids were anxious, so Mike decided to jump in. Soon, he had not only painted James like an ‘Army Guy’, but Aiden and his cousin Adriana both wanted to be ‘Lions’, cousin Alex wanted to be a ‘Zombie’, and Mike decided that Glen wanted to be a BYU fan (heck yes he does!!!) From this experience, Mike is officially designated as the official Halloween Face Painter in the family – the kids actually turned out pretty good!

Last, but not least, we do have a couple of ‘everyday life’ pictures that are blog-worthy. At a yard sale we found a tent that is the perfect size for sleepovers (thoroughly tested by the kids), we have a couple of G-rated bath-time pictures, Glen’s first ‘silly hat’ outing, and James’ first day of preschool. If you have stuck around this long, congrats! The end is near! Enjoy!

First, Mike acts the same way my dad does right before vacation.  Grumpy and mad because things arn’t happening as fast as he would like. The only differance is as soon as my dad gets on the road he actually enjoys the vacation. I think Mike’s problem is he doesn’t like the beach thing.  Next time we go camping we will go to the mountains close by with no lake and lots of hiking and bike riding. I think that is his idea of fun camping. Me on the other hand grew up in the water and therefore can’t get enough of it.

I had a great time and would love to go to pineview every year if my hubby liked it as well. I guess we will have to compromise and venture out to other things. We also went to the dinosaur museum in Ogden. It was like the zoo except with dinosaurs instead of animals. The dinosaurs were fake but they had good sound effects. We were able to pretend we were in Jurassic Park!  We also went to see the Monks at a little church. They chant seven times a day starting at 3:30 am. They also sell honey that they make and Jam that their other monk friends make from another state.  We bought some jam we ate it within the next week. It was good.

I also found out that I love to cook even when camping! That was nice because my mom hates to cook while camping and I thought I might be like her. I also didn’t throw up once while on this trip! It was a nice break. Although right when I got back I started up again. aarrggg.

We did not spend as much time on the beach as Mike would make you believe, instead we had a nice balance.

It was fun.