Timpanogos Hike and Cave Tour

I made what I considered to be an awesome trade one afternoon with my sister Karin. She has a granddaughter who was born two weeks before the twins as well as a six-month-old grandson. When she heard Jarad and I were wanting to take our two older kids to hike to the Timp caves, she piped in with the offer to watch our twins (she was already watching Avarie and Wyatt that afternoon... how hard could it be?) if we took her two teenaged kids with us on the hike. I didn't hesitate for a SECOND to accept that offer! So here's me with Emma, Fisher, Jayme (happy 18th Jaymes!), Josh (15) and Grumps on our way up the 1.5 mile 1000+ foot elevation gain hike. I took a cue from Emma and her cousins on the hand signals in this pic. (Karin's adventure was much greater than ours, I assure you.)



Fisher was the funniest ever on the tour. Every time Ranger Logan would explain something, he would ask if anyone had any questions. Of course, Fisher always did. Just to hear himself speak. For example, Ranger Logan had just finished telling us why this room was the wettest in the cave. Any questions? Fisher raises his hand. "Um... why ... um ... why ... is ... Why is this the wettest room in the cave?" Every single time.

Here are some random pics from the hike/tour.

More vacation photos. Nowhere near done!

My dad has this ancient Triumph TR3A convertible (is it a 53?, I can't remember) that he had shipped from Alaska to Utah before their mission. It's now sitting in their garage, not really running (it was driveable when we had it in AK), but the grandkids sure had a great time pretending to zoom around town in it.



After visiting with my parents for a few days in Orem, we headed down to Fairview Canyon for a Curtis family camping trip. Jarad's brothers and their families were all there, as well as Grannie Annie. We missed Sara and her family though!

Emma, Tess and their cousins Ashley and Milan. I gave up trying to get Emma to look normal for pictures. She'll just love all these pictures of her with crazy faces when she gets older...



We had a massive tent (thanks Kristin and Ted!) that we dubbed The Timeshare. It was four rooms with palladian windows. Ridiculously huge. Anyway, this is a picture of Case reading stories before getting tucked into bed. We did it with headlamps. He loved it!



I love this picture. Emma can't take a picture without making a crazy face or some sort of hand sign. I sat and tried to get Emma and Ashley to stop making hand signs, and then I see Tess busting out a peace sign.



We took the whole crew fishing one afternoon, and evidently Uncle Tony needed a nap. He plopped down right in the weeds and dirt next to the lake, put his hat over his head and went to sleep. I call this photo "peeking at the hobo." Case wasn't sure what to think of this strange heap of a person lying in the middle of our fishing spot.


There was this huge see-saw made from trees at our campsite, which provided many hours of entertainment for all the kids (and adults too!). There were a handful of injuries from falls, but Case hung with the big boys on it. He loved it!

And the photos begin...

It seems like forever since we got home from our trip, but it's really only been a few days. I guess reality always goes by slower than vacation, right? So here are the first of what will probably end up being too many photos of our recent travels up north (well, north of Arizona, not the REAL north!).

The first event of the trip was Jarad's triathlon in Provo. My parents were nice enough to watch the kids so I could be Jarad's cheering section. My job was to time his events and let him know how he was doing while he ran past me during/after each event. He told me beforehand that things like "Go Jarad" were meaningless and not motivating, while comments that would whip him into gear were more helpful. To a man that means insults, right? So when I yelled out his time halfway through the run, and followed it up with "UNHITCH THAT TRAILER!" the man standing next to me had this horrified look on his face and was totally laughing at me. I explained that my husband WANTED me to verbally abuse him during the race. Just being a good wifey!

Anyway, here are some photos of my future Ironman.

Swim (well, coming out of the lake)


Bike


Run

Thank Heaven for Monsoons!!

We had a blessed thunderstorm last night and got about 1.5 inches of rain in our part of Arizona. This means that our temperatures have dropped about 20 degrees from last weekend (it's a balmy -- and muggy -- 95 rather than 115). Welcome to the Monsoon Season in the Valley of the Sun!

One more reason I'm glad we waited until Wednesday to drive back... our air conditioner in the bedroom part of the house had gone out while we were gone and we are just now getting it worked on (this happened to us about this time last year, but thankfully it's a much less expensive fix this time around!).

Hopefully we'll have a great (read: cool) night's sleep tonight!!

Have I ever gone this long???

I have an excuse for not posting for more than a month. Honestly.

IT'S SUMMERTIME!

Summer break for The Curti is nothing less than THE MOST FUN. With Jarad home and my extremely flexible schedule, we have nonstop good times! We just returned today from a three-week vacation **yes I said three weeks!** to Utah and Idaho. Some might think a road trip with four kids for three weeks would be a nightmare. Honestly, at times I thought the same thing (Tess is so OVER having her "buckles on" ugh). But in all it was such a fun trip.

It started with Jarad's participation in the Provo Triathlon and a weekend visit with my parents in their brand-new Orem home. Believe me, we broke that bad-boy in...

Then we spent a few days camping with Jarad and his brothers' families in Fairview Canyon before heading up to McCall, Idaho for the Stastny family reunion. We had 35 people in one house for a full week. Again, some might think that is a nightmare in the making but it was serious fun. All my brothers and sisters were there with their spouses (a first ever -- I had two sisters in law who had never met each other), and all the grandchildren (plus a couple of spouses) with one exception (my nephew Jeremy is on his mission in South Africa!) and all the great-grandchildren. It was amazing. A week in a three-story house on Payette Lake with a couple of boats and a private beach... I have a few pics, but I'll have to post them later.

Just wanted to pop on and tell all my loyal readers (hi Mom and Dad) that I'm still around and I promise to post more often now that our summer is winding down. We only have three and a half weeks until school starts. I can't believe it!

Byrnesie II

Those of you who aren't DBacks fans may not get this. And maybe the DBacks fans out there will think I'm crazy for thinking so, but doesn't Case look like Eric Byrnes?

We call him Byrnesie (pron. Burnsie, among other nicknames), and today he referred to himself as Byrnesie too. Maybe we have a future MLB player in our family? Or maybe we could pimp him to a local casino to do impersonations.

Check out the simliarities here...
http://www.byrnesie.com/

Tahoe, barf and some pictures

Jarad and I returned on Friday from a nice little getaway to Lake Tahoe. We spent four days just playing, hiking, talking, relaxing. It was great. If you've never been to Lake Tahoe, I would totally recommend it as a getaway! But maybe when it's a teensy bit warmer. They were having the same cold/rain snap as the rest of the West, so it was in the 40s the entire week and intermittently rainy (like my weatherwoman terminology?), but it gave us ample opportunity to use all our old outdoor gear from our Alaska days. Our fleeces and rain shells don't get much use in Arizona. We did a few hikes where we saw no other people, and the cloud cover made for some great photography. I kept thinking "this would be a great vacation with kids!" Total mom, right?

Anyway, a HUGE shout out and THANKS to my niece Jessica and her little guy Ethan for coming down to stay with our chitlins for the week. The kids had so much fun with their little cousin (and their big cousin too), and I hope the week with five kids under seven didn't make her change her mind about wanting more kids! Also, a big thanks goes out to her husband Eric, whom she and Ethan abandoned for the week. Thanks for letting them come down Eric!

While Jess and Ethan were here Fisher and Teslin both came down with a nasty stomach bug, so she got a little more than she bargained for! Since they left on Saturday morning, Jarad, Case and I have all had it. It's a brutal one, so I'm hoping she and Ethan didn't catch it... Now it's back to reality (and tons of laundry).

Here are a few pics from the getaway...









This one made me laugh -- it's Fisher holding his barf bowl. But he's wearing a Hurley shirt -- get it? HURL-ey? ha ha!!