Turner Falls

When we first arrived we drove in the entrance then over the road covered by the river and walked to these steep stairs:

 The river flowed through the entire park, which was like 10 miles through:

 The stairs led to the ruins of a castle built in the 1920's right into the hill

 Up more steep stairs:

 To this view of a 77 foot waterfall:

 The kids loved to walk through the river:

 And play in the sand on the little beach:

 Especially Mackayla

 She would flap her arms madly and grab at the sand with her vice grip

 We went with lots of friends to celebrate the end of school. It was SO much fun, not crowded and the perfect hot weather to enjoy in cool (not cold!) water.

I didn't get pictures of our favorite area with water slides and a smooth shallow part of the river where it could gently pull Cody down like a slow water slide. I would seriously do that every year and will go back if we're within driving distance ever again!

We are packing up today and out tomorrow for a crazy, exciting, fun month of driving, driving and more driving. First to Utah, then Oregon, then Lake Powell, then Utah, then Oregon!!

Oklahoma Friends

You would think we never hung out with anyone just by reading my blog because I am so terrible at taking pictures. So I made an extra effort to take pictures of friends the last week.

This post is for Cody and Macey so they can remember their cute friends from Oklahoma.

Of course I missed a bunch of them!!

Here's Miss Ashely and Cody on his last day of school.

He will really miss her!

He was near tears the last day.

 This is their class. Dayspring had pretty small classes (they're just missing three kids), which was perfect for Cody. He loved his class!

 

 Macey loved Mrs. Dawn, who we saw every day we picked Cody up and Macey would chat with her while we got Cody.

 Saying goodbye!

 Once it warmed up Cody, Addicus, Macey and Sloan would often play outside of their school for a while.

 They loved to hold hands:)

 I taught Tre piano. He even got a new piano to practice on!

 While I taught, Cody, Macey, and Braden would run around like hooligans. Cody and Macey love these guys!

Big Braden is not to be confused with Little Braden, who refused to smile in these pictures! But I caught a picture of him, ha! They LOVED playing with Braden.

These are some of our next door neighbors Ashlyn and Jackson. Macey would always yell Ashlyn's name to see if she was around and she calls her Ash-a-wyn. Their favorite game is hide and seek in our house.

 Cody and Brody at the park

 There's all four of them on a toy

 Brigham Cody and Macey at Turner Falls, which I can't wait to post pictures of. It is beautiful!

 Macey and Reed. He was calling her "My Girl," and they spent hours searching for bugs at Turner Falls, something they both love doing.

Nine Months

Mackayla is 18 lbs. 8 oz., in the 45% for height and weight and 55% with her head. Chubby, patient, sweet, unmotivated to crawl, two teeth, and happy! Love this age when they smile and love everything you do.

I caught her crawling the other day and clapped and said yea and she flopped on her belly and started crying. She's a little too smart I'm afraid!

Head Down Arms In Knees Bent

This is the part in Tangled where Flynn is about to unknowingly be catapulted through the air.

This is how I feel 

as we're about to embark on another adventure into the unknown

in about a week and a half

Flynn had two things going for him: he was catapulted to freedom and a horse took him there.

Hopefully we fare as well:)

I'm excited

and a little nervous
This is our house at the moment:

Once again, we've never seen the place we're moving to

(Our friends in Oregon looked. They're just finishing vet school...yea! and boo for us!)

Let's hope it works out better than this last time around

Although if I'm being honest, I've kind of grown to like our house here

That being said, I'm even MORE excited to move out!

Toothpick Lunch

The kids had a toothpick lunch today -  a bunch of bite sized foods with toothpicks and dip. Super entertaining conversation began:
*First Cody got really upset because he just knew when he got bigger he wouldn't live with me anymore. I told him he could live right next door to me and that seemed to make him, and me, happy.
*He said he wanted to marry Macey. He has said that several times. I'm not sure if he would be happy about reading that later, but it's so sweet that they are such good friends.
*He expressed a deep desire to NOT have a beard. Several times.   ...?
*He very seriously told me that Braden, Brigham, (two good friends) and him had decided that if Macey went back to being a baby that they would be in charge again. HA HA! (although not true because I remember her as a baby:))
After that Macey tripped walking in my flip flops. She was not hurt but it was cute so I laughed. She shot her finger at me and said don't laugh at me. ("Don't waff at me!") I couldn't stop so I had to look away but she was an-ger-y.

Maceyisms

Macey held a stick out like Harry Potter would hold a wand and said "I'm going to weapon you!" Then a minute after she had impressed me with her sword she instructed me: "If I be mean, you take the stick away."

Every time she gets a Star Wars Gogurt she asks who the picture is. When I tell her - Obi Wan kenobi, R2D2, etc - she will look at it and thoughtfully say, "I would like to call him... boof." Every time. I have no idea why.