Senior Prom

The big day is finally here! I think Summer and I spent at least five hours at the fabric store figuring her dress out. She chose the purple fabric for the sash to match a pair of my shoes that she wanted to wear. I finished sewing yesterday. Isn't she lovely?

She made the flowers at her waist. She got the idea for the poofs by her hips from a dress she saw a Macy's.

Anthony came to pick her up with more flowers for both of them.

Summer's corsage was easy to put on. It had an elastic wristband.

Anthony's boutonniere, on the other hand, came with two BIG pins. Don't worry, no blood was drawn.

Don't they look schnazzy?

A Man with An Opinion

On our road trip, we passed a couple of Adopt-a-Highway signs that read -

A fool and his trash are soon parted - M. Bibb

Like nose hair, litter is ugly - Mike Bibb

I like this guy :)

Happy Earth Day!

Spring Break! Road Trip! Woohoo!

The kids and I (Stan had to work and we missed him) hit the road last week. We headed east and stayed with my darling friend Mandy in AZ. These signs on her fence made me smile. I'm guessing the first one is spot on, but the second one is a little bit of an exaggeration.

Here is her dog Ginger...see what I mean?

The kids LOVED Ginger and they also loved swimming.

Mandy made a chocolate cake for Heather, whose birthday was on Thursday. Heather really scored. She had three different birthday cakes this year. Amanda and I took care of the beaters!

Here is a video of the amazing birthday candle Mandy put on Heather's cake.

We had fun listening to Amanda and David play the piano and drums together. When they were done, David let the kids mess around and play his drums. They had a blast.

We spent an day (during which we went shopping at some really fun stores) and two nights in AZ. It was wonderful spending time with Amanda and her family.

The next day, we headed east again. The desert we drove through, especially for the first hour or two, was beautiful. The picture doesn't come close to doing it justice. There were flowers of almost every color of the rainbow in bloom. My favorite was the ocotillo - so lovely!

I am glad my sister-in-law Steph gave me the heads up, because when I saw the Gila Valley Temple on the side of the road, I stopped and we had lunch, instead of driving by with my mouth hanging open in confusion :)

We went to see Matt, Steph and their darling girls in NM next. They had pu pu platters for dinner when we got there. They were amazingly delicious and I ate way more than fit in my stomach...oooo full!

Matt and Steph also had a cake for Heather (cake #2 - lucky girl).
Aren't the cherry blossoms pretty?

Here is birthday song video #2. Can you guess what my favorite part of the video is?

After dinner, Summer and Rachel both got on Facebook and chatted with each other. I kid you not.

We piled most of the kids in the living room which is just how they wanted it, at least until the middle of the night, when some of them wandered in to the room I was in to snuggle.

Here are all the cousins together.

We spent two nights and a day with Matt and Steph. The day we spent with them, they took us to the coolest place, Hueco Tanks State Park. The pictures pale in comparison to reality. It is a honeycomb of boulders, caves and crevasses to climb and crawl through - kid (and parent) heaven.

Opal, Matt and Steph's youngest.

One of the many crawl spaces.

You never knew where someone would appear. I looked up and there was Matt.

Steph and their oldest, Ruby.

Coral, their middle girl.

Gwen was really in her element.

Here is my beautiful Heather on her 13th birthday.

After we hiked around for a while, we ran all the kids through the restroom and started on our tour. I thought the old archeologist who was our guide looked like the Pied Piper most of the time.

Here is Newspaper Rock, with paintings and graffiti layered on top of each other from the 1800's to thousands of years ago.

The cactuses were blooming.

The kids were excited when the guide showed them a rock smoothed by woolly mammoths wanting a scratching spot.

These masks were some of the older paintings on the rock walls.

These are more recent and were painted by Apaches.

He took us to one spot near water that had a slide smoothed by generations of Native American children playing. Our kids did their part to erode.

Naomi was a trooper on our hikes. She kept going and going until she tripped and fell near the end and then she wanted carried for a bit. One of the men on our tour said she did better than some of the adults on a hike he took a month before. It was a wonderful day and especially fun to spend it with Steph and Matt :)

Somehow, I ended up with three kids in bed with me that night, on a full sized fold out couch. When I woke up in the morning, Michael had a leg over me on one side and Naomi had a leg over me on the other. It was tricky getting up...

Friday we headed back to AZ to stay one more night. David planned Mandy's birthday party for that night, a bit early, so that I could come. It was so nice of him and so fun. Somehow, Amanda got me on the dance floor which brought back memories of stake dances when we were teenagers. How did the time go by so fast?

Here she is with David and her son Nathan.

We made it home safe and had one more birthday party, this time with brownies and ice cream :)

Happy Birthday Heather!

More of Heather's Photography

Here are some more...

On the way home...

...from St. George, we stopped in the mountains in California. I made sure to take a picture of Michael in front of a Joshua tree because he is fascinated with them. On the way there, he kept asking WHEN we would see the Joshua trees.

I agree, they are pretty neat looking...

...but not too good for climbing or tree houses.

The girls found a horned lizard, held it and chased it around for a bit. It tried to hide under the arch of my boot. I promise I didn't step on it!

I like this picture of Gwen :)

Trip to Saint George

Last weekend we went to Saint George to attend Aunt Zella's funeral. It was a lovely, bittersweet day. Summer and Rachel were able to help by playing the piano and all the children sang "I Love to See the Temple". Aunt Zella had worked for years in the St. George Temple, so it was appropriate. We were also able to go to Uncle Grant's viewing, but had to leave town before his funeral.

Aunt Zella was buried in the Cane Beds, AZ cemetery, not far from her (and Stan's mother's) childhood home.

I smooshed under an umbrella, but Stan was brave and got all wet.

After the burial, we drove to see some of Cane Beds. Here is the house Mother grew up in...

...and the one room schoolhouse where she went.

This is the house Stan's parents built (but never got to live in).

It was a beautiful place!