Hyrum is number 6!

My little Hyrum turned six on Friday and now he just isn't so little anymore!

Here's Hyrum eating his 'before breakfast snack' because he is always too hungry to wait for food to be cooked in the morning...

Here is Hyrum with his real breakfast- he said he wanted waffles AND crepes and he ate them both! (That's AFTER eating the bowl of cereal.)

We decided this year that we have WAY to much stuff, so instead of getting a bunch of presents we let him pick out something fun to DO instead... He chose LAGOON! What a party! Kristi picked us up at 9 Friday morning and we drove to American Fork to drop off Lydia at Grandma Norviel's (thanks again!) and then Kristi, Hyrum, Weston, Lexi, Bryson and I headed off to Lagoon for the day!

Kristi's nice new van has a nice new DVD player built in so we watched Hyrum's new movie "Hercules" on the way up! Here's the travelling kids!

Once we got there (right on time), we bought our tickets- Hyrum used his money from Largey Grandma (thanks for that too!) and we got right in! The first ride of the day was the BAT! It's Hyrum's favorite! He got to go on it THREE times, thanks to short lines. Somehow, we lucked out the whole day and the only really long line to wait in was for the little tiny boats that Lexi really wanted to go on. :) I guess Hyrum decided that now he six, he must be really brave too because he went on EVERY ride he could! Tidal wave, Bat, Jumping Dragon, all the little kid rides, Puff, the white roller coaster (SIX times!), and even Colossus the Fire Dragon, twice! It was sooo much fun and even Kristi and I got to go on all the fun rides!

Hyrum getting ready to go on the 'new' ride, the Jumping Dragon! (Hyrum is the glowing one in the white hat. :)

The long awaited boat ride! Weston was thrilled to get the yellow one!

The kids thought it was really cool that there was a drinking fountain for each of them- right at their own heights!

Getting ready for a ride on the Wild Kingdom train!

After hitting the rides, we took a quick dive into the Lagoon itself and cooled off in the un-heated pool. Kristi took the big boys down the water slide and we all went around the lazy river...

Finally, after one more ride on the airplanes and the white roller coaster, we headed home, picked up Lydia, and got to our house 10 minutes before the BIRTHDAY party was supposed to start! Luckily, we had the cake already made and Daddy did the last minute preps, like getting the dry ice...

And what do you need dry ice for at a birthday party? For the smoking volcano, of course! A picture says a thousand words!

The volcano cake! It has a shot glass in the top to put the ice and water in... then it erupts!

Hyrum, Weston and the Cake!

I took a video while we were waiting for party guests to arrive, and it was a good thing I did, because the power went out in the middle of the party and didn't come back on until the cake was half eaten! Sadly, it would not down load- we'll try again later...

Here's the birthday boy blowing out the candles (thank goodness for flashes!)

HYRUM!

49 inches tall

weight? not more than 50...

Favorite thing about being 5- starting school

Favorite color- RED

Favorite food- don't know

Favorite animal- Jag (our kitty)

Favorite thing to wear- shiny running pants and a cool T-shirt

Favorite place to go- Lagoon and California

Favorite birthday present- Handcuffs from Pa

Most excited about being 6- going to 1st grade

Weston's favorite thing about Hyrum is playing computer games with him

Mommy loves how Hyrum is such a big helper- he does his jobs, helps Weston, puts away silverware, reminds her of things when she forgets them, makes her laugh, forgives easily, and is one great boy!

The Gardens at Thanksgiving Point

We took a little excursion today to "Two buck Tuesdays" at Thanksgiving Point. For $6, Hyrum, Weston and I got to go hang out in the Gardens, play with our friends and our cousins, swim under Noah's Ark, feed lots of giant fish, walk across huge waterfalls, see frogs on lily pads, go inside bear caves, light houses, and enormous catapillars... Definitely worth the six dollars! Sadly, my camara batteries died (again!) half way through but I did get some cool pics:

Hyrum feeding the fish- behind the lovely Zinnas...

Hundreds of HUGE fishies!

A giant fish.

The cutest little Froggy on a lily pad. I don't think I've actually ever seen that before!

The Lily flowers are so beautiful! So perfectly shaped and colored- I hope I get to be an artist in Heaven and design the flowers...

Mutations...

After a bath, Mommy was telling Hyrum about why we don't want to get sunburned because you might get skin cancer.

Hyrum: What's cancer?

Mommy: When your cells mutate.

Hyrum: What's mutate?

Mommy: It means to change like when something changes in a way it isn't supposed to.

Hyrum: How does "Scripture Power" go again?

Mommy, thinking the cancer discussion is over, sings the song, ending with "I'm changing how I'll live, I'm changing what I'll be."

Hyrum: So, if mutat is change, then you could sing that song with MUTATE in there instead of CHANGE, right?

He's a fast thinker, that one... You'll have to sing it for yourself and see how well it fits. :)

Hyrum: 5 months

Two little boys...

Oh, what do you do in the summertime with two little boys? Here's what we do when we have a day to ourselves...

We find a good train track to climb on; complete with train cars and ladders...

We find a good lake to throw rocks in and a park to play at- especially a park with a good long fireman's pole...

We go to BYU campus to see what's going on: today it was the Pine Wood Derby! Hyrum loved the rocket shaped car but cheered for the speedy blue cars. Weston liked the Cookie Monster car (Mommy thought the golf cart was original :) but he knew the sleek yellow car was the car to vote on- and he was right!

My cousin Dallas was there racing his blue bombshell. He actually won the race last year and this year he made it to the finals. We didn't get to see the last three races but the boys loved watching the cars speed down the track...

Then we spent a little time feeding the ducks at the BYU duck pond. The boys love going on adventures in the little woods behind the pond, watching the ducks and turtles in the pond, and finding awesome sticks to 'play' with. Seriously, I don't know why they have so many toys when they play with sticks more often than not...

Oh, my cute little boys! I love having two boys to be brothers and play together!

Takin' a Road Trip to the Past

This summer, my little sister Wendy Jo Smith lived in my basement. But, she had to get back down to Eastern Arizona College for work and school and she didn't want to drive back by her little self SO I volunteered myself for a little road trip back to EAC- my favorite little school in my favorite little town of Thatcher, Arizona. I had some of the best times of my life at that little school but it has been almost nine years since I've been there. The last time I drove through on a road trip with Emily Spencer during the Salt Lake City Olympics... yep, that was a while back! Anyway, we packed all her stuff in her little car, googled a map and headed off. We took the 191 route which is my favorite because it is little traffic and lots of scenery- that also means the Reservations and HOGANS! I just took pictures of hogans because Zach loves them. :)

These were some good ones- though I missed the Barbie hogan, a pink house and hogan all together!

Here's little Wendy driving and her tongue after eating a million starbursts... We did eat at a Mickey D's in Round Valley and then drove through the mountains 'watching' for animals, trucks, cows, horses, deer, and rocks... We saw ALL of them, the animals including rabbits, owls, bats, and some big black bear or wolf or something running into the bushes. We even saw the arrow tree! It was too dark to take a picture but it is still an impressive site- imagine coming around the bend of a mountain road to see a single dead pine tree pointing heaven-ward with no branches, but ARROWS up and down it's length! Did you get that visual? After a good 14 hours, Wendy was ready to cry tears of joy at arriving in the long awaited Gila Valley!

And we finally made it! Here's me and the lovely sign- if you look closely you can see the Gila Monster with the cowboy hat and guns. That's Gila Hank, yo!

Here are my dorms- first year in the fancy new dorms, second in the cheapies. I loved those old dorms with their orange carpet and orange velvet drapes! Plus the fact that I didn't have to clean bathrooms or kitchens and the cafeteria was across the sidewalk... Yum, the cafeteria! (I am NOT a picky eater :)

And this is the new part of campus- the bell tower, the humanities building and the administration building. I even saw Heston Welker working there...

The day after Wendy and I arrived, my original FAMILY came! Mom, Dad and Cindy brought the rest of Wendy's school stuff and we did a little tour of campus, swam at the hotel pool and went to dinner with a family friend, Leah McMullin. I used to babysit her when she was 2... Yep, I'm still getting older!

To conclude the trip, we took a little drive past the new GILA VALLEY TEMPLE which already has walls up. I'm so excited, I'm already planning another trip to come back for the open house!

I also waved my hellos to beautiful Mt. Graham. I love this perfect little mountain!

Then, we said good bye to Wendy and left her in the FIRE HOUSE by Goodmans, and Cindy and my parents drove me to El Paso to catch a plane home. Sadly, they made it home before I did!

This is a view of Mexico from the freeway- tiny little box houses of all different colors...and a HUGE cross on top of the mountain.

The first flight to Phoenix was horribly bumpy and it took the whole 45 min. layover for me to not be nauseous anymore. Then second flight was in a bigger plane and not half as bad, besides I had a window and could see the fabulous GRAND CANYON as we flew over it. It is amazing! But, descending into Salt Lake, we hit all kinds of turbulence and, I found out later, there were fires burning all around the air port... Here is the picture of the sky from my plane window:

I was SO glad to get on the ground and, after hours of mis-communication, to find my sweet boys! I missed them SO much and I am stickin' around for a while now! (Though, tonight, Hyrum said he doesn't mind it when I leave because then he doesn't have to do his jobs...hmm, that needs to be fixed!) And that is the end of the road trip story!

Youth Conference!

Zach and I were called to the Youth Conference committee shortly after moving into the ward and after all the planning and shopping and stressing, we are done! We started by meeting at the church and caravaning to the Timpanogos temple to do baptisms. It's been a LONG time since I've even been down in a baptistry so it was really fun to be there with all my girls. It was the first time for four of them!

Here are all the girls after the temple- we had to wait for the boys to finish up. Then we walked to the near-by church to change clothes and eat a snack.

This one of the girls blow drying her hair at the pavilion. :) Girls!

After changing into our matching T-shirts we all drove down to the John Rowe Moyle museum in Alpine where we heard a little presentation and toured around. He was the stone mason who came from England, crossed the plains with a handcart, built a farm in Alpine and then was called to work on the Salt Lake temple. Every week for more than 20 years, he would get up at 2:00 on Monday morning and walk the 22 miles over the mountain to the Salt Lake temple to work, stay with his son who lived there for the week, and then walk back Friday night to work his farm on Saturday and be with the rest of his family on Sunday. One day, he was milking the cow who got mad and kicked his leg. He ended up with it amputated but as soon as he could, he carved a wooden leg with a moving ankle and foot and learned how to walk on it. Soon after, he was back to walking across the mountain again to work on the temple. At the age of 76 (I think) he climbed up the scaffolding to carve "Holiness to the Lord" on the temple wall. He was a man who acted, and was not acted upon. So our theme for the conference was "Choose to Act."

This is our group listening to the presentation on John Rowe Moyle inside the little museum that once was his house.

This is Hannah showing her ring she got for finding all the cows in the museum. :) and the fort the Moyles built as defense against the Indians.

Kaitlynn sitting in the out house. :) It even has a moon carved on the door!

After the museum tour, the kids headed off on their own walk- though, instead of having them walk over the mountain to Salt Lake, we had them walk back the six miles to the Timpanogos temple. Along the way, we had two little stops, the first to talk about 2 Nephi 2:26 that says you are free to choose to act and not to be acted upon, which Zach talked about and then I showed them how to put vinyl stickers on tiles (it was easier than carving words in stone) that said "Choose to Act." Once they made it to the temple, we had a delicious lunch (Zach and I were in charge of the food) and then packed in to the cars to drive over to Camp Williams where we stayed in the General House with a private pool, big patio, grills, five bedrooms... It was lovely! Of course the kids jumped in the pool:

Boys doing handstands

This is Raquel doing a dive- she actually had to leave early to compete in a state competition for swimming!

This is the Who-do. A french braid up the back with a fluffy bun on top... All the girls were doing it! After swimming and dinner, we had a fireside with Bro. Suooa, a seminary teacher from Orem. He was great and talked about choosing to be happy and choosing to never give up. Then we played some night games- Ultimate, capture the flag, and a ball game I don't know the name of... Afterwards (yes, it it now 10:30) the kids jumped in the pool again and swam in the dark. They are some great kids who seem to get along well- none of them really hang out together at school but at church they are good friends. I think that is commendable! They had the whole group in the pool doing synchronized swimming routines...:)

The smallest kid wearing Bro. Webbs swim trunks because he forgot his...

The next day we got up for breakfast, did a little coloring for a service project, and then went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. We had to wait in line for a LONG time because it was the last day of the open house but it was worth it for the kids to get to see it. In all, it was a great conference, we got to know the kids better, learned about a great man, saw lots of cool stuff, and had fun! I hope the kids remember it fondly! Oh, and thanks to Kristi who took care of my boys while we were gone... Hyrum and Weston had a sleep over at Kristi's house and had the time of their lives!