GigGleS & gRinS: January 2011

I had no idea that there is a website that saves every picture that you upload on your blog. Picasa Web Albums. Their catch is they only hold 1 GB of pictures for free. As soon as you fill that space, you have to purchase more space in order to keep putting pictures on your blog. You can delete pictures to make more space avaliable, but they make it tedious and a bit tricky and then you have to wait 24 hrs for that space to become avaliable. And so far I have deleted well over 100 pictures and it only let me upload 10 pictures before it said it was full again. And the 1 GB is for all of your blogs combined. WHAT A PAIN and ohhhhh so tricky.
I was doing so good at keeping up with my goal and doing 1 post a night until Picasa got in the way. I have been fighting their system, deleting pictures like crazy, and waiting 24 hrs each time and it keeps giving me problems. SOOOOOO FRUSTERATING!!! So yet again, my blogging is put on hold until I get this figured out. URRGGGG!!!

Rough Start

August started out with the news that my Grandma Thompson (my mom's mom) had passed away. Signs were starting that let us know that she was close to going. We actually thought we were going to loose her over a year ago, and she has been fighting for her life ever since. We have speculations as to why we think she just kept hanging on, but she would never tell us anything. Then she got dementia too bad to know much of anything that she was saying. Then when my grandpa passed away, we knew it wouldn't be long before she followed him. She got to see her son, LaVar, at my Grandpa's funeral and she hadn't seen him in 3 years, so we wonder if that had something to do with her hanging on so long because in her random talking (from dementia), she would mention his name at times. A couple of days before she passed away, I went to visit her with my mom and the kids. She was in bed and had been throwing up all morning. This was the first time she was in bed during the day in years. She refused to ever lay down during the day because she felt like she was "giving up." So that and the throwing up were sure signs of what was coming, and I knew that was the last time I would see her. Loosing my grandma was a bitter sweet thing. It was so hard for her to be gone. Obviously it was hard because she was gone, but also now they were both gone. But what a blessing it was for her to go so close to her companion. After all, that's exactly how I hope it is for Vance and I...a really really long time from now :) (I will do a separate post about my grandma and her funeral.)

Isn't she adorable!

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Leavitt Family Reunion

Vance's mom's side of the family had a huge reunion this year. It was at Hidden Springs Ranch, near Vernal, UT. We left on Monday, August 9th and returned home very very late on Wednesday the 11th. We all stayed in this huge lodge and had the time of our lives! We didn't arrive on Monday until around 4:00 so that day was spent traveling there, getting settled into our rooms, eating dinner, swimming, and other free time activities. Wednesday morning, we woke up and had a whole day of super fun activities planned. First we went on a canoe!! This was something that Vance and I had talked about doing ever since our first date. He LOVES going on canoes, and I had never been on one before. We've always wanted to go, but it just hadn't happened so we were extremely excited. I have to admit I was a little nervous about it. I guess it was because the only people I have seen in canoes has been on TV or in a movie and they always tip over. I wouldn't care if it tipped over if it was just Vance and I, but we had the kids with us. Of course they had on life jackets so that eased my mind a little. Vance was obviously not worried at all. Once I got in it, I was instantly in love with it! It was sooooo much fun!! We didn't have much time because we had a set schedule for the activities that were planned for that day, but we thoroughly enjoyed every second of it!

Mark and Jesi riding bikes past us while we were in the canoe.

It was a small pond, but it sure was pretty, and there were tons of trout swimming around.

Vance did most of the rowing. I was quite surprised at how knowledgeable he was about it. He knew exactly what to do to maneuver us around properly. I actually loved to row with him, but I had to keep the kids under control and safe.

Matt, Alli, and Danny

Love it!

After the canoe, we went rock climbing!!!

Mark

Every one watching each other climb.

Every one knew Vance was a regular rock climber, so he had every ones attention. He did awesome.

They just so happened to have a harness small enough for Mason to do his first official climb, thanks to help from his Great Uncle Matt!

So cute!! His daddy was so proud :)

Mason's first animal sound he ever made was an owl, and he was only 9 months old. He has loved them ever since!

Me. I had pressure to do good too since I was Vance's wife.

Luckily, I made it to the top and got to ring the bell!! It was SUCH a great feeling!! I absolutely love rock climbing. When your reach the top, you feel like you have conquered the world! I even got a huge cheer from the audience down below when I rang the bell :)

Phil is climbing, and Vance is coaching him. A lot of people wanted Vance to help them while they were climbing in case they got stuck and couldn't figure out where to go. Vance does an extremely good job with coaching and helping people climb. He loves it and actually wants to do rock climbing lessons one day.

Isaac was asleep during the first half of climbing, and the second half he spent with this adorable, sweet dog.

Unfortunately, this is the best/only picture we got of the front of the lodge. I swear we got other ones, but I cannot find them so I guess we never took them. It was pretty big though. The first picture at the top of this post is the back of it.

We always had really good food for every meal.

Mason swinging with his cousin, Carter.

And his cousin once removed, Luke

(sounds funny, but that's the official term I guess)

This lawn mower provided a lot of entertainment for the kids!

After rock climbing, we ate lunch and then any girls that wanted to got to paintball. This was my first time, so I was pretty nervous about the pain, but excited to play!

They wanted to keep it really safe and simple for the girls because most of them were in jr high and high school. So Tony, Vance's uncle asked me to go with him to set up targets for the girls to shoot at. They tried to make it as fun as possible so some of the guys my age volunteered to be "moving targets" so we could shoot at them! Anyways, we played it their way for a while, but at the end there were about 6 girls that wanted to stay a little longer and shoot at each other. Thankfully, they allowed us to do so. It was really fun. Me and Vance's uncle Tim had a shoot out and he got me once in the knee and I got him in the shoulder and then in the lower back. I felt so bad because he had huge welts in each of the two spots. Oops! Before we went back to hand in our gear, the six of us girls found any paintballs on the ground that did not explode and we broke them all over each other so it would look like we had a real good battle :)

I felt like Darth Vader in this helmet!

When the girls were done, it was the boys turn.

Mason's cousins, Taylor and Madison (sisters).

Madison is ALWAYS smiling at people. She is sooo happy!

While Vance was paintballing and Ike was napping, Mason and I went to feed the trout in the pond in front of the lodge.

He kept going right to the edge so I made him put on his life jacket. We got some fish pellets for him to throw in there for them. He loved watching them jump and attack the pellets.

Later that night, we had a talent show. In between every 3-4 performances, they would play songs and everyone would get up and dance.

Then we played Limbo. I took 2nd. I hadn't played limbo in 4 years, and I could go a lot lower 4 years ago. I felt it the next day! Having a baby sure changed my body and flexibility in ways I never expected!

Precious :)

Mason and Luke dancing

The next morning, we did water olympics. Each team painted their face in their team color.

Mark

Gandpa Leavitt

Chloe, throwing the water noodle like a javelin

Mason getting pulled down the water slide by Tim and Tony

Philip

Chloe

Vance

Swimming

Mason getting thrown by Madeline and Matt

Later that day we did cake decorating. Mason was given a cupcake with a frosting clown on it and he was thrilled!

He could not stop smiling about it! It was so cute :)

Taylor and Mason dancing

Mason and Luke dancing

We played games that afternoon/evening. With this game, you had to put pantyhose over your face with a ball at the end and swing the ball to knock over the water bottles. It was pretty funny to watch!

Vance and I had to knock over cans with rubber bands. Vance did awesome and won, while I was still just trying to hit one! I grew up with brothers hitting me with rubber bands all the time so I always tried to learn how to aim them, but I never was any good at it. This night proved that!

I redeemed myself with this mummy game. Vance spun around and around while I held the TP and wrapped him up like a mummy. He spun the fastest and I kept the TP from breaking, so we won!

Jesi and Melanie (Vance's mom) were partners

At the end of the games, they gave out awards for anyone that provided a piece of art for display. Mason painted a picture so he got an award.

We left for home around 10:00 that night. Crazy I know, but Vance wanted to work the next day and we wanted to drive while the kids slept. Vance took a wrong turn, so it ended up taking us 5 hours to get home instead of 3 and 1/2 hrs!

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Random Playtime

Mason, Ike and Jake in Jake's tent.

Playing with the squirt guns

Our mighty warrior!

Making his first 'line up' of cars and trucks!

Our valve to turn off the water to our condo is right behind and above our dryer, so I had to climb up there to turn it off for something and the kids went crazy. Since mommy did it and it looked so fun, they had to do it to!

Ike enjoyed it for a second, but it ended pretty quick when he realized he could not move up there.

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Time with Cousins

Carter (15 months older than Mason), Isaac, Ethan (4 months older than Isaac), and Mason

Carter and Ethan came and spent a day with us so their parents could go to Lagoon for the day. The kids had sooooo much fun together and they all played together extremely well. We had a really fun day!

We went outside to play so Isaac could take a good nap.

They even got to know Jake (Mason's friend) and became instant buds.

Carter is always doing funny poses. He is such a cute kid!

Waiting his turn for the shovel :)

Jumping and falling on the bed

They got pretty dirty outside so we put all four of them in the bath together. Every kid has to have pictures like this!

They wore themselves out pretty darn good :)

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Eagle Mountain

Vance and I have been wanting to take a drive to Eagle Mountain to see what it is like out there, so we finally did it, and this is what we saw:

We stopped at a farm where they were doing pony rides. Our kids had never ridden on a horse/pony so we were excited for them to finally get to do this.