Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Man, have I missed blogging! I've missed the time I used to have to blog--or, rather, the time I used to make to blog! So here I am, once again, ashamedly trying to catch up. But better late than never, right? I'll just try to hit some highlights from August, September and October before they forever fade away!
So to begin: our week of "little women." I do not capitalize "little women" because I am not talking about the book (which I adore, BTW), or the movie, or the musical. I'm talking about four little women who came to stay at our house for a week in August--namely, our nieces Amanda, Nicole, Alisa and Elora. I call them "little women" because that's what they are--teenagers on the brink of young adulthood. I also call them "little women" because that's a much more flattering term than what Bethany calls them, which is "my BIG friends." (They're really not big--just much bigger than Bethie!)
Anyway, it was a whirl of a week but very fun! James, Annie and I had had some long discussions about what activities to plan for the girls when they arrived. We decided to do one major activity a day, and to keep that activity a big surprise. I LOVE surprises. The girls were good sports about being surprised (although the suspense almost killed them on more than one occasion)!
They arrived on a Sunday, and we took entertainment matters into our hands right away and, after feeding them, herded the whole gang into Dieter (our Honda Pilot--Dieter Utchdorf was a pilot, hence the name). We wanted to do something fun, yet appropriate for the Sabbath, so we drove out to Clarkston to visit Martin Harris' grave--the girls had never been there before!
I mean, how cool is that? We're talking about Martin Harris! MARTIN HARRIS, people. One of the three witnesses. If you ask me, that's pretty cool! 
We took the time, at the monument, to read the Testimony of the Three Witnesses at the beginning of The Book of Mormon, and it was beautiful and peaceful and so nice! Then we played around a bit in the amphitheater. Bethany put on quite a show. (That child is a performer, through and through!) 
After that, we went home and watched Legacy (the girls didn't remember ever seeing it) and apart from making just the teensiest fun of the actor playing Joseph Smith (just to clarify: LOVE The Prophet Joseph Smith. NOT crazy about the actor in that movie)we had a really good evening!
The next day, Monday, we took the girls to Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville. It's only about a 25 minute drive--I really don't know why we don't go there more often! I guess you have to have company to force the fun ideas. Anyway, I don't have pictures of Crystal Hot Springs because:
a) I was wearing a bathing suit the whole time and
b) I am NOT fond of pictures of myself in a bathing suit, and
c) I didn't want my camera to be wet and
d) I was having way too much fun to even think of taking time for pictures.
Actually, I think Annie did get pictures--I'll have to see. At any rate, we had a ball. On Mondays, for family night, 8 people can swim and slide for just $20. WOW! What a deal. So we swam and swam and went down the water slide I don't know how many times, and really just had a blast!
On Tuesday morning, we took the girls hiking. Logan Canyon is just so beautiful, and there are so many great trails! We took them just along the river walk by Second Dam. We could have hiked a lot farther without a three-year-old, but she was so much fun and we just really enjoyed the scenery!
Such a peaceful place. Again, why don't go there more often? It's practically in my backyard! Anyway, after the hike, we all headed home and the girls all got haircuts. Then we headed to the movie Toy Story 3. To keep the girls off-balance, we really had to be sneaky about these big surprise outings. As I recall, Annie and I had to concoct a real whopper of a story to keep the girls from guessing we were going to the movie. (I think our story included some sort of heist, like a bank robbery or something? But I forget. SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TOO MUCH TIME LAPSES BEFORE I BLOG!!! Bad Jenny.)
After the movie, and after James got off of work and we'd had dinner and all of that, we took them to Aggie Ice Cream. You cannot, I repeat, you can NOT come to Logan without Aggie Ice Cream! Which reminds me, I have not had a pumpkin pie shake this season. Hmmmmm. I'll have to take care of that.
The next day was our BIG day. The grand-daddy activity of them all: Bear Lake and Minnetonka Cave. Such a fun day! Here we are, posing by Ricks Spring on the way up the canyon:
And then at the entrance of Minnetonka Cave:
It had been many years since I went on the Minnetonka Cave tour. I'd forgotten how cool it was (both figuratively and literally)! The whole thing took about an hour and a half and there were many, many stairs (like over 800 round-trip) so we got our workout for the day! Here are some highlights:
The Three Sisters:
The Seven Dwarf Stalagmites:
All those stairs . . .all those stairs . . .
Keeping warm in the deep, dark cave . . .
Did I mention the stairs?
James gets "dad of the year" award for climbing all of those stairs with a three-year-old in his arms! They let us touch one of the stalagmites on the way out--very smooth and knobbly!
After the coolness of the cave, we next hit the heat of the beach! James came up with a rather clever dressing room, which worked bee-you-tiff-lee!
I thought those were pretty great dressing room digs! We all changed and played in the sand and water all afternoon:
Burying Elora:
Building a killer sand castle:
Bethany trying to recreate Minnetonka Cave with its stalactites and stalagmites:
Alisa and Elora taking a dip:
It was a wonderful day, followed by dinner and raspberry shakes at La Beaus. When we got home, we were tired, but happy!
The next day, we did a little service for Annie. She had just moved (and I mean just moved) into a little house that needed a little (okay, a LOT) of TLC. So we all took paintbrush in hand and tried to spruce up the place a little. I think we did a lot! 
I'm just glad, after tackling the oven, that my brain cells are all intact . . .or ARE they?
After a few hours of painting/cleaning, we took a break--for awhile. We next painted our toenails, which were in sore need of some refinement:
And then we watched a movie on the backyard fence--James projected it so we could watch a movie under the stars. So we watched The Truman Show and it was so much fun to be outside! Like a drive-in, only without the driving.
On Friday, we had a cookie baking contest. I don't believe we ever judged which batch was best--all were eaten, all were enjoyed!
And that night, we had a BBQ up Green Canyon:
And we hiked up (since we hadn't done enough hiking yet) up to that cave in Green Canyon--does anyone know what that cave is called? Anyway. It's cool.
And then night fell. So we went home.
The next day, Saturday, Stan and Kristie joined the party. So we had a party--a luau, to be exact. Tiki torches and all! Here's the whole haole group, enjoying a taste of island life via the backyard!
My parents even joined in on the fun, with my mom (and Bethie) teaching the hula to the group!
After we had been hula-ed and luau-ed out, we all hit the hay. And after church and dinner the next day, we called the week a wrap and they all went home. It was a fun week, and Bethany definitely enjoyed her "big friends!"
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