Spring Break to Apple Valley, Day 3

The boys started their morning out playing video games together.

Sitting on the porch.  We had just gone down to the office to refill our water bottles with ice.

It was quiet out there.  It seemed to be full most nights, but during the day people seemed to be off adventuring and we had the place to ourselves.

Cameron really wanted to play putt-putt so we had to make sure to do that for a second.  Parker came out and immediately got a hole-in-one on his first shot.  It made him giggle.

The boys tried their hand at pool. Eventually Kenzie and I gave up waiting and headed back to the cabin to start making grilled cheese sandwiches.  Lunch was far more exciting!

We drove over to St. George and tried to work up more of an appetite by walking around the Desert Garden.

Saw some pretty flowers, and then went to dinner.

It was cool and a bit windy, but we still bought one batch of firewood to make use of the fire pit.  

Roasted marshmallows for s'mores, and some pizza rolls, too.  Then the next morning it was sadly time to pack it all back up, take Kenzie to Walmart, and then drop her back off for her last few weeks of the semester.  Still, fun to get out and do something different for a few days!

Spring Break to Apple Valley, Day 2

Day 2, we all slept in (Parker had been working late at the movie theater several nights in a row before we left, so he not only slept in, he also had fallen asleep early the night before!  He said he felt much better, though.).  After lunch we finally headed out to a hike Kenzie had taken with one of her Geology classes.

I might prefer to see palm trees or ocean, but the scenery is pretty in its own way out there!

They spent the longest time digging through this pile of rocks to find tiny little fossils.  The boys were just as excited as Kenzie, though, and they filled their pockets.

After they got the rocks they came for, we figured we might as well take the trail for a while.

Proof I was there with them!

This one made me laugh.  Parker was not sure at all what Dad was up to.

It was amazingly silent up in this little area.  Cameron livened things up by doing some sort of fake owl call.  Eventually some other hikers answered him and he was quite amused.

In action of crossing the tiny stream.  In some places it was trickier and we all got our shoes a tiny bit wet here and there.  Everyone's shoes were covered in a fine layer of orange dust by the end, too. 

Heading back for dinner and to hang out and watch a movie in the cabin for our evening, since we were all sufficiently worn out by this point!

Spring Break to Apple Valley, Day 1

Once we picked up Kenzers, I turned around in my seat to take our usual "heading on an adventure" picture!  It was official at that point.  We only had a couple of days where the boys had Spring Break and Kenzie had an administrative day off school, so since it overlapped with Allie's birthday we tried to make the most of it.

I always thought the boys would enjoy sleeping up in a loft area.  We stayed in some little cabins in Apple Valley, not too far from St. George, and it was more like a glamping campground idea.  We had a fire pit but also a bathroom and a microwave.

The boys were happy to have their own beds and the loft to themselves.  The best part was that their mess stayed contained up above.  Their suitcases tend to explode when we travel, so it was very nice to be able to ignore that from down below!

Cameron made himself a little fort back in the corner and drew pictures in his sketch pad for long stretches each day.

Our first item of business was stopping at a little food truck in Hurricane called the Dixie Pizza Wagon.  It was recommended to us years ago to try.  It's only open on certain days and usually too far out of our way, but since it was now only 10 minutes down the road, we finally gave it a try and ate at the little park across the street.  

It was good pizza, and we ate the leftovers the next day for lunch, too.

Parker was the only one who could take the whole pizza in one sitting.  He ate our leftovers for lunch the next day and we still had plenty, that's how big the rest of us considered them!

Further proof this was closer to a hotel than camping - Chris bought a small projector and we watched movies on the wall each night!  The boys could see well from their loft and so that actually worked better than we had even hoped.  A good start to the weekend!

Lately

Kenzie was home for a bit for her Spring Break.  We visited Grandma & Grandpa Arnold one evening and this was the best picture I took of that.

Mochi continues to be incredibly helpful with laundry.  He wastes no time at all diving headfirst into the hampers if they're filled with warm clothes. 

I work near the Taylorsville Temple so I walked down to it for my break one day.  It's on a busy street and takes forever to cross, so I probably won't do that too often but it's at least pretty to see from afar each day.

Cameron has been loving having some art classes this semester.  His first ceramics project was this "derpy lizard" as he called it.  The expression made me laugh!  He did a great job for his first thing ever, too!  That's about it for around here lately! 

Brian Regan

Kenzie came home for the long weekend for President's Day and we went to the Brian Regan comedy show downtown at the Delta Center.

I had a hard time thinking of what to get the kids for Christmas, and so when I saw Brian Regan was coming back to Salt Lake in February that seemed like a good idea.  Something to look forward to and something for us to do together.  Our seats were up high, but for something like this it doesn't matter since there's the big screens.

They were all laughing, and Cameron has been quoting his favorite parts non-stop, so it was a success!

Happy New Year!

Here was our toast at midnight last night!  We watched a movie, had cheese popcorn, and were basically quite boring but nobody seemed to mind.  Here's to 2026!

New Job!

Right before Thanksgiving I was able to finally start a new job working as a Records Manager for the Utah Highway Patrol!  I took this picture to show the kids how the office is set up with my desk. I have two cabinets to put things in, and then a shared fridge with my colleague who has a matching desk facing the other way.

That's ballistics glass in front of me, which is not easy to hear through when members of the public come in and have questions.  Through that second window I can see the Taylorsville Temple, though, which is a pretty view.

My work schedule for now is 7:00-5:00 Tuesday through Friday.  It's lovely to have Mondays off to do grocery shopping and make appointments, but it is hard sometimes to get up so early as it takes about 25 minutes to get there.  I was rewarded the other morning by seeing a pretty neat sunrise, though!  I had to run out the front door just to take this picture.  Overall it's been a good job so far!