Timpanogos Cave

I'm not sure who's bright idea it was to take the kids to Timpanogos cave, but I will tell you this- we won't be doing that again for awhile! That is one STEEP climb for little 5 year old legs! Not to mention the mom and dad's legs that ended up carrying both kids most of the way!

Tanner loved it, but he was carried the whole way!

Poor little Ashlyn was tired after the first 5 min. so I started playing a game with her that we would count 100 steps and see where that would take us and then we would take a picture when we got to that spot. This helped for awhile!

A couple 100 steps later...

A little break for fruit snacks and squirrel watching!


Whew! Tanner made it to the top without even breaking a sweat!

Ashlyn with her rosy cheeks happy to not be walking!
Tanner was afraid when we first went into the cave. He didn't like how dark it was, and kept asking me if we could leave... not really an option! He got used to it after awhile and then made me nervous because he had to do everything by himself and wouldn't let me carry him. Our tour guide was... interesting is the only word I can think to describe him. He liked to tell his own views of politics and things like that instead of point out the really cool things in the cave. So we handed the camera over to the kids and let them take pictures of things they thought were cool.

These are a few of their pictures that weren't of other people's backsides, the floor or lights in the floor!

What an amazing cave it is, but I think a little beyond what a 2 and 5 year old can appreciate!

This is what Ashlyn thought of hiking after that! She told me she never wanted to go hiking again! She ended up riding in the backpack most of the way down and I carried Tanner as he fell asleep in my arms..... sheeesh my legs and arms were sore for days! I think we might stick to parks and swimming for fun activities with our kids for awhile and introduce hiking again when they can carry us!

Wells Family Reunion

Labor Day Weekend we had our annual Wells Family Reunion at the cabin. 30+ people together in close surroundings for 3 days.... I don't think many families could make it through in one piece. But amazingly there were no real problems (granted I slept out in the van the second night due to all the snoring, but that was as big as the problems came)!

We had so much fun. My brother brought out the rock star in all of us with Rock Band. I have been trying to convince Brad to get this for me for Christmas ever since, but have not succeeded! I ROCKED at the drums ( I took it pretty serious)! And Tanner loved to dance to our music. My kids favorite song now is, "Eye of the Tiger!"

My sister Tiffany was so excited to FINALLY live close enough to come to the reunion this year, and we were just as excited to have her family there. She brought t-shirts for everyone to make. This was a huge hit with both the kids, and the adults.

My sister Kambria and I took it upon ourselves to created shirts for the 4 Wells girls... if you get the inside joke you can laugh along with us, if not just move on! We were laughing so hard as we presented the shirts to my mom and sister Tiffany... we thought we were pretty clever! (Kaydria didn't understand our joke, but wanted to be in the picture!)

We had all sorts of fun activities and treats! Lollipops, play dough charades, long walks, moose sightings, yummy food, 4-wheeler rides, truck rides, walking the dogs....

One of the best things my mom came up with was the ticket system. She gave a lesson about service and helping others and then she gave the adults a bunch of tickets to give to the kids when they saw them doing something good. We would write the kids name on the ticket and then at the end of the weekend they got to redeem their tickets for prizes. It made a huge difference in how the kids got along, and how much they helped out.... BRILLIANT! Even Tanner caught some of the spirit of it!

There was a lot of lounging in the hammock and hanging out with cousins, Ashlyn and Sam were always working on some puzzle.

Campfires, marshmallows, smores and roasted starburst...

How lucky we are to have so many great cousins for our kids to grow up with. My kids adore their older cousins and they are so good to them. And they love having cousins their age that are some of their best friends. Ashlyn would hug everyone goodnight and love knowing they would all be their in the morning when she woke up.
Our family at the campfire... trying hard to let the kids have fun while still being paranoid one would fall in the fire or get poked with a hot roasting stick!

And these are the two we have to thank for all of this! I seriously don't know how they did it, or how they do it now. 6 kids is a lot of work, but how thankful I am that they had 6 kids and didn't stop at 5! My parents are the BEST! And how rewarding it must be to have their entire family together! I know it wasn't an easy weekend to plan, but it was all worth it!

The very last day we headed up to the lake. It was windy and the water was freezing, but that didn't stop some! Tanner was a maniac with a squirt gun, and I think Ashlyn was the first in the water!

Thanks mom and dad for such a fun weekend that we'll always remember! And thanks to my family for being the BEST family in the world!

Tea Party

Ashlyn's friend had a tea party for her birthday so Ashlyn got all dressed up to go. When Brad's grandma passed away and we were going through her things Brad thought I was crazy for wanting to keep all her old jewelry. I was pregnant with Ashlyn at the time and I told him one day our little girl would think it was fun to play with the jewelry for dress ups!

She loved going through the boxes and finding the big clip on earing and broaches! She couldn't wait to tell her friends that the jewelry was once her great grandma's!

San Francisco

One afternoon I was talking to my sister Kambria who had just gotten home from a cruise, and I was so jealous! I mentioned that Brad and I would love to go on a trip together, but didn't dare ask our parents to keep the kids because we had just needed them for Trek and stuff. She said, "Well, I'll watch your kids for you." I didn't give her a chance to change her mind. I called Brad at work and I think it only took a day for us to plan a trip to San Francisco... he booked the flight the next day! It was a perfect getaway!

Checking out the boat museum on Fisherman's Wharf.

The famous Sea Lions at Pier 39. These animals were crazy, they were terrified of a Pelican. It was one of the funniest things I've seen when they would all fall into the water and hide from a Pelican!

Alcatraz from a distance

Alcatraz- just as our boat was approaching the dock.

It was a pretty interesting tour of the prison. They give you headphones to listen to that guide you on your tour, and then we had a live guide who took us around after telling us stories of Machine Gun Kelly and some of the more famous inmates.

One of the days we rented bikes and biked over the Golden Gate Bridge to a little town called Sausalito. It was a lot of fun! Riding across the bridge was a little unnerving, but a must do at least once! And the hills there are sure a pain to climb, but a lot of fun to go down!

Pretty good picture for being our own photographers wouldn't you say? San Francisco is not like Disneyland where people are just willing to stop a take a picture for you. So we managed with what we had!

The Golden Gate Bridge- more incredible in real life than I could have imagined. It seems to go on forever. Half the time you can't even see the top of the bridge because it is in the clouds. I don't think they pay those guys who are constantly painting the bridge enough, it was insane watching them go over the side to work.

One of the reasons we chose San Francisco was because the Broadway show WICKED was playing there. We didn't get a chance to see it when it came to Salt Lake so we were lucky to see it in a gorgeous theater in San Francisco. This is us in our hotel room right before we left for the play. It was as AMAZING as everyone talked it up to be in my opinion, Brad on the other hand enjoyed it, but didn't see what all the hype was about!

A few things we did that we didn't get pictures of (pictures of things never mean as much without people in them, and it's never fun to be in a picture all by yourself so we didn't take a ton of pictures)! But we had hot fudge sundaes at Ghirardelli Square, lunch at the Cheesecake Factory that is on the top floor of Macy's overlooking Union Square. We ate at different restaurants on the wharf, watched insane people swim in the bay, walked a million miles, saw Lombard Street, shopped until we wanted to drop, saw the famous "bush man" and "tin man", and realized we could never live in San Francisco! Sheesh, there are a lot of people there! It was nice to come home to our quiet house (and kids)!

"Guess what? I'm 5"

I think everyone we have met in the last 2 weeks knew Ashlyn's birthday was today. The checkers at the grocery store, the stranger in the mall, the librarian... she would just walk up to anyone who was willing to listen and say, "guess what my birthday is in 5 days, or tomorrow (depending on the day) and I'm going to be 5!" She asked us at the beginning of September how many days until her birthday and I think it was 16 days, and she never asked again because she never lost count. Every morning she would come into our room and update us on how many days until she turned 5!

She had her two best friends over for cupcakes after preschool.

That was just a warm-up for her family party that night. She had both sets of her grandparents and her cousins Sam and Isaac over for dinner (Hawaiian Haystacks, her current favorite) and cupcakes of coarse!

Something funny about my Ashlyn is she HATES ice cream. I don't know how she could be my genetic makeup and hate ice cream, but no matter how many times she tries it she still throws it away after 2-3 licks!

Ashlyn and her Grandma Gunnell share their birthday- she thinks this is pretty cool! Grandma is a good sport and just goes along with what Ashlyn wants to do and eat every year!

Grandma Wells always brings a little something for the non-birthday kid so they don't feel so left out when the other one is getting spoiled rotten! Tanner scored with some more tools, and was fixing everything in sight. The pink chair he is working on is the thing Ashlyn wanted the very most for her birthday. She saw it in Target months ago and has never forgotten it. I kept asking her if she would rather have a toy, and nope, she was set on this reading chair as a she calls it!

Happy Birthday to my big 5 year old. I love you!

Last Race of the Season

We ran a marathon!! Okay, so it was a relay race and we all ran a leg of the race, but together we ran a marathon! These are my great neighbors, Jeanine, Heidi and Carrie. It was fun to run as a team and cheer each other on! And I'll tell you, sharing the miles is the best way to finish a marathon!

The best cheering section ever! Tanner cried as I ran away for my leg of the race because he wanted to come with me, but that just made him more excited on my return!

Ashlyn wanted to race too, so we set up our own little coarse and raced it. She is a fast little runner!

She wore my number and everything. She was so serious about this! Tanner on the other hand needed a lift!

Swimming Lessons

Ashlyn with her friends Dakota and Afton at swimming lessons.

She did such a great job with her lessons this year. At the beginning of summer I don't think she would even put her head under the water, and now she goes under without plugging her nose.

She even started swimming on her own (at least it resembles swimming)!