Trip to Phoenix part 2

Saturday morning we decided to get up and go on a hike by White Tanks. We also had to go buy Cameron a suit for the job interview he had on Tuesday. My girls decided they would stay home with Grandma instead of hiking so we were all able to ride in the Explorer together. We had fun driving over to the mall and then looked for a suit for about an hour. Everyone else shopped at the other stores while we were looking.

The we went hiking. I love the different cactus's around here. they are beautiful!






David was the only one who tried to climb the slippery rocks to see the corner where the water fall comes down. There was no water falling down the waterfall because there had been no rain but there was a couple deep pools of water up there.

After our hike we went out to eat and enjoyed each other. It has been a long time since we were all together for any reason.

Our Trip to Phoenix Part 1

David and his girl friend, Samantha, flew to Stacey's house in Phoenix for his birthday. We decided to go out there too so we could see them. The first day we were all together was Friday. We started out by playing settlers of Cataan and then went to the mall to shop. (I was the one who really needed to get out of the house due to the closed roads keeping me home most of the time.) We also went to REI.

At around 5:00pm we met Tony, who had to work, at the Rustler's Rooste. This is a restaurant on the hills south of phoenix. The view is pretty good of the city and the food is western. The main attraction is a slide that you can ride down to the dining area. We all chose to ride the slide. The kids of course loved this. The food was pretty good but pricey too. It wouldn't be my regular place to go but it was fun for a celebration dinner. We celebrated David's 26th birthday.

One of the interesting things they have on the menu is rattlesnake. Stacey and Tony ordered that and we all tried some of the rattlesnake. It takes just like chicken.

The girls enjoyed getting balloons and shirley temple drinks. They also enjoyed the dancing to live band after dinner. I don't know that we were supposed to do that but why have a live band and not have dancing?

The Living Desert

I went on Ali's field trip to the Living Desert with her last week. We were told we could not bring any siblings. I felt that this was very annoying but Ali really wanted me to come and so I found separate people to watch both of my children and made arrangements to carpool the two hours to the Living Desert. (We are not allowed to ride the bus with our children.) We had to drop off Annika, get gas, and get some subway for lunch before we headed out there. We met the bus getting there at the same time as us even though we left at the same time and I had to make so many stops.

This is the picture of my group of girls.
The girls ran from one exhibit to the next one. I could hardly keep up. I have never gone to the zoo with 8 and 9 year olds and I learned that they have a lot of energy. I was a little worried about not getting my daily workout but after the day I was exhausted and felt like I had run the 3 miles I try to do regularly.

It was very hot out there. We are used to it being in the 40's and 50's with occasional 30's mixed in there. It was 94 degrees. That caused the kids to need lots of water and to complain about sweating. You would think they had never felt such temperatures. (Wait in our mountains it hardly ever gets above 90 degrees so many they haven't.)


We found the butterfly exhibit and the girls were fascinated with the butterflies. It was by far the hit of the day.
Ali loved the butterflies the most and tried to see how many she could get on her fingers much to the dismay of the zoo people. I loved to watch all the butterflies flying around and smell the beautiful flowers.
After the butterflies we found the coolest park. It was perfect for a zoo.
The cactus slide was fun.
Ali got ate by a snake.
Ali fell down and had to find a bandaid to put on her skinned knee. (This was the third time the same knee got hurt. We ended up at the merry go round. At first the kids were saying that this was a childish thing to do and that they didn't want to go on the merry go round. I could tell they really wanted to go though and were just trying to sound cool.

I advised that perhaps acting childish was a good idea since they were only 8 and would probably have to adults for a very long time. They might as well enjoy being kids. It was funny how they all pulled 2 dollars out of their wallets and and paid for a ride on the merry go round. I am glad they were not too old to do it!
The last thing we did was watch a show. It was the best animal show I have seen in a really long time. (I have been to the zoo and wild animal park and their shows were not nearly as well organized or interesting.)
I took Ali and my friend took her son home with us. They were a little disappointed because we didn't give them 15 dollars to spend on silly zoo stuff like a lot of parents had done. My friend's son looked so sad and I have never seen him that way. I still didn't want to spend the money at the zoo but I offered icy drinks as consolation if he promised to smile the rest of the way home. It worked and he was happy until we got home.

skiing

Just like every year we have done a lot of skiing this winter. These are the only two pictures I have taken of the events. I guess we are pretty bad at taking pictures. Our kids are pretty good skiers. Ali can ski down the black diamonds when she wants to and regularly goes off of little jumps. She can ski in control and likes to ski with her friends every time. I have taken one of her friend's up skiing a lot and they have spent a lot of time going off and skiing one or two runs before checking in. She loves the independence.

Ashling is good at skiing too. She is fast and has learned this year to also be in control. She makes her own choices on when to turn and can ski down anything. Since she is littler than Ali she tends to get tired a little faster and she doesn't really go off any jumps with the intent to get air. She would be happy skiing down the green runs but usually she ends up skiing on the blues with the family. Her favorite trail is bubble gum which is a narrow road that goes through the trees. I don't know what is so special about this trail but most kids love it. Maybe it is the name.

I have enjoyed skiing this year with my only complaint being that the snow gets icy too quickly with all our warm days. Otherwise it has been great. I have learned to ski much faster but still slow down whenever I am uncomfortable with the conditions. I have added a couple blacks to what I like to ski but still go down them pretty slowly. At least I feel that as a skier I can go down anything I choose to do even if it is not graceful at all.

Stake Conference

We had Stake Conference this weekend. I was happy to go. Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the 12 was there. The talks during the adult session were great. I felt the Spirit confirm to me that the church is true. I felt the spirit confirm to me that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I felt the spirit confirm to me that the Law of Tithing is a true principal. I felt the spirit confirm to me that I should try harder to show love to my Children and my Husband. I enjoyed feeling the spirit and being enriched and blessed by the talks. I also shook an apostle's hand and knew that he was an apostle of God.

On Sunday we were given a new Stake President. He is someone I know well and I know that he is a good man. I also felt the spirit confirm to me that he was supposed to be our Stake President and that he should be leading us for the next 10 years or so. The testimonies were humble and they were all prepared to do their work set forth for them. I enjoyed the talks once again and especially enjoyed the talk by Elder Christofferson. He presented the easiest way to live which is to live by the gospel's teachings. He also left an incredible blessing upon the San Bernardino Stake. He blessed us that we might all have food in our house, enough for us and a little more. I didn't know that apostles did this but I was amazed by this blessing. Our Stake struggles with 20% unemployment and some very poor areas. I am grateful to know that there will be food in my house to eat and a little more no matter what happens.

Brown Happenings

Cameron started his new job last week. He likes it. He has been playing basketball with the elders quorum and working his way slowly into his new calling. Melissa has been trying to ski as much as possible despite the poor snow conditions this year and begrudgingly cleaned the house at least a hundred times only to have it be dirty two minutes later. Ali has been trying to win her reading contest by reading all the time, likes to play settlers of Cataan (she wins often,) and skied down the face of slide peak (black diamond) with two feet of powder earlier this week. Ashling has been sick all week with a high fever but I think she is finally on the mend. She has been reading quite well and doing great in school too. She is getting pretty good at skiing too and he latest accomplishment has been to get on and off the lift on her own with her poles. It only backfired only when she fell right before getting on and ended up on the chair behind me. Then she forgot to get off at the right minute and jumped off only to fall and lose her skis. Annika has been pretty cute as usually. She loves Dora and will watch it all day. When she isn't watching it she complains that swiper is going to swipe her baby, her fa fa (pacifier,) or something else she wants. She likes to sing and sings her abc's, little einstein songs, the "We did it" song and twinkle little star. We are all having a pretty good winter and just wishing for highway 330 to be fixed so we can go down the hill a little more.