Do you believe in Sasquatch?

Our family vacation adventure started out Tuesday, July 21st, around 3:30! We were all packed up and heading back to Houston! Poor Bethany had only been home for less that a whole week before she had to pack again!!! She wasn't very excited. Aimee said, "Bethany WAS excited to live out of a suitcase again!"

About half way through Louisiana, it started to rain! Aimee and I had talked about this earlier! We decided that the rain was Louisiana crying because we were leaving, since it always seems to rain when we leave Louisiana! A couple hours away from Houston, Edd needed a quick reminder why we were driving to Houston to fly to SLC...$$$$!! Tickets from New Orleans were almost twice as expensive!!!

Once in Houston, we spent the night at Dan & Melissa's house. By the time we arrived, George, Ben & Henry were asleep. Dan was in Brazil on business. So we shared some ice cream with Melissa, then it was off to bed. In the morning, the boys were excited to see all the kids! :) We ate some yummy cereal from the mini boxes, then out the door at 7:15am and off to the airport!

Here are the kids waiting to board the plane.

Bethany made some last minute adjustments to her suitcase!

While waiting at the gate, we joined up with the Knights!!!

Brooke, Cheney, Raegan & Amy were on our same flight up to Utah! :)

Thomas and Mattie waiting for take off! :) We sat in the very last row of the airplane and ended up sitting across the isle from the Knight girls! We had a good flight! Mattie and Thomas loved looking out the window at the clouds, but that only lasted for a few minutes. They entertained themselves pretty well the rest of the trip. Of course the juice and pretzels were a hit, especially when we got extra pretzels! :) Thomas and the Knights had fun goofing off together while we were waiting to get off the plane!

Finally, after some lunch, we were headed to the dinosaur park in Ogden! Thomas was so excited! We quickly walked through the bone museum, then headed outside where the lifesize dinos were! Thomas thought they were AWESOME!!! The first dinos we saw were the T-rex and the "fairasalaphus" (Parasaurlophus) carcus.

While we were at the dino dig area, Thomas heard a dinosaur growl~it was so fun to see his expression!

What was that???

A dinosaur???

That was the end of the dino dig...off we went on the dino hunt! The kids thought this dino was pretty scarry looking!

Thomas didn't say a whole lot as he looked at all the dinosaurs but you could tell so excited to see them! I don't know if he was scared of them, he did take my hand a few times though! After some kid told Thomas that the dinosaurs weren't real,

Thomas really liked the fighting dinosaurs!

After seeing all the dinosaurs, we stopped to play at the playground for a little while.

Thomas decided that T-Rex was his favorite and couldn't wait to find him again! Back on the hunt for T-Rex! Thomas was so excited to see T-Rex and "Fairasalaphus"again! Wow!!! Those dinos were really cool!

Our next stop: Grandma & Grandpa's house!

Grandma had a big welcome sign on the door waiting for us!

The kids had fun playing in the yard. Thomas had the most fun, I think with Grandpa's water hose! :) He got a little surprise when the water splashed him on the head though!! He quickly recovered and then he was after me!!!

Later on, we went over to meet the newest Cutler girl cousin ~ little Kate Mackenzie! What a cutie she is!!! Thomas loved feeling her head and the girls could hardly wait for their next turn to hold Kate! :)

Kate and her mom & dad (Tarina & Chris) took us on a tour of their new house, which they are remodeling! It's a cute house with a great backyard!

While we were there, Tarina told us how their to do list included removing the dead animal from their roof. Bethany's curiostiy got the best of her! She climbed up to inspect the "dead animal"with a stick!

Bethany knocked it down and to our surpise, it was just a sunbaked teddy bear!!!

After dinner, Edd, Bethany and I snuck away to catch some pictures of the sunset! It was fun to be back in the valley and watch all the lights start to twinkle as it got dark ~ one of my favorite things to before I moved away! We drove up into "The Cove" on Mt Olympus! The cool mountain air was so refreshing, but the view was AWESOME!

Our Cabin Adventures:

We got to "Gradpa's Cabin" Thursday around lunchtime. As soon as they could, the kids went down to the river and started throwing rocks in. Andrew even got a few rocks to skip across!

When I was a kid, I loved throwing rocks into the river too! I tried skipping them across, but couldn't get them to go very far.

Andrew of course wanted to go fishing ASAP, but after throwing rocks into the river water, there would be no river fishing.

So after dinner, we headed up to the Smith and Morehouse reservior to fish. Andrew has his own special technique for catching fish...

CRUISE CONTROL!!! After setting the fishing poles in the rocks, Andrew and Mattie started walking toward me. I told them they needed to go back and take care of their poles. Andrew insisted that he knew what he was doing and that he always catches a fish using this method! I was a little skeptical. Andrew & Mattie turned around and walked back to their poles. Sure enough, by the time they got back (no more than 2 minutes later) they had caught a fish!!!

The next night, Andrew and Aimee were lucky enough to catch the same fish at the same time!!! "How did that happen???" Here's Bethany's report:

Andrew had set his pole up in the rocks, cruise control style of course, and then did the same for Aimee just a few feet away. They weren't paying attention to their lines, but Bethany was! She saw Andrew's bobber go down, then Aimee's bobber went down, then Andrew's again, then Aimee's again!!! By this time, Bethany alerted Aimee and Andrew to the situation. The quickly pulled their lines in. To everyone's surprise, they had both hooked the same fish!!!

Here is their fish with the worm still wiggling inside!

This is a picture of the fish that Mattie & I caught the traditional way while all the commotion was going on with Andrew & Aimee's fish!

It wouldn't be a family vacation without a family challenge! Our first afternoon at the cabin Edd issued his challenge: Lay down in the river and get completely wet!

Andrew was the first to try it and went all the way under. He was followed by Mattie who got mostly under. Thomas jumped in right after and only got half way wet! Aimee and Bethany hesitated for quite a while.

Finally, Aimee dipped in. She only got her front 1/2 wet because the water was so cold!!! Bethany stalled and stalled. She ended up sitting in the water for awhile, then dunked herself.

Friday Andrew issued the sibling challenge: cross the river to the other bank! Andrew went first and almost fell in! When he reached the swift moving water, he wasn't prepared for how fast it was moving! He caught his balance at the last second and made it across without getting wet. Mattie went next, she wasn't as lucky. The swift current knocked her down. Luckily, Bethany came to the rescue with a BIG STICK! B helped Aimee and Mattie across to the other bank. Meanwhile, Thomas is standing on the bank begging me saying that he can do it and that he is BIG!!! Thomas was so heartbroken that I wouldn't let him try.

Andrew and Abinidi (Lily's son) built this "bridge" for Thomas so he could cross the river. It only went half way, but that was good enough for Thomas!

Saturday morning while we were fishing at the reservior we saw a bunch of kids swimming in the water. Andrew and Abinidi couldn't resist!

Andrew and Abinidi had their own water challenge: jump into the reservior and swim back to shore! The were both surpised at how cold the water was, but they both made it back to shore!

CABIN HIGHLIGHTS:

Playing with cousins! After 14 long years, Bethany finally has some Cutler cousins to play with! The girls loved hanging out with Kate and Tarina!

The kids liked hanging out with Abinidi too! Andrew met Abinidi last summer at Frank & Lily's wedding. The rest of the kids met him when he arrived at the cabin! In this picture they are helping Abinidi collect spiders!

Andrew and Abinidi really hit it off and hung out together most of the time. They even camped out together in one of the tents. Chris, Tarina and Kate slept next door to them in the big tent with the rest of our girls. The first night out in the tents, there was some sort of disturbance near the big tent. Was it the boys or was it Sasquatch???

Our first night at the cabin, we'd been watching "Happy Feet." All of the sudden, Aimee got freaked out and started crying! She said she'd seen something dark and furry walk past the window of the cabin. She said that the head didn't have any ears that stuck out, like a bear. WEIRD!!! Was it Sasquatch???

Nature!

When we first arrived at the cabin, Edd asked the kids to be aware of their surroundings and see if they could find different kinds of wildlife! We even had points for different things like:

birds 1pt

rodents 3pts

fish 10pts

deer/snake 20pts

bat/owl 25pts

beavers 40 pts

moose 50 pts

If you saw a bear or a mountain lion you were the big winner!!! Should we include Sasquatch???

If you shared your find with others you received a bonus of 3 pts/animal.

One of our most memorable nature moments was when we were all out in the Aspen trees playing. Some of us were in the hammock swinging and singing, others just goofing off. Off in the distance I saw a deer. To our amazement, the deer kept coming closer and closet to us!!! To my amazement, the kids all quieted down and just started to watch the deer!Pretty soon it was about 30 feet away from us before it ran off!

Playing by the brook!

Friday afternoon, while we waited for everyone to arrive at the cabin, Andrew and Thomas had tinfoil boat races in the brook, a.k.a. Thomas' little river. The kids loved playing over in the Aspen trees when they weren't down at the river. They loved climbing the trees and swinging in the hammock! Thomas loved running bare foot through the water in the brook and playing on the little bridge! :)

The weather!

It was so nice to be in the mountains and enjoy the cool air! Oh, it was almost like Heaven! :) It was so fun to feel the breeze and watch it make the aspen leaves shimmer! We were even treated with a few summer shower and some hail! It's so fun to hear the rain on the metal roof of the cabin! :)

Fishing with the uncles!

The kids love having Frank & Chris to fish with! Andrew and Bethany got a special fishing treat...a fly fishing demo! Frank and Chris showed them how to cast while they were at the cabin, then Chris, Bethany, & Andrew went to the river. Unfortunately, the fish weren't biting!

Hanging out with Grandma & Grandpa Cutler!

The kids enjoyed hearing Grandpa's stories while he pushed them in the hammock. They also had fun hanging out with him at the reservior when they weren't fishing!

Grandma was able to spend some one on one time with Thomas! She read him his favorite dinosaur stories. The best part was being able to hold him while he slept! :)

Dinner at the Diner!

Saturday night, we all drove down the canyon into Oakley where Grandma treated us all to a yummy dinner at the diner!!! :) Thank You!!! :)

Family Time!

The best part of the whole trip was being able to spend time with the family! It was so fun to watch the kids play! It was so nice to just relax and not have anywhere to be! We had a great vacation!!! :)

Bethany is back! :)

Bethany finally made it back to New Orleans on July 15th! The kids, even Thomas, were really starting to miss not having her around. Andrew and Aimee said that it just wasn't fun without Bethany. Mattie agreed!



Edd went to the airport to pick Bethany up for me so I didn't have to take everyone to the airport. This turned out to be a really thing since Bethany's plane was about 2 hours late!!! Edd called me about 5 minutes before her plane was supposed to land and said that B hadn't even left Houston yet!


There was something that needed to be replaced on the plane, it wasn't serious, but I guess necessary and took a long time! Poor B was sitting on the plane the whole time they were doing the repairs!

Once we got Bethany home, the kids were so excited!!! She was challenged out on the badminton court in the backyard. I don't know whose team won, but I think everyone had fun! Mattie just reported to me that Bethany and Aimee won because Bethany is good at hits! :)

Then next item of business: painting Bethany's room! We were supposed to get it done while she was gone, but in those 3 weeks, we just didn't have time to work on it, other than get the paint. So all the kids ended up helping! They were all excited to help! After painting one wall, we had used up about 3/4 of the first gallon of paint! Yikes!!! After that, I had to limit the access to the paint. After a stressful day and a half, we finally got B's room painted! It looks great! :)

Another bit of excitement was the day we could FINALLY make MICROWAVE POPCORN!!! :)

Our new house is equipped with a double oven, which has been handy...like when we are making cookies! But poor Thomas was so sad not to have microwave popcorn anymore! I'd given away our electric popcorn popper when we moved, not realizing how handy it would be at the new house since it didn't have a microwave!

I thought it was kindof fun to live without a microwave for awhile...reminded me of when I was a kid and there was no such thing as microwaves. But the are very nice to have! So Bethany's first Friday night was spent babysitting while Edd and I went microwave shopping!

Thomas is so glad to have microwave popcorn again!!! :)

Is that thunder??? :)

Yeah!!! It FINALLY rained again!!!

The kids were so excited they had to go out in it!

Of course they ended up catching 11 crawfish! The joys of living in the South!

They put them in the rain water that had accumulated in our overturned blow-up pool.

Aimee had a list of all their names: Joe, Jenna, Jay Jay, John, Josephina, Jack and Jill, Jana, and two more "J" names that we can't remember anymore since that was Monday!

Andrew created his own technique of using the crawfish nets to scoop them up so he could catch them in a plastic cup! :) Once he caught one, he'd race over to the pool and add it to the collection!

Tuesday morning, all the crawfish were gone, except for 1 little one, which the kids promptly brought inside and put into a container, begging to keep it!!! :) Later that day, Andrew was out on the patio moving stuff around and found another escapee hiding behind a box, which he brought in to keep.

The kids had fun feeding the crawfish and watching them eat. Andrew even looked up on the internet to see how to take care of them. We kept them around for a few days before had to dump them.

After the rain was done, it was sooo nice outside!!! :) In the morning it was actually very pleasant! But it didn't last long, by the end of the week though, we were back to plain old hot and super humid!!!

This week we had breakfast from Momma's "Fruity Smoothie" shop! The first couple of days we had "Blueberry Blast" for breakfast! It was super yummy! A good way to use of the blueberry crisp we had for Sunday dessert that I didn't think turned out very well. Too many blueberries and not enough crisp. It made and awesome smoothie though!!!

When the blueberries were gone, we had "Rock'n Raspberry" to celebrate me finding my i-pod!!! I thought that I'd never find my i-pod after we moved. I hadn't found it in any of the boxes from my room or bathroom and was about to cross it off as a casualty of the move.

One morning, I think it was Wednesday, I had the thought, "LOOK IN YOUR GREEN COMPUTER BAG!" Low and behold, there it was in one of the pockets!!! YEAH!!!! Was I really that stressed that I'd forgotten in one evening--our last night in Kingwood--where I put my i-pod??? I guess so! Glad the move is over and so glad I found my i-pod!!!! :)

The end of the week smoothie flavor was "Mango Magic" I was glad that it was the weekend! I was thinking it would be fun to be in Hawaii! :) Hmmm...wouldn't that be fun!!! Relaxing in the white sand on the beach, hearing the ocean, feeling the breeze....almost heaven, ahhhhhhhh!

We had our own version of white fun........

SHAVING CREAM!!!! :)

Oh, the kids had so much fun with the shaving cream!!!! First they were going to do their own shaving cream sculptures, but it ended up becoming a joint effort to cover the whole table! :)

After emptying two cans of shaving cream and covering the table, the kids were content for a little while. They swirled their hands all around making all sorts of designs on the table. They had a blast! They had so much fun, they thought it should be a whole Primary Party! :)



I think they especially enjoyed the fact they could get messy and make a huge mess and it was OK!!

Thomas was a little unsure about the white stuff, but quickly changed his mind and decided that it was really fun!

Once the kids were done with the shaving cream, I sent them outside to clean off with the hose...another great idea! They had a blast cleaning each other with the hose and hoping into their makeshift bathtub...a plastic container they'd filled with water!

FAMILY UPDATES:

EDD is super busy with work. He was in Baton Rouge one day, in Houston the next. He is adjusting to his commute. Mostly this week, he's been trying not to scratch. Unfortunately, he got into some poison ivy while cleaning up the backyard. He is finally doing better! :)

BETHANY has been having a great time up in Texas! She have ton of fun at Girl's Camp! This is picture of Bethany and her buddie, Raegan at camp. B had an awesome time at EFY in San Antonio.

Cheney, Raegan, Bethany & Brooke in San Antonio

Bethany is visiting with Grandma & Grandpa Prince and Aunt Paula right now. Edd's sister, Sara, and her 3 kids came up to visit while B was there! After church today, my kids told me they really miss Bethany and can't wait for her to get home on Wednesday!! :)

ANDREW is enjoying his new found friend, Connor, who he met at church! Connor lives in the neighborhood across from ours. One day Andrew went to play at Connor's house and this past week, we had Connor come to our house!

AIMEE is such a good girl! She works hard and likes to help Thomas. Aimee doesn't appreciate Andrew's teasing. This week has been a good week with Aimee and Mattie. They have been playing nicely all week! :) She is a good sport when the frogs get loose in the house...Aimee hates frogs!!! Aimee has been busy getting her summer scrapbook put together!

MATTIE is becoming quite a swimmer! She has been enjoying her own room, but still loves to hang out with Aimee. Mattie loves to tease Thomas. It is like watching Bethany and Andrew all over again. Mattie loves to read and has already finished some of the books she got at the beginning of the summer!

THOMAS decided that he was going to be a BIG BOY.......FINALLY!!! As his reward each day, we got to go swimming....which translates to Thomas as, "let's go frog hunting at the pool!!!" :)

Our 4th of July Fun!

We had a super fun 4th of July weekend! Edd's brother, Dan, and his family came to our house for a visit! The arrived late Thursday night. They were hoping for the 5 hour drive from Kingwood. Unfortunately, they got stuck in traffic around Baton Rouge, maybe because of the rain??? The true reason for the traffic is a mystery. After 8 hrs of driving, they all arrived...safe, & sound asleep...at least the kids were! :)
Friday morning, we headed out early for our grand adventure on the swamp! We rode a flat bottom boat into the Honey Island Swamp, and saw quite a few alligators up close!!! It was really exciting to see alligators that close! After the swamp, we went down the river to see more alligators. It was really neat hear about the history of the area, like pirates!!! And neat to see all the fishing camps along the river...looks like fun!

After our swamp adventure, we had some yummy po-boys for lunch and the big kids each got a bottle of rootbeer, which was almost as exciting as the alligators! When we finished lunch, we scrapped our park plans...it was just too hot to play outside. So we went back to the house and watched a movie and napped. Later on, Edd and Dan took the kids to the pool while Melissa and I went to Wal-Mart for our weekend groceries.

Saturday morning, the 4th of July, we ventured across Lake Pontchartrain and went to the Audubon Aquarium. While we were waiting for Edd & Dan to get the tickets, we watched the Mississippi River. The paddle boat down a ways from us started playing patriotic songs on it's organ! We watched a ship come around the bend. It didn't look like it was going to clear the big bridge, but it did!!! Then we went into the aquarium.

It was really neat to see all the different creatures they had at the aquarium. The penguins were one of the favorite spots. I liked the sea dragons...they are like sea horses, but they looked like they were covered in twigs! Thomas, of course, loved the frog area. He wanted to take on of the frogs on display home with us!!!! He begged and begged. I finally got him to move on!

The kids loved touching the sting-rays and the baby shark too! I think most of them tried, even Aimee...well, she only would touch the shark. Aimee preferred hanging out with Henry!!! She loved holding him all weekend long and helping Melissa take care of him!
Another highlight was the tank that had the big sharks! It also had a huge sea turtle that would swim past every now and then!

The next stop was LUNCH!!! After walking around trying to find a place to eat, we ended up at Cafe DuMonde!!! The kids were so excited to get beignets, especially George! :)

Once we had our fill of beignets, we were off again to do some sight seeing! Back to Jackson Square and the cathedral! I think we were all glad to go inside the cathedral because it had AC!!!

Aimee loved this big Oak tree! She had remembered it from when we came down for Spring Break!

As we walked along the streets of the French Quarter, Andrew ended up walking with Ben and George. Every now and then Andrew would pretend to walk into a light post. The boys would laugh at him every time! It was really cute!

Of course our French Quarter experience wouldn't be complete with out watching the street performers. The kids were lucky enough to experience it hands on!!!

We had such a fun weekend! :)

to

"It's OK, Momma!" :)

This picture sums up my week...

My little helper has been very busy this week. The other day, I heard Thomas squealing...in the bathroom. When I went to check on him, I was overcome with the smell of strawberry! Thomas was in the tub, with his clothes on, slipping & sliding all over! He told me that he was trying to clean the bathtub for me, but had used nearly a whole bottle of strawberry conditioner!!!! Then he said to me, "It's OK, Momma!" and gave me his big smile! :) How can you get upset after that???

Thursday, we were trying to finish getting the house clean. Edd's brother, Dan, and his family were coming for the weekend. At one point, after dinner I think it was, I realized Thomas was in the bathroom and was being very quite...UH OH!!! Time to check and this is what I found............

along with the BLUE footprints, there was BLUE all over the toilet, step stool and smeared all over the mirror!!!

Of course, Thomas being the sweet boy he is, said, "It's OK, Momma!" and gave me that big grin!!! :)

So I cleaned it all up again, the third time I'd cleaned that bathroom that day~and I'd cleaned the other bathroom twice...because of my little helper! Oh well, at least the bathrooms were squeaky clean!!! :) The blue substance ended up being toothpaste from Aimee's brand new tube, it's mostly gone now.

The rest of the house eventually got clean in between all the bathroom jobs.

I'm thankful for my little helper and I did pause a few moments to admire his work! And his cute BLUE footprints. :)