Feel the Love

Oh how we love when Grandma and Grandpa visit! We love getting together with the family and the kids really admire their older cousins. Owen seems to talk about Tanner and Trevor the most while Nya talks about the older ones Chase, Jordan, and Tynan. Nya loves pretending to talk to Jordan on the phone. Here's some pics of a recent visit from Grandma Nez and Grandpa Doug.

Giving Grandma some love

Nya and Jordan

Owen and Trevor

Owen's Fist Day of School

Owen's birthday falls right after the deadline for kindergarten so he is in preschool again this year. We think the extra experience of another year of preschool and life in general will help him in his schooling so we are fine to wait and start him next year.

His teacher this year is Miss April. He has an Aide in his class (Miss Star) and sees the Speech Therapist once a week as well as the Occupational Therapist. We are happy with the progress he has made in school these past few years and hope he will continue to improve.

Owen LOVES riding the bus. Some days he is so oppositional when it comes to going to school but as soon as he sees the bus outside the house he is all smiles and can't run out to it quick enough. Yeah for the bus!

Owen the Early Worm

So Owen wakes up quite early sometimes. He's been known to get up as early as 2am and not go back to sleep. He usually doesn't get up THAT early, but sometimes it will be 4 or 5am. Luckily he plays well by himself and usually lets us sleep. Some mornings we find interesting things going on while we have been sleeping. One morning he found the cookies and helped himself to a nice breakfast. Another time we found him in the neighbor's front yard. The picture below depicts how we found Owen this particular morning. Thanks Owen for making life well, interesting?

Reunion Recap

So I didn't do the best job of documenting this reunion with pictures, so I'll try to fill in the blanks with my memories.

We spent a lot of time at the pools at the condo. Brandon went diving and discovered a cell phone. We decided the phone was pretty much toast and the baby needed some entertainment so we let Caleb play with it in the water. Soon my brother in law (the baby's Dad) Looked at us panicky and said "Why are you letting Caleb play with my phone in here?!" He soon realized it must have been in his pocket when he jumped in the pool earlier. Sucks, but kind of a funny story.

The last day the only "reunion survivors" left were me and Cami (and our families of course). We spent most of that day at the resort pools. There was a large indoor pool, outdoor pool, diving pool, and kiddie pool. We snuck over to the diving pools just before leaving and showed our stuff. Wish I would have gotten some video. Nya, Tayler, and Cami also spent a lot of time playing Princesses with someone else's stuff in the kiddie pool.

That last day we also went with my Mom and Lane to the Historic Hamilton Home and drove through Snow Canyon. We were pooped and all slept good that night.

So I didn't get any pictures of my Step Dad Lane. I did manage to get one picture of my little brother James as shown below. I failed to get any shots of Cami's daughter and Husband, Joe and Tayler, and James brought his girlfriend Vanessa and I didn't get any shots of them either. BOOOO to me. We missed Teri's family who wasn't able to come at all. It would have been fun to see them.

Speaking of pictures, my Mom FINALLY went through the pictures from our lives and organized them into books to give to us at the reunion. I was so happy to finally have some pictures of my youth! She still has more to go through but what a great start. Thanks MOM!

All in all it was a fabulous time together. We all wished it could have been longer and that all of us could have been there the whole time. So when is the next one? This Thanksgiving at my house? Anyone?... Anyone?... Beuler?...

So I thought this was a cool shot of James walking down his road. Ok, not really his but he is a Ronnow (he's my half brother) and this street is named after my Step-Dad's family. Pretty cool.

The historic Ronnow home that is still standing. This is the house my Step-Dad grew up in back in the day...and I mean WAY back. But age is just a number right Lane?

MOON CAVES

As a child we were privileged enough to make a yearly trip to the thriving metropolis that is Panaca, Nevada.

-What? You've never heard of Panaca? Seriously? Ok, well it's not a thriving metropolis and I do have some negative memories of the place but also some great ones. Let's start with the negative so we can end on a good note.

So we usually visited Panaca on memorial day. We would travel in the big white van so that Lane and his siblings could work on the graveyard. I know, I know, sounds riveting. Well it's pretty hot in Panaca and hanging out at a graveyard all day when you are a kid isn't the funnest.

So usually after a scorching day in the sun working in the graveyard, we would travel to "The Swimming Hole". Sounds refreshing right? Well, let's just say BUGS everywhere, and moss everywhere. We used to have moss fights. I'm not sure who started this but I'm sure it was a result of sheer boredom. Anyways, one time my sister threw moss at me unexpectedly and it landed in my mouth. Yes, my mouth. I am still traumatized to this day. Moral of the story; Keep your mouth closed when swimming in a moss infested hole -especially if LORI is your sister.

Ok, so time for the good stuff. There is a National Park called "Cathedral Gorge" in Panaca. The park consists of caves carved naturally from erosion. They aren't like traditional caves you would think of as you can see by the pictures. We LOVED exploring these caves. Some of them you could barely squeeze into and then they would open up to a large room. Needless to say it was a blast as a kid.

We wanted our kids to have some of those same memories we had, so we traveled to Panaca for the day and explored the caves with our little ones. We were met with even more excitement. Uncle Joe decided to climb this rope to see where it went and ended missing for a little while. He came back exhausted and made sure we all knew NOT to climb the rope and that he had almost gotten himself stranded. Then later on my niece Autumn found a Geo-caching prize without clues or a navigation. Now that's some ESP.

All in all we had a great time at the "Moon Caves". Make sure that if you are ever in Panaca Nevada you check them out!

Riley looking like a Stud...yes ladies, he's available.

My nephew Brandon. I hear music from a western when I see this picture.

Owen was loving it! He is in his element exploring and just being outdoors.

Love these boys

~ r E u N i O n ~

So we have been trying to plan a reunion for a while but plans just seemed to be falling through at the last minute. At our latest attempt, we met the same fate. My parent's condo was no longer available for us. So we began looking into rentals. It definitely put a kink in the plans and was a much bigger sacrifice (financially) but most everyone was able to attend at least for some of the time. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked, but I would say that was mostly due to Nya's tantrums. She really knows how to drain a person! Anyhow, below are some pics from a splash park in downtown St. George. We spent most of the first day there.

Riley, Autumn, and Paula (Mi Mama)

Cute Owen

Nephew Caleb who is soooo busy and just as cute.

My little sis :)

My big sis and her two kiddos Brandon and Emma

Nya giving her Daddy some sugar

Yes, you can look fashionable AND play with Barbie. It's totally doable

Las Vegas

On our way to the Gardner/Ronnow Family Reunion, we stopped in Vegas to pick up Riley. We thought it would be fun for the kids if we stayed in the Excalibur since it looks like a castle. They were excited when we pulled up but when we got inside Nya took a big whiff and said, "Mommy it's on fire in here". Hahaha...welcome to Vegas...

So since the aquarium in Tempe was kind of a dud we went to our fav -Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. It's awesome! Above is a pic of me, Owen, Nya, Riley, and some random kid that is now lucky enough to be featured on our blog.


H O T T I E

Nya is never afraid to give it 100% She was practically IN the sting ray pool. She was determined to touch one of those little guys.

I love this pic. You'll probably have to click on it to see it bigger and get the full effect.

Copley the Crazy Bird and Other Outdoor Fun

So our dog Lucas has caught a few birds in the backyard lately. One day the kids were out back playing in the pool while Lucas was on the hunt. This bird was not deterred by Luke but instead seemed desperate to get in the pool. This bird was almost snatched several times by the dog but kept trying to get in the pool. It made it to the ledge a few times even with Nya just a few feet away. I splashed some water on it so it would flee but it was liking it. Owen named it "Copely" -ya, not sure why or where he got that name.

The kids loved watching the chase but I wasn't sure how they would react if Luke did catch and kill the bird so I was just trying to get it out of my yard. It kept flying low and came inches away from my head. I had had enough of the bird so we went inside. Not sure what happened to Copely but I'm pretty sure he was deranged. Maybe it was the heat or maybe the dog had already scrambled its brains a bit before we got out there. All I know is that was one dumb bird. It was pretty entertaining though on an otherwise uneventful day.

Our custom pool and slide...LOL

Cute little guy :)