#4 - Deer Range

My Dad's family holds their family reunion at my Grandpa's Ranch (Deer Range) in Southern Utah every summer. I have a lot of good memories of the ranch from my childhood and was glad Spencer was able to experience a little of it. We didn't get to spend much time at the ranch because of the half-marathon some of us were running on Saturday, but I managed to take a lot of pictures of one afternoon.

Zac, Kate and Spencer hanging out on the porch swing. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of the cabin. I believe the original cabin was built by my great grandfather after he homesteaded the land. It has been added onto several times and is quite interesting.




Checking out Bo. That dog has been around forever.




My Mom and Alan lounging. It was too hot to do much else besides visit and play games in the shade.




Katelyn and Lindsey game up with some "minute to win-it" games that were pretty funny.




Spencer was in heaven running around getting dirty and eating snacks. He loved going up and down those stairs for some reason.




Lindsey and her ukulele. I didn't know she played until we got there. She's not half-bad.




We played a big game of signs for a long time. This was not Alan's sign, but he probably wishes it would have been.




My Mom made these awesome marshmallow guns for the kids. Spencer just followed the shooters around begging for marshmallows. Zac was kind enough to let Spencer slobber all over his gun.




Alan and Katelyn playing golf-ball horseshoes.




I grew up riding horses once a year at the ranch, but most of my cousins owned horses and road them all the time. I always feel rather ignorant when it comes to horses at the ranch. This is Spencer's first real horse ride even. He liked it until the horse trotted a little and I had a hard time slowly it down. Now he says horses are "scary." I hope I didn't ruin him for life.




I only added this picture so you could see the incredible sky in the background. Southern Utah definitely has it's own kind of beauty. It can be breath-taking.




There were so many people to help entertain Spencer. It was fabulous. Lindsey was one of his particular favorites.




Ahhh, the freedom of being able to get your own drink of water. He filled this cup over and over.




We all headed back to my Grandma's house in Kanab to shower on Saturday afternoon. My Grandma LeFevre is the only grandparent I have left, so it's always really special to see her. She has always been such a faithful, elegant woman and a very loving grandmother. She won big points with Spencer for giving him his first sucker. Even though it was a quick reunion for us, I'm so glad we got to go. Hopefully, we'll make it back before another 4 years goes by.



p.s.: Five of us ran the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon and two did the 5k on Saturday morning. It was a hard race with the first half being downhill and the 2nd half in the hot sun. Amazingly, I finished with a personal record of 1:39. I paid the price with sore muscles for several days after wards, however. Alan had a little heat exhaustion and beat me by a couple of minutes. It felt good to run that distance again, but I'm ready to take a break from serious training now. I want my Saturday mornings back.

#3 - SLC Children's Museum with Alicia

We also got to see Alan's awesome sister, Alicia, while in Utah. She took Spencer and I to the Children's Museum in Salt Lake one day. Well, we actually tried to play in the water feature at the Gateway, but Spencer wouldn't have anything to do with the water. Luckily, the Children's Museum is right there in the mall too.

Spencer had a blast doing all sorts of things. This ball exhibit was the first one and he probably could have stayed there for an hour.




He's big into construction vehicles right now, so I was excited about this exhibit. There were no big vehicles though so Spencer wasn't as excited as I thought he'd be.




The grocery store is always a favorite of his. He collected several basket fulls of food and gave it all to the kid at the deli counter. The other boy was a good sport.




Practicing for the LeFevre Family Reunion at Deer Range.




As we were leaving, we realized there was a whole 2nd floor we had missed. A lot of the exhibits upstairs were for older kids, but Spencer really liked these super strong magnets...




...and the real helicopter on the roof.



Thanks again for a fun morning Alicia! I'm so glad we got to see you on our trip.

#2 - Staying with my Sis

I was so happy to have a week between my roommate reunion and my Dad's family reunion because that meant I got to spend the week with my sister in West Jordan. Elise is the sister just after me and we've always been close. Sharing a room for 16 years can do that to you. Elise's little boy, Porter, is about 6 months younger than Spencer. Spencer and Porter are opposites in a lot of ways, but they both have a hard time sharing. Mostly though, the boys were really cute together. They loved to chase each other around the house and laugh.

One of their favorite activities was jumping on this air mattress. I shot a funny video of them jumping, but I can't get it to download correctly, so I had to settle for a fuzzy picture instead.




These happy faces lasted for about 30 seconds before Porter touched Spencer and he erupted in tears. He's a little wimpy sometimes.




One afternoon, we hit up a local mall to ride this fun train. Elise was a good sport and road with the boys. The train went all over the mall.




We tried going to a park one evening, but it was way too hot and we only lasted about 15 minutes. Luckily, Elise and Eric's apartment complex has this little playground that's shaded in the evenings. It was perfect.







Another morning, we went to the apartment's pool. It was nice that we were the only ones there at first. Both boys had way more fun running around the pool than actually getting wet.




This is the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Spencer likes the water fountains at temples, but didn't mind too much that this one didn't have water in it. It was just as fun to walk around the edges (even if it scared me a little).




We went on nice walk around a man-made lake after visiting the temple. This shot was taken right before I accidentally dropped Spencer's apple in the water and he had a major melt-down. Spencer actually traveled A LOT better than I expected him to. We slept at a lot of different places and he did just fine as long as I stayed in the room with him until he fell asleep. I got a lot of reading done that way. :) He slept just fine in pack n' plays. Whew! I might be brave enough to try some other traveling with him now.




I so wish we lived closer together. Elise has had some pretty major trials in her life and has come through them all with a lot of courage and faith than I think I would of. She may be my little sister, but I sure admire her. I love you Elise and hope we can get together again soon. Thanks for being such a great host and letting us take over your living room!

Long Vacation Installment #1 - Roomie Reunion

We have finally returned from our wonderful and long (2 1/2 week) vacation to Utah and Arizona. We had such a fabulous time seeing LOTS of friends and family that it has been hard coming home and getting back to normal.

Spencer and I flew to down to Salt Lake without Alan for about a week. Spencer hadn't flown in about a year and this was the first time he understood what was going on. He was very excited to fly and was very well-behaved during the flight. It helped that he had his own seat this time, although that didn't help our checking account. :)




I was so blessed to have awesome roommates in college. We got along so well and still keep in touch. We held our 8th roommate reunion in Logan this year. Four of the six of us were able to come (we missed you Mandy and Jonni!). It was so good to see everyone and meet all of the new additions. I'm always amazed at how the years melt away and how comfortable I feel when we get together. The four kids are all fairly close to the same age and it was hilarious to see their different personalities.

Spencer and Jonas are both a little reserved and were good buddies.




We went to a little zoo in Logan one morning. This duck pond complete with food pellets for the ducks was the favorite exhibit.




It was hot at the zoo, so we got out the wading pool in the afternoon. Too bad the sun went behind the clouds and the water was pretty chilly. Spencer never got brave enough to get in.







Katie's husband, Ben, made this awesome spray arch out of pvc pipe. No one had the guts to run through it, but it worked great for filling up cups.




We hit up this cool park the next day. It was hot, but all of the coolest parts were in the sun so I got sweaty following Spencer around for a long time.



As I was uploading my pictures, I realized that I didn't get a single shot of the four roommates or the four kids together. Whoops. I'd love a copy of the one we took while eating pizzookies, who ever took it. I had such a great time with everyone and am sad that we all live so far apart.

I did find this pic of the four of us from Abby's parent's Easter picnic in 2002.



Thanks to Abby and Gishin for being my chauffeurs to and from Salt Lake, Katie for organizing everything, and Katie's gracious parents for enduring the chaos of letting us all crash at their house. Until 2012...

Independence Weekend

Three day weekends are the best! We celebrated all weekend long and had a great time being together. Even though it was still jacket weather for me most of the time, I finally feel like summer has started. It's about time!

Warning: There are a lot of pictures. I was having fun with my camera. :)


Some friends in the ward invited us to a BBQ on Saturday evening. It was all young families and everyone brought their outside toys, so Spencer had a blast.

What could be better than a chocolate cupcake with bright blue frosting?




Spencer's favorite toy was this lawnmower. He called it a vacuum though. I guess he sees me vacuum a lot more than he sees push mowers.




The guys played "horse" while we were waiting for it to get dark enough for fireworks. This particular shot did go in and Alan was proud to be the champion - winning both games.




I made sure we got a family picture when I realized we hadn't taken one since Thanksgiving!




Since Spencer has mostly quit napping, he's usually asleep by about 8:00. He didn't last very long for the fireworks that started a little after 9:00.




We all pitched in and bought a big package of fireworks. It was fun until one spun right underneath my chair and almost caught it and my blanket on fire. My hands weren't steady enough to get a clear shot, but I thought this one was pretty cool looking anyway.




We did another BBQ with Alan's parents for our weekly Sunday dinner. I wanted some family pictures before dinner, but Spencer insisted on taking a picture with this yellow chair before we did the family pics.







On Monday morning, our ward held a pancake breakfast at Alan's parent's house again. It was a little cool, but the pancakes were yummy and some of the priests made balloon animals, swords, hats, etc. for all of the kids. Spencer was thrilled with his yellow giraffe. Too bad it popped after about 5 minutes.




Later in the afternoon, we went on a hike in Portland. That's one of our favorite things to do, but it had been a super long time since we had gone. We went to Powell Butte, a hill right in the middle of the city. The lack of trees on the top, the tall grass and the wildflowers reminded me more of Utah than Oregon.




Spencer's favorite part was picking up handfuls of gravel and then dropping them.




Point and shoot cameras just don't do justice to views like these.




Spencer rode in the stroller for the first part, but wanted to walk most of the way. This was towards the end when his little legs finally got tired.



I feel so blessed to live in such a beautiful country and to have all of the freedoms we do. Our country is a far cry from perfect, but I truly feel we are the most blessed people on earth at this time. Happy Independence Day everyone!