FiReHoLe!!

While in Rock Springs, we took a drive to one of my favorite places. Flaming Gorge! My family usually goes there a couple times a year but we go to the opposite end of the lake than we went this time. We went to Firehole and it was B-E-A-utiful! I loved it!! When we went down by the lake the first time, Mason was asleep in the car, so we let him sleep while Vance and I got out and walked around, skipped rocks, and played in the water a bit. We then got back in the car and continued down the road to enjoy more of the view. The gorge has never been so green before! It is always so desolate, but it didn't look so bad this time! I know you are all thinking I'm crazy because it looks very desolate in the pictures. I guess I didn't get very good pics of how green it was. I promise it looked green! Vance was very proud of the large amount of dust he kicked up (pic on the left)! It took a lot of speed and fish tails, but he sure enjoyed himself while I made sure he didn't get too out of control! Through it all, he even managed to almost keep Mason asleep! The middle picture is part of a boat dock that was floating in a bay. While we were driving, we came across a herd of antelope. There were 17 of them and they were all bucks! It was pretty cool. I usually don't see that many bucks in five years combined. Most of them were younger, but there were a couple big ones. The smaller ones were constantly stopping to fight eachother (pic on the left). It was fun to watch. Before we drove off, Vance had to make sure he made them run! It definitly got Mason's attention. One reason I loved Firehole, was because of all the prarie dogs! When I was little we used to see tons and tons of prarie dogs at the gorge wherever we camped. But over the last 10 years or so, they have been killed off by predators, and people shooting them for fun. I have missed seeing them around so much. Then over the last couple of years, we've slowly seen them make a come back. There was a big group of them at Firehole and it made me sooooo happy!! Before we left, we wanted Mason to see the water so we went back near the first spot we went because it was perfect for wading in. It was so fun to watch him explore and get wet and not seem to care how cold the water was. Although we didn't let him sit in it for too long, he sure enjoyed it!! We kept trying to get him to hold his feet still so we could take pictures of his feet with our feet, but he just loved moving his toes around in the water, so it didn't work too well. These are as good as it gets! We're excited to take him there more in the summer! Sorry this post was so long. There were just too many pics! I actually left a ton out, as I always do. We take TONS of pictures, as you all know, but we're very glad we do! Anyways, we had a lot of fun and it was good to see a different side of the gorge!

good ol' computers!!

Ok, so I have been trying to post the entry below for a very long time now. This is why it has taken me so long to blog something. Everytime I try, I get it all done, pictures added and everything, and the computer will not save it, and therefore, I cannot post it (I used to not call myself a computer dummy!) So here I will try again, with the highest of hopes that it will work this time. I am now so far behind in my blogging, that I have a lot of posting to do to catch up! The posting below it (weird toys) was one that I saved instead of posting it, and I just realized it. So I decided to go ahead and post it anyways. (by the way, if you look at the date of the postings, the wording is based around that date. That is why the Rock Springs entry says "This last weekend..." if that makes sense.

The Armpit of the Nation!

This last weekend, we took a trip to the Armpit of the Nation(Vance's nickname for it), Rock Springs Wyoming. We took Thurs and Fri off work to be with Vance's dad (Dave) for a few days. The whole purpose of the trip was to spend time with him and help him in his time of need. In doing so, we found out that Rock Springs is really not all that bad. Dave has a dirt bike to ride, and he's not far from some great trails. Vance got up early one morning and went by himself for a ride. When he got back, he said he had a huge surprise for me. So later that afternoon while Mason and Dave were taking a nap, we went for a ride. He took me to a waterfall that we had to hike a short distance to. It was BEAUTIFUL! I love waterfalls so much, and he knows it. I was so proud of him for keeping it a secret from me, and proud of myself for not prying it out of him. Usually, we don't keep surprises very well. We took tons of pictures, of course, and had a lot of fun doing so. We got up early the next morning and went back for more pics while Mason was still sleeping. If I lived there, I think I would go there 3 or 4 times a week. I LOVED it!! We didn't have the tripod so some of the pics didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. We are still trying to figure out our camera. It's quite complex to work with. Anyways, here are some pics of the waterfall. I decided to show them in a slide show because there are just too many to pick from. Sorry, there's a lot.

wEiRd Toys

So Mason's favorite toys are not even toys at all. His new favorite thing is to put the lid on things. Like a gatorade bottle, or a small juice bottle. He could sit there for hours and do that. In fact, we take a juice bottle to church for him to play with and he plays with it through most of sacrament. It's great cause it actually gives us a chance to listen to some or part of the talks. (I just wonder what everyone else is thinking about his entertaiment!) He also likes to try and put the two halves of a plastic egg together. It's so weird how kids can be so entertained by such random things. But hey, whatever works, right?! I'm not going to complain!

Climbing in Ferguson Canyon

Thanks for taking all the pictures Chloe!

Utah Weather

Where did our beautiful weather go? I was lovin' the great warm temps earlier this week, and the past few days have been freezing. I cannot wait for next week when it supposedly will be back in the 70's again. Most likely it won't last but I'll sure enjoy it while it's here! Soon it will be summer so it can't get too cold, right?

No 4X4, No Problem!

Since our jeep is not four wheel drive, there's not too much we can do when we want to go wheelin' but we make up for it in other ways! Vance has two weeks off of school right now, so he had the goal to find new places in Bountiful to go climbing. He saw these cliffs from the freeway in a canyon by the V and so we decided to go for an adventure to find out if they are climbing worthy. It turns out they are on "private property" so there wasn't too much we could do to explore that area. We were on the mountain above Centerville exploring (Vance was trying to pretend he was in a 4X4 to make him feel better!) and we came across these puddles. So I made Vance get out and take pictures so I could drive through them a few times! I love driving through puddles! There wasn't too much room to get a good start to have a huge splash, so I was a bit disappointed in the result, but looking at our muddy jeep now, I'm quite satisfied! I'm not quite sure what Mason was thinking the whole time, but Vance and I had fun!

Mason's New BeSt fRiEnD!

I have been working on this posting for weeks now, and I am just now finally getting around to posting it. So here is the updated version: So we got this kitten (pixi) about a month ago from Vance's family. It just so happens that the weekend we picked her up, was Easter weekend, so the whole family spent the weekend there. I was so glad that we had a couple of days to pick out which one we wanted for sure. There were four of them, and this one was the only one that was not afraid of Mason. All the others would see him and take off running in the other direction. But pixi not only wasn't afraid of him, she PLAYED with him, and it was adorable to watch! Half the time she wouldn't leave him alone. I knew this was the one I wanted! They are now best friends. It's either her following him around like she's his shadow, or just the opposite. She even wants to take baths with him! I have to make sure she is out of the bathroom during his bath, or I am litterally fighting to keep her from jumping into the water. Cats HATE water, right?? The first thing he says when we walk into the family room in the morning is "kitty cat!" as he's pointing around the room until he finally finds her. She is so gentle with him too, and I have to say, he's learning the whole "soft" thing pretty good now. One more great thing about her, is she has SILENCED our birds! I have been wanting to get rid of them for a while now because they used to always wake up the babies I watch all day due to their constant chirping. But ever since we got pixi, I can count on one hand the amount of times they have made a peep! It's so great! I feel bad for them though, so I still need to find them a better home. Anyway, pixi is a great addition to our home.

Girls "Night Out"!! (literally)

So on Friday, April 18, my girlfriends and I took the opportunity to celebrate our birthdays together. One is in March and the others are in April, so they are all pretty close. We decided that we wanted to go all out this year and spend the night in Park City without our husbands and kids. Just the girls! When we got there on Friday, we took our stuff to our hotel room at the Yarrow and left to eat and go shopping. Oh wait! First we ate about half of Shellie's bean dip in one sitting, and then we went to eat dinner! We ate at a resteraunt on Main Street that I wish to remember the name of only to warn you not to eat there. The only one that enjoyed it was Amy. Why? None of us know. But it was a good thing we only got two dishes to share instead of 4 individual ones! Then we left and went to the outlets where I went a little crazy with the shopping! After a fun couple hours of that, we went back to the Yarrow and sat in the hot tub with a group of people who probably had the time of their lives listening to us talk all about our "past experiences!" Looking back, it was quite hilarious! We then went back to our room and had the other half of the bean dip while some fell asleep at 3am, the others at 7am. We then got up at 10am and headed on home. It was a blast, even though I left Mason for the first time. But I returned home to find all was well! (Just so you know who's who in the picture, from right to left it is Amy, Shellie, Lindsey, and me)

Swinging Fun!!

I was so excited when Vance confirmed the thought of there possibly being an infant/children's swing at the playground where we live. The very next day when Vance got home, we immediately took Mason over there before it got dark. He absolutely LOVED it!! It was so much fun to see his reaction. He was not afraid at all. And the higher we pushed him, the harder he laughed. It will be so nice to have that playground here all summer long. I'm sure it will be a daily event to visit the swing and slide. And of course the pool!! (which doesn't open till the end of May.) This nice weather has been so nice. I was out yesterday evening with short sleeves and no jacket, then I wake up to snow. What's up with that? That's Utah for ya! I can't wait for summer and 80* + weather!!

Sandgren Easter Party

Easter Parties!!

This Easter was the best Easter of my entire life. Growing up as a kid, we always had a fantastic Easter and it just got better every year. But this year topped it all. On Thursday night, my family celebrated Easter because Jules had to go out of town Friday morning. We got together at my parent's house and had a huge breakfast feast since that's what we do Easter morning. Then everyone gathered together and just watched Mason go crazy over his basket. My mom then got out a bunch of bubbles for everyone to blow at him, and he LOVED it! He just laid on his back squealing, kicking and flapping his arms while watching the bubbles fly above him and float down and pop in his face. It was adorable! Thanks to grandma and grandpa, the entire family had the best Easter in years! Then Saturday afternoon, Vance's family met in Provo to spend the weekend together. We had FHE that night followed by crazy karaoke that lasted until almost 3am! After a short night of sleep, we got up and had a great breakfast followed by an Easter egg hunt around the yard. Church wasn't until 1:00 which with the circumstances, worked out perfect. During sacrament, Melanie had to pass it down to "wake up" cause we were all so exhausted! We then went back and watched Enchanted. Well, some of us watched it, while most of us slept! Anyways, it was a very fun and relaxing Easter Weekend!

Time to Climb!!

We are more excited than ever for spring and summer to be here. We have found this new passion in our lives; rock climbing. It's mainly Vance's passion, but I love it too! He got his rebates back for REI, and with it, he decided to get me my own pair of rock climbing shoes so there would never be the excuse of me not being able to climb. With the good weather lately Vance was finally able to go bouldering for the first time of the season. He is so excited that he now gets home while it's still light outside so he can go right after work. This photo was taken at a spot up by the temple where he tries to go a couple times a week. He hasn't been able to get me to do much "bouldering" yet. I'm still pretty new at the sport, so I like the security of the rope. He doesn't boulder very high at all, but he's also a lot better than me and way more experienced. Maybe I'll try it next time now that I have good shoes. We'll see!! If anyone ever wants to go rock climbing, Vance would absolutely LOVE to take you. He is always looking for people to go with and he never gets to go as much as he wants. So just let us know!

Bird Watching

Last month we went to the Wildlife Bird Refuge (I think that's the name of it) in Farmington. Tons of Eagles, swans, hawks, and seagulls gather on the iced over lake to eat fish in the small stream that has melted. It is amazing to go watch. At times there are around 150 Bald Eagles there. It just so happens we only got there when there were just a few of them at one time, but it was still awesome to watch them. This one particular day, after I finally had a good camera to take good pictures of them, Mason and I got in the jeep with hopes to have great pictures for Vance when he got home. It worked out great to go in the jeep cause I just let Mason play in the back with all his toys while I sat on the back bench and took pics out the window! This particular picture is of a Bald Eagle snatching a fish right out of the water! I was so excited I got this picture. To the right are more pictures of birds. It was way cool, and I highly recommend going next February. They're only there until the ice melts, so I'm sure they're gone by now.

Afternoon Snack

Almost every afternoon, Mason and I sit down and eat our favorite snack together. Peaches and cottage cheese. I used to hate cottage cheese with a passion, but lately I have grown very fond of it. Although I try not to get into it as much as he does, I now love it! And as you can see by the look on his face (and what's all over his face), Mason loves it too! A day rarely goes by where we don't eat this snack together. I apologize if any of the pictures gross you out, he's only a baby!!

Busy Days

I am usually on the computer a couple times a day checking my e-mail, looking at blogs, updating my blog, etc... But in the last few weeks, I have had so many things going on that I have hardly had the computer on at all. So for those that have been checking my blog, I apologize for it being a while since I last posted anything. I actually have a pretty good excuse. We got this new camera recently that is 10 mega pixels. So Vance does not want to load the pictures onto the lap top. He only wants it on our other computer. However, we only have the Internet on our lap top. So every time we want to e-mail pics, or post pics on the blog, we have to transfer the pictures over. While watching kids all day, it's not that easy to do. And in the evening, Vance is on the lap top doing homework for hours. So that leaves a very small window of time for me to do all this, and I am usually busy doing other things around the house. So it's been crazy, but life has actually been very good to us lately. We have been very blessed. We finally sold our Honda that we have been trying to sell for over six months. That was a HUGE HUGE relief. We also have been financially blessed in many ways. Needless to say, a large amount of our stresses are now non-existent. And this all happened within the last few weeks. So things have seemed to calm down a bit, and have started to return back to normal.

A Tribute to President Gordon B. Hinckley

I'm sure everyone can say how President Hinckley has touched their lives in some way or another. And if they can't, they sure missed out on something amazing in life. I have always had the dream of meeting this particular Prophet ever since I was around 12 years old. He has always touched my life in way that I can't describe. The first Prophet I remember was Ezra Taft Bensen. I remember just being devestated as a 10 or 11 year old when I found out he had passed away. Then President Hunter died shortly after becoming the Prophet. I remember when I heard that President Hinckley was going to be the next prophet, I wasn't sure what to think. I didn't feel like I knew him very well like I did President Bensen. And Pres. Hunter just came and went so quickly that there wasn't much of a chance for me to know him very well. But I have to say that President Hinckley quickly became my new favorite Prophet, and for me, he will be hard to beat. As I have been watching and listening to all the tributes that have been made to him, I have enjoyed reflecting back on all the amazing things he has done for the Church. I loved his attitude towards everything. His answers were always so simple, yet so effective. He was always positive about every obstacle with the Church that ever came up. He is truely a man for everyone to look up to. Whether they are a member of the Church or not. One of my favorite memories of him was at every talk he gave, when he was trying to make a point, or say something that was very impotant, he would raise his hand out infront of him with his fingers slightly curved, and he would move his hand up and down as he spoke. I loved that. To me, that was his trademark. His humor was something that everyone looked forward to also. He always made the crowd laugh with every talk he gave. He was just the cutest old man ever!!!! I truely wish I would of had the chance to have met him while here upon the earth, but I know I'll be able to someday. I can't imagine what a warm welcome he got as he was reunited with his wife. He was an amazing, amazing man. One that I will always remember. As my personal tribute to him, I am going to honor a challenge he gave just over two years ago. Towards the end of 2005, he gave the challenge to read the entire Book of Mormon by the end of the year. I gave an effort to take on that challenge, but my heart wasn't completely there, so I didn't make it. I have regretted it everyday since. I have tried and tried over and over again to set a goal to read the entire BoM and it always gets broken into pieces instead of all at once. I am going to take on that challenge starting today to have the Book of Mormon read by the end of April. I would like to invite everyone to do this challenge with me! What a better way to honor our beloved Prophet. I can't wait to get started!

Word of the Week!

For one of my goals this year, I would like to expand my vocabulary. In order for me to do this, I have decided to have a word of the week each Monday. Some of the words will be completely new to me, and others I will simply just want to know more about. Sometimes, it will be the word for that week simply because I like the sound of it! This week, I was going to do a completely different word then the one I ended up doing. But when I went to look up the word in the dictionary, the definition just wasn't as exciting as the word itself. So I was a bit disappointed and therefore chose to do a different word. I started grazing through the dictionary but found nothing that struck out at me. I then decided to start at the beginning of the dictionary, and work my way through. However, like I stated earlier, these words will be in no particular order. They will just be random words that were chosen for some random reason that day (the word for this week is not random, I just like that word!) So in my search for my word, I came across more words that I knew than words that I didn't know! This actually surprised me. Sometimes people say these words in the middle of their sentence like it was nothing. When to me, I'm like "Okay - back up. What in the world does that word mean?" I never really say that though. I just smile and nod like everything is normal and like I totally understand what that person is talking about. So if I am ever in conversation with you and I smile and nod, and you notice a word you used around me as my "word of the week," then just know that at the time, I had no idea what you were saying, but I later found out and decided to share it with everyone! So my word for this week is: aberration 1: the act of deviating (which means to turn aside from an established way) esp. from a moral standard or normal state. 2: failure of a mirror or lens to produce exact point-to-point correspondence between an object and its image. 3: unsoundness or disorder of the mind. 4: a small periodic change of apparent position in heavenly bodies due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer. I hope some of you learned something, but if not, congrats on knowing more than me!

Making Milestones!

I know it's been forever since I've posted anything in here, so I figured I would update everyone on Mason's progress. He is now officially mobile, and I'm not sure we're ready for that yet. As of today, he is now crawling all over the place. Up until now, he would crawl for a second, and then collapse to his belly. Now, he just keeps on going! He is also eating a bunch of different table foods. He never liked jar food. Some people say they can't blame him! I do have to say that everything I tried feeding him, I pre-tested. Some of it was actually good, and the other stuff really wasn't that bad. But still, I guess I can't blame him! So he is now eating most table foods. He is typically a lot happier with these upgrades. He has been pretty sick lately though, so that has definitely put a damper on his spirits. He still tries real hard to stay happy! He is actually eight months old today. He's growing up way too fast!

Happy New Year!!!

I can't believe it is 2008 already. Life is way too short! Anyways, seeing that it is the new year, I feel like I can finally start with my goals and get my life in order. However, I tend to do the same thing every year. I have this long list of goals that I desperately need to get accomplished, but I don't really start them until the new year. Then my list is way too long and overwhelming to accomplish any of them because I try to do them all at once! Go figure. I'm finally realizing why I never make any changes in my life. And trust me, I have a rather large number of changes I need to make. So to get to the point, my main goal is to accomplish two goals at a time. Then maybe by the end of this new year, my "To Do" list will finally become my "Ta Da" list! I would personally like to wish everyone GOOD LUCK in achieving their goals this year! Happy New Year!!!!