Lake Mead and a Burger from Heaven!

When you think of Las Vegas you usually don't think of giant lakes of water but from where we live in Henderson, Lake Mead is less than 20 minutes away. We have passed by it many times on drives but never actually went to check it out.  Well Martin Luther King Day was the day to finally do that!

We loaded up the kids and started to explore. Immedietly upon arriving I wondered why we hadn't explored this before. I think I'll be getting the pass so we can come here all the time. It was beautiful!

We found some great camping spots too. Unfortunately when we moved here we left our camp trailer so we'll have to get some good tents or something.. or maybe another trailer. ;-)

But it was nice since its been a little cold the past few weeks to finally get out again.

Quick video of our explorings!

Yummy dirt!

Rebel was not afraid of the water a bit and before we knew we had a muddy mut on our hands.  She's a great little pup and has become a fun little member of  the fam.

Ok what does this last picture have to do with our trip? Well not much but it must be shared!  When we lived in Meridian my absolute favorite place for a burger was Famous Daves! I can't believe a whole year has gone by and I hadn't had one so a friend and I went there this week.

Holy cow! Its got shredded pork, tasty pickles, and check out that bacon!  Thank goodness I started my healthy eating & running plan again this week. ;-)  It was even bigger and better than I remembered!

I keep thinking of starting "Kody's Burger Blog" but until then I'll just have to share it here.

Asian Family Night!

Last week a friend at work returned from a trip visiting family in Asia including Thailand and Japan. She brought some wonderful treats back with her including a Sun Cake and some pineapple tasty treats! We decided to make a night of it and here are some pics from the night. The kids loved it!

First, Lisa made some tasty Chinese food including rice, egg rolls and orange chicken. We had the kids watch some Chinese cartoons while we ate. Then we talked about different cultures and how we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father.

Then we called Aunt Janis and listened to our cousin Jaydee speak Mandrin over the phone. We taught the kids Wa shir... My name is... Trace or Kendra.

Then we watched clips from Mulan and ate the delicious treats my friend gave us.

Lastly, the kids drew some pictures from Mulan. Here below are their masterpieces.

What started out as a couple fun treats turned into a really memorable night. ;-)

Decision by Richard Franklin

Lisa's Uncle was an extremely talented artist named Richard Franklin. We have a few of his pictures in our home which we love but recently his widow brought us a beautiful print.

We found the perfect frame but it needed to be sanded and restained to restore it. Here are the before and after pictures.

This piece is titled "Decision". There are certainly a lot of life's decisions that are critical in determining our life's paths and future happiness so thinking about its name makes me love it even more.

A Family Trek up a Henderson Trail!

We went on a fun hike today with Trace being our fearless leader every step of the way!

Make a video of your own at Animoto.

30 Things to Do before I'm 30!

My 30th birthday is looming over me...A bunch of my high school friends are making lists of thirty things to accomplish before thirty so I want to do the same!  My list is going to be really easy though because after baby comes I will be pretty busy I imagine :) 

1.  Send out birth announcements/Christmas cards...never done it before!
2.  Can some kind of jam...never done it before!
3.  Get rid of binkies and bottles for Kendra before she is two!
4.  Teach Trace to dress himself.
5.  Update Trace and Kendra's scrapbooks.
6.  Make and store at least 3-5 freezer meals the week before baby is due. 
7.  Go see the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn with friends :)
8.  Sew carseat canopy for Baby Jack.
9.  Read Book of Mormon between September and December.
10.  One night indulge in all my pregnancy cravings (meatball sub from Subway, cheese puffs, Dr Pepper and a cookie dough shake to wash it all down)
11.  Gifts for a needy family at Christmas
12.  Lose thirty pounds by my birthday!  ...Delivering a baby counts! 
13.  Go berry picking with family
14.  Take family to pumpkin patch
15.  Write in my journal every Sunday
16.  Get Christmas treats out early to neighbors and friends
17.  Go on one date a month with Kody without kids!
18.  Try one new recipe a month
19.  Visit visiting teaching ladies each month.
20.  Teach my kids to do daily chores.
21.  Overnight trip somewhere with Kody for anniversary in October. 
22.  Sign Trace up for sports
23.  Learn a new piano song perfectly.
24.  Have a baby!  (This one is kinda cheating but I am running out of ideas)
25.  Prepare temple names.
26.  Read a book in my field of study (school counseling or Hispanic student issues)
27.  Take a Love and Logic course through the Elementary School
28.  Figure out how to do that blog thing where it crosses out my sentence when I accomplish a task!
29.  Read On Becoming Babywise again so this baby will sleep through the night by 3 months.
30.  Enjoy being in my twenties until April!

Bandits, Burgers, Baker City & Beyond!

We needed a quick family vacation but didn’t want to travel long distances in the car for two reasons: Trace and Kendra!  We decided to visit Baker City, Oregon.  We had never been to Oregon before and this part is only two hours away.  Baker City is an old mining town and has lots of Oregon Trail artifacts. 
We started our trip by going out to Haines Stake House!  It was so good! Thanks to Kristin Bowman for giving us the low-down on where to eat.

		Haines Stake House! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This pioneer style stake house was so good. Unfortunately, I don’t think the pioneers had tasty onion rings and absolutely delicious burgers back then. Maybe though. It was so good we actually ate here twice on our trip!



Watch out!  Kendra at the helm of the cannon!

		Baker City! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Baker City is a super old town that had a lot of beautiful old buildings. We couldn’t help but snap some shots of the kids along the way. My favorite is the one of cute Lisa with baby on the way but Kendra with the rose is a very close second.

		Oregon Trail Center VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center was amazing. You can see Trace hangin with the Indians.  We got a tour and went on a Nature trail.  Kendra & Trace were most impressed with the giant buffalo you see in the last pic.  They had a fun kids room with a life size wagon that you can fill with things the pioneers actually took and costumes to dress up in. 

		Pizza, park, & more Pizza. VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Trace learned to hold a rifle at Paizano’s Pizza! He did pretty good. We then checked out this park that was awesome. It had all the old toys that you hardly see any more like the teeter totter, spinny thing that Lisa & the Kids got on, and some sizzling hot long metal slides. lol. We avoided those.
We also went to the public library next door and let the kids play with the puppet show area they had.  As we crossed the bridge back over to the park, we saw tons of kids on tubes floating down the river and it looked so fun!

Trace the puppeteer!!

		Sumpter Train Ride! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The Train ride up to Sumpter was the highlight of our trip! We rode in a train car that was built in the early 1900s and they staged a train robbery.  Trace was cheering for the robbers.  The people were so nice and the kids just loved it! It was all of our first times riding on a train so that plus the beautiful scenario around there was awesome!

All of a sudden some bandits on horses came to rob us on the train! Luckily they had terrible aim!

		Creepy Headstone & Drive Home! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The drive home was excellent (only 2 hours) and we decided to check out the cemetery to see how old some of the Oregon Trailers were. Lisa spotted this creepy headstone. It looks like feet or hands are on it trying to climb out! With that we returned home, but not before passing this GIANT factory thing that was falling over and apart. I ‘m not sure why I thought it was so cool, but it was. Last but not least we got some Ice cream which as you can see made Trace SUPER happy!

It was a great trip!