Peacock Postings 2013

Monday, November 24, 2014

Bear Lake Trip and Reunion

This year the Lake family reunion actually took place at, well, a lake :) Bear Lake to be exact. It just so happened that our good friends from our newlywed days were also up there. Since they live in Texas I wanted to go up early and spend the day with them. Long story short, Luke was suppose to be in India that week so it wasn't in the plan for him to come to the reunion at all. However his visa came one day after he was suppose to go, so he ended up not going. Yet, he still had to work so he couldn't join us in Bear Lake until the next night.

Shannon and Richard Anderson

Day 2-- Beach day with the Lake Clan

This is the rental home owned by Uncle Wade's in-laws. It was HUUUUUUUUUGE! and so nice! We were very lucky that Wade and Lisa shared their 1 peak season week with us.

The views were amazing!

Day 3! Minnetonka Cave

Got a late start and had to wait 1.5 hours-- but I say it is well worth it!

Basically Linaya made me carry her. the whole way. 400+ steps each way.

After the cave, we drove another hour to see Bloomington Lake. It was incredibly gorgeous!

Very cold though!

So this is a rope swing, tied hiiiigh up in this tree. It's quite the rush coming off it and dropping into the glacier water.
Luke went off of a really high ledge. I was messing with the video camera, trying to film it, but missed as he let go of the rope, kicked his legs out in a V-shape, flip-flops went flying and he dropped skillfully into the water. The second time just wasn't the same. But that's the one that got recorded, go figure.
Finally I summoned enough courage to take the plunge (but not from the higher ledge, of course) It was exhilarating, but once was enough for me.
Then the girls started begging to try it.
Next Tianna got brave and went off the swing. Adelia kept begging to, and since she is so agile and rocks the monkey bars and other hanging things, I figured she'd be fine, as long as dad were there to help her swim back to shore. The first attempt didn't pan out. She didn't let go when she got out above the water but thankfully didn't let go too late, or she would have landed on rocks. She just held on until it swung back and we could grab her. Being determined, she gave it another go. Unfortunately Luke didn't understand that he needed to be OUT in the water ready to grab her as soon as she came up. She started panicking while he swam to her. Basically she is scarred for life and she said she'll never ever ever do that again. --not our best parenting moment :)

LOVE! It was so nice Dad and Grandma Belinda could join us for Friday night- Sunday morning. It made the trip infinitely better!

Such a GORGEOUS piece of Earth.

The last day-- clean up and snap some more pictures of this enormous and beautiful cabin

The 2nd kitchen!

Theater room

game room and sleeping for at least 16 in this room alone!

I can't remember how many bedrooms-- at least 8 I think!

Steam shower/sauna/spa/totally awesome

oh ya know, more beds.

and a nice yard and patio area. this place had everything! No wonder it's booked for the next 2 years already.

It was a really really fun mini vacation! Thanks Wade, Lisa, and all the Lake's for a wonderful reunion!

Anniversary Surprise

Tianna is our official holiday decorator and party enthusiast. She also still feels bad that our wedding anniversary last year fell on the same day of her tonsillectomy so our celebration was limited to breakfast at the hospital :)
This year she was determined to make our anniversary amazing. She woke up really early, decorated the table, made toast, and got her and her sisters all dressed up so that when Luke and I woke up everything was ready for a FANCY breakfast. We were even given strict instructions to get dressed in nice clothing. Can't say I usually put on a dress for breakfast at home.

She is so incredibly sweet!

That night we went had an early, pre-Les-Mis-rehearsal date to dinner at a local place in Santaquin, Brumby's (SO YUMMY) and then bowling.

Luke beat me. But I still love him ;)

It's been 9 spectacular years! I sure love this handsome guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And those little cuties who made our breakfast so special. I LOVE MY LIFE!

4th of July

We spent the 4th of July in Scofield this year.

Jana and Casey took us out on their boat. Adelia was convinced she would drown while on the tube, but Tianna absolutely loved it.

The Pleasant Valley Days theme was "Rockin' in the U.S.A" so we decided to do a ROCK CLIMBING theme. The kiddos were so cute on it!

The Little Miss Pleasant Valley Days pageant was also a huge success this year.

Adelia sang "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Miserables.

She did an exceptional job and won 1st place in her age category!

Tianna rocked the house down with her hula-hoop number to "Happy." I don't know anyone who can hula hoop like that girl! She won 1st attendant.

Sadly our fun weekend was cut short. Adelia was getting very sick right before the pageant, but she had worked so hard to prepare, we took her anyway. Half way through though she started getting a fever and really didn't feel well. It was an extra accomplishment to perform so well.

By the next day she started getting itchy bumps all over her arms, legs, and throat-- as expected she had HAND FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE. I must say, it was one of the worst illnesses we have ever dealt with. By Saturday afternoon she was wigging out from how itchy her blisters were. We decided to skip out on fireworks and just head home to an Insta-Care in case it were something worse than hand, foot and mouth. The nurse said it was the worst she had ever seen--and the itchiness is usually very mild. Guess we got lucky. NOT!

Just look at the after-math!
(sorry for the tushy picture, but it was one of her worst places)

The actual virus wasn't all that bad. She had a mild fever (well, THEY had a fever. Linaya had a mild fever and a few blisters. No biggie) but Adelia's itching was what made it all so horrible. It nearly drove her mad, and therefore, me too! After several days though, she cleared up and the infected ones got better. --thank you Dr. for an antibiotic I got to give her 4 time a day! ugh!--

But once she cleared up that was JUST the beginning of the horror.

About 3 weeks after the blisters, then her skin started falling off. We went to Bear Lake and the little blister pockets deep under the skin opened up, filled with sand, and then looked and felt awful.

A few more weeks went by and then all her toenails and many of her finger nails fell off. It seriously was 1 weekend of feeling yucky but 1 and a half months of awful effects. It was well into August before pieces of her body stopped falling off!

Swimming Lessons

June also meant swimming lessons. I discovered a home swimming pool in Santaquin and LOVED it. It was a little small for getting a real feel of what swimming across a lap pool would be like (for future) but for beginning and intermediate swimmers, it was amazing! I loved not having to drive to Payson and I enjoyed getting to sit right there and watch the lessons. At the public pool they don't let mommy stick around. *next year it might be more difficult to keep Linaya out of the pool though. This year she surprisingly didn't seem to care.

This was Adelia's first time being old enough for lessons. She did great!

But it sure was chilly the week we had lessons. (rainy and chilly at 8:00 am!)

Tianna has had lessons for several years and is a pretty good swimmer!

Definitely doing lessons there again! Love local things!

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Adelia's FROZEN party

It was Adelia's first friend party and we went all out (for our standards!) We may or may not have decorated for 3 solid days....... but Luke was out of town so we had plenty of time to fill.

The end result though was a pretty darn cute icy wonderland--perfect for a warm summer day--

The favors

the decor and games

the ice castle

the cake!

Sven treats

the whole set-up

Baby Olaf! She LOVED this costume so much. For weeks whenever she heard "Frozen," or "Olaf," or anything like it she would run her finger across her eye brows to show where we had painted them. it was hilarious!