A Utah morning drive...

This morning was an odd day with one less soccer game and so we decided to load up the family and head out to the Kennecot Copper Mine that is just 30 minutes away from the house.  David has never been and it's been 15 years since I had been out to see the mine and visitors center.  The kids moaned and groaned about "family time" as usual, but as usual we took them anyway and they quite enjoyed themselves.  I highly recommend it as a morning trip for anyone!

 We started off by looking into the large pit mine.  You can watch all the huge trucks hauling stuff out of the mine, or the trucks watering the roads so they don't get so dusty. 

 You can see all the tiers of excavation they have done over the 100+ years of mining.  You can see the conveyor belts carrying debris up to the smasher thingy.  It's all pretty amazing.

 There is also a visitors center that details the history of the mine and the amazing technology they use now to mine more efficiently.  It also showed how many products use the things mined there.  They mine much more than copper out there.

 The kids thought the life size tire of the trucks they have there was incredible.  It was 16 feet in diameter and in the visitors center we learned that they now have trucks with 20 foot tires on them!

Austin seemed especially interested once we got there.  He enjoyed using the viewfinder to watch the activities and paid particular attention to the presentations and displays in the visitors center.  So he's now our family expert on the mine and all that goes on there!  All in all a fun morning activity for us!

Evan is Eleven...that rhymes!

 Bright and early on his birthday, Evan was up to open presents.  He was super excited to see he got his Ultima Soccer training goal (no picture? hmmm).  He got a soccer ball and played as long as he could before heading off to school.

That evening we had family over for dessert.  Evan chose sheet cookies, with ice cream and Grandad's chocolate syrup on top!  It was delicious.  All in all it was a great day for this great kid!

Evan's Arrow of Light

Evan received his Arrow of Light from Cub Scouts this week.  He worked very hard every week with his leaders to accomplish all the requirements for the Arrow of Light - the highest award a cub scout can earn.  He enjoyed learning new things about nutrition, government, architecture, art, computers, traveling, and other subjects too. 

The ceremony was a symbolic journey through cub scouts, from Bobcat, to Bear, to Wolf, to Webelos and now on to Boy Scouts. 

                Here he is getting his award.

 Proud moment after receiving his Arrow of Light with Akela!

Smith Family Easter Egg Hunt 2012

This year I "organized" the Easter Egg Hunt.  It was a very simple plan...hide the eggs (older kids), find the eggs (little kids), eat hotdogs and chicken and sides.  And it was so much fun.

The older kids hid over 150 eggs and the little kids found most of them.  Everyone was able to find at least a dozen eggs and had fun doing that.  The weather cooperated well and we were able to have an outdoor BBQ and play time as a family.

Easter 2012

After a long spring break and an 11 hour car ride home we awoke to treats from the Easter Bunny. I think everyone slept in their clothes and were just glad to be home!!





The Easter bunny was fun, but now it's on to NO CANDY week!

2nd Annual Smith Girls Trip

For the second year now the Smith family girls traveled to Allison's house in Neola for our "Girls Retreat". How fortunate we were again to have everyone 18 and older able to attend the whole weekend. We have such a good time! We had Mom, 6 daughters, 3 daughter-in-laws, and two neices in all! This year was every bit as fun as last year.


For our "craft" this year we were able to make beautiful patterned shirts. We learned how to do them and then let creativity take over. Essentially you take a solid colored, dark shirt and lay designs over the shirts. Anything from plastic grass, to laminated cut outs, to chains and old keys. Then you spray bleach directly on to the shirt and when the shirt turns the color you want in the places you want you spray vinegar on the shirt to stop the bleach. Hang dry and then launder as normal. Some of the shirts turned out great, some were good, and a few were honest to goodness failures. But overall I think we all learned how to do it and most have shirts to prove it works!
Another craft (of which I have no pictures??) was making countdown blocks. They are basically 2 wooden blocks on a platform that can be turned to count down the days until a special event or holiday. They turned out really cute as well. Thanks to Jeremy for cutting all those blocks out for us!

And of course we ate...and ate...and ate! We had wonderful soup when we arrived, and an evening of treats! Breakfast was mini puff pancakes with strawberry syrup and bacon. After a beautiful morning at the Vernal temple we went to Gondolfos for lunch. Dinner that night was Cafe Rio pulled pork salad and dessert nachos! Our final morning we ate crepes with triple berry sauce and more bacon. We all gained a few pounds over those 3 days!
And a lot of the time and a majority of the fun was unplanned, spontaneous, hangin' out and visiting. We sure do love each other and have such fun together. It's a true blessing that we all get along and genuinely love spending time together. I definitely married into a wonderful group of sisters and sister-in-laws of the Smith family. (And my two beautiful nieces that were there too!)




We came back with fond memories, great laughs, and a desire to do it all again next year! Thanks to Alli for hosting us and putting up with a couple late nights and crazy times!

Something's Missing!

McKinley lost a couple teeth! She lost one of the front teeth, which is always my favorite stage! Love the freckles and the missing teeth! Too bad she's growing up....