Liam gets his "Arrow of Light"

 So, Liam had a birthday aaaand received his "Arrow of Light" in cub scouts.  Our little boy is now movin' on to bigtime "boy scouts".  I'm excited about it since I am his scout leader in 11 year old scouts. So here's a wrap up of the night:

Here is our good friend and dedicated scout leader Kathy Linford.  Along with Maryanne Nybo, the 2 of these gals have been making and awarding these Arrows of Light for years....like 15 I want to say.  This headband thing is new.  Liam received the name of "Skyhawk" and got this cool leather headband with it written on it. 

Kathy puts so much thought and effort into these-it's so cool.

Next, our cubmaster challenged "Skyhawk" to throw this spear through a moving hoop to show his dead-on skills.  Here's how it went after getting the rundown of how it's supposed to happen:



Nailed it!  Way to go Liam!



Next he receives the actual award and parent pin.  Heather's a little miffed because our Cubmaster said: "you can pin it on "your Mom or your Dad"-well, ...you see what happened.

Congrats Liam!!!

Brigham City Temple open house....Liam's birthday continues

The night before Liam's birthday Heather's sister Amy called and said she had extra tickets to the Brigham City Temple open house.  To our surprise Liam was really excited to get up early to do this.  All I can really say is it was incredibly beautiful.

I know you could really say that about any temple but this one is different.  It had a really cool feel to it with the original art throughout and all of the attention to detail we saw...definitely worth going through when you're in the neighborhood.

I love this shot that Amy took of Liam and I.  Liam couldn't stop talking about how cool it was to go there. 

A parent loves to hear things like that...

Liam's bday and other stuff...

Liam looks forward to his birthday the day after his birthday happens.  This year was no exception.  He really wanted to go to the cabin one last time before school started, and with school starting a week later than usual, we made it happen. 

 

First stop, see Grandma Parker in Blackfoot, Idaho: 

Heather was pretty sad after this picture was taken.  She said "this may be the last picture I have with my Grandma since she's 93."

She's livin in comfort with these gems though



Oh yes, and every cabin trip we force Eli to drive a bit, even though he's very hesitant to do so  

 

 

We love to go down to the creek to have a picnic, float boats and just play around. 

We brought Casey and Sam Cheney with us this time too.

 

 

I love this shot of all the kids walking down the stream

Eli was quite proud of the boat he created

Even Harley needed a minute to cool off

 

 

 

Painting rocks and other things is a must at the cabin

 

Grandpa said: "Hey, we're going to have a Hunger Games party tonight!"  He brought a flat screen and the movie and we sat out in the forest one night to watch it...so much fun.

There's a quaint little restraunt called "Boondocks" where we love to eat each year. 

This was some yard art in the front that Eli just had to hold.



 

 

 

Just me and the girls

 

 

 

Liam loves the grilled cheese sandwich

 

 

 

We usually have a talent show of some kind too.  Here's what Chloe and Kate threw together:

 

 

Kate was a little miffed that she couldn't make everyone's lunch as you can see on her face.

She decided to make a triple decker tuna

Here we are taking it easy and playing a competitive game of Phase 10.  Kate won...

We decided to play "Survivor" too.  This is a cabin favorite. 

Here you see everyone trying to shoot the tin cans off the rock with the slingshot...

Everyone always looks forward to the firebuilding contest.   The teams try and  build their fires big enough to burn through the rope that's been strung across two chairs.  Enjoy this video clip:

 

 

 

 

Had to capture Eli's face after blowing on the fire for 10 minutes



Getting ready to head home

 

 

 

 

 

The candy poster for Liam's bday



Liam's favorite gift-Salt Lake Real soccer team jersey

 

 

 

Another great pic-Eli hopped on Lori's roof and we caught the sun just before setting.

Happy Birthday Liam!!!

Fun. in Vegas

So,... long story short....kind of.  Clayton, his girlfriend Taylor, 2 other friends of theirs and Eli bought concert tickets to see the band Fun in Las Vegas.  Taylor planned on driving her car and everyone else would chip in for gas.  Taylor's aunt and uncle live in Vegas so their place to stay overnight was set.  Everything was going as planned until....putt putt putt....the car's transmission died in Beaver, or as Eli would call it "Satan's birthing place"(about 4 hours away from home).
     Just as it seemed that all hope was lost, Clayton called us (we had just gotten out of the Salt Lake Temple for a wedding) and told us the story.  Heather looked at me with a smirk and said: "well, I guess you gotta go rescue them."  Secretly I was excited to go rescue the gang because hey, I wanted to see Fun too...pool side on top of the Cosmopolitan hotel in Vegas!!!  My first move was to try and get a ticket to the "sold out" show which took some time...but, it happened and I got it for only 20 bucks!   I packed up a bag quickly and I headed out the door and was off to Beaver.  Here's some pix to go along with the story:

Here's the initial phone call for help...

Once we were off an on our way to Vegas, of course we need to make a pit stop for....well....

 You see those happy faces?  Those are smiles of relief, and anticipation for the show!

 Here's a pic of my concert ticket that I had to print on Taylor's uncles computer...nice

 Just before the concert starts...

  A look around at the crowd...

The concert begins...

I love this band

Here's a taste of their music if you're not familiar.  

 I loved this mega huge screen they had off stage for pretty much all Vegas to enjoy...

 Eli loves this picture...he texted his friends that he was at a concert in Las Vegas with some college girls...

After the concert, Fun became one of my new favorite bands -love their music and energy.  We all had a great time together for the 24 hours that we spent haha.  We even made it back just in time for me to run over to the church and go to the wedding reception of the couple that were married the day before.

Birthday getaway to Park City with the fam!

Doesn't everyone deserve to take a weekend getaway for their birthday?  I was certainly thinking so...Happy birthday to me!  This is all I really wanted for my b-day anyway.  I researched high and low for the best deal on a hotel stay in Park City and I came across this amazing place for 50% off.  This was the coolest room we've ever stayed in.  It was called the Hyatt Escala lodge at the Canyons ski resort.  We reserved a "loft suite" and this is what we found:  (I believe I am going to sound like a realtor for a few minutes haha)

Mega huge master bathroom with huge jetted tub and double sink

Awesome pool and huge hot tube-this was a huge hit for the kids...

Even Clayton decided to join us with his girlfriend Taylor

Pretty sure the kids weren't supposed to be in the steam room but we were willing to do it until someone said something.  You can tell by their faces how relaxing this was haha.

We spent roughly 87% of our time by the pool and hot tub

G & G came up for my birthday dinner out on our deck.  We had spaghetti, a great salad, garlic bread and my favorite ganache cake that H makes.

Silly girls...

Our kitchen was HUGE!  We really made just about every excuse to NOT leave so we could just hang out in our palace...

This was the living room...

Not the best pix but here's a shot so you can see the loft a bit...

A look from above...

and these 2 couches were both sleeper sofas

so everyone had somewhere to sleep....

A view from one of our decks....

Outside the lodge waiting for our car to arrive via valet parking...

 Ok, I'm done trying to sell you this property haha.  This really was the coolest place to stay and the kids had a blast coming with us this time.  Next we were off to downtown park city to the city park...

A very fun, memorable birthday and weekend.  The kids can't stop talking about how fun it was.  When we got home there was a package waiting for me from Mom and Dad.  It was a slideshow DVD with pictures of my life set to one of my favorite songs by Snow Patrol.  Thanks to sister Heather for doing the work on it and my wife Heather for supplying some of the pictures and keeping it a secret-loved it!!!