Caverns and Bodies, Trip to Tucson

Last week we took my parents down to Tucson for a mini-vacation:) We had an awesome time and saw and learned tons!! I'll never forget this trip!!

We piled into the car early in the morning and headed south. Monsoon season has really cooled things off here (hurray!) and has also brought with it humidity and beautiful skies! The poofy clouds seemed to keep us occupied a lot of the time. We found all kinds of shapes and animals in them!!I think we were all fascinated by them too because they were so low to the ground. Jacob kept asking if we could drive up the mountains so he could put a handful of cloud in a jar:)


Marissa was so excited when were finally able to get out of the car and move around! She was soo excited about going into the caves...where the bats live!

Back in the 1970's, two guys found a sink hole and went exploring. After about 6 hours crawling and digging, they found these HUGE CAVERNS filled with stalactites and stalagmites! After trying to buy the land and realizing someone already owned it, they and the owners kept the caverns a secret for some 14 years before selling it. It was then turned into a National State Park.
The Caverns were absolutely stunning!! Back when I was in college, a bunch of us went Spelunking. We found a couple of big caves, but I could not imagine discovering something of this magnitude!
It was about an hour and a half tour. At the end of the tour, we got to sit in the Thrown Room. All lights turned off for a moment and then we were blessed with an amazing light show put to music. I could have sat there for hours!!! The beauty,size and magnitude of this place was amazing!
The two guys who discovered the caverns were very careful to not disturb natures beauty. They followed the same trail each time they went in and out. At one point, in the bottom of the caves, you could see their trail through the thick mud on the bottom. The mud was almost waist high at some points.
Beautiful! I want to go back!! Oh, and by the way, it's totally against the rules to take photos in the caves. ....don't stress out! I took pictures of pictures in a book that mom bought:) They turned out pretty good though, huh?
Who would have known such beauty was hidden underneath some of these mountains?
Here's a very large beetle-bug thing. Jacob surprisingly didn't know what it was, but wanted a photo of it.
Mom and I after going through the caves. As you can see, it was actually very humid down there! Our hair frizzed and curled right up and our mascara was starting to run. lol:)
I was so grateful that Mom and Dad were able to experience this with us! Kartchner Caverns is one of the only caverns in the nation that is wheelchair accessible. Dad has really bad knees, so it was just exciting and amazing to me that we were able to take him down there!



Jacob prefers to not have his picture taken....I'll take what I can get:)

Earlier in the week, we talked to Marissa about the caves. I just wanted to prepare her so she wouldn't be freaked out by going down in the ground and in the dark. For some reason, she found this purple hat in her room after that, and declared this hat to be her "cave hat"! So she was insisted on having her cave hat with her at all times. It was super cute!
I swear that's not "instant tan" on my face, lol! Being in the sun all summer with swim lessons has really done a number on me.
I post this picture only because it makes me laugh. My mom kept going crazy over these ants hauling such big flower petals! I felt like I was back in second grade as she spouted out all of the facts about ants and how they can carry 100 times their own body weight......So I took this and printed it off for her:) She laughed and I know that she was secretly very excited to have it, lol!!

~~ Bodies The Exhibition~~

Another thing we did while is Tucson, was go to the Bodies Exhibition! It was frustrating that yet again, another thing that I couldn't take pictures of. With that being said it didn't, however, stop me! I just had to get creative again, so we took pictures with the building instead!

The dude was just talking too loud...dad couldn't listen to it anymore:) It was cool of him to give my parents a huge though!
This was an amazing thing to see! We learned so much about the body! We got to hold a liver, femur and brain. The brain that we held was normal on one side (white and "fluffy" looking) and the other side was more flat and dark. This was because the person had died from a brain aneurysm. The section of fetus' was hard for me, but still very interesting. We saw a baby that was 16 weeks along. Our baby, Timothy, was 19 weeks when we lost him. I think the boys liked being able to visulize how big our baby was. It made me cry, but as I said, it was extremely interesting. The funny thing is that size-wise, they were close to the same, but our baby looked just like Brant, so the features were so different even as tiny a baby as they were. Mom got to see what a Mole pregnancy looks like. She had one (@ 5 months along) before I was born and back in the day, they wouldn't let her see it or anything. I think it brought her some closure after all of these years, to see that. I'm glad we were able to share this part of the trip together.
Marty was having way too much fun with the Bodies! I love these pictures!!!

Tucson proved to be a really great trip!! Glad mom and dad got to experience all of this with us!!

Girls Camp 2010, Camp Moqui...Baby!

BE ALL YOU CAN BE, CAMP MOQUI
"BE STRONG and of GOOD COURAGE"

Girls camp was so much fun this year!! I was esp excited to have Nikole come with me!! She already knew some of the girls from staying with us last summer, so I think she really enjoyed getting to know them better too.


We were #1 after repelling down a cliff:)
I love the amphitheater area at camp! There are beautiful Aspen trees all around and it is absolutely magnificent!! Camp this year was a little later in the summer, so we ended up there for Monsoon season. Rain and some storming but we were also able to enjoy some beautiful Rainbows too!! A couple of times the rainbows came while we were amongst the aspens, it was moments like that that I could have sat there for hours just to marvel at the beautiful things in nature that the Lord has blessed us with!

We hiked to the lake where we swam, canoed, kayaked, did some 'cliff' jumping (large boulder jumping:) and just had a great time with our ward.



My third years and I made pizzas and a cool s'mores dessert over campfire. yum yum:)
Emma was a tough little cookie! She's the youngest in our yw, but she repelled down the cliff-side without even breaking a sweat!
...love Gayla! This is my comic relief buddy! She always makes me laugh:)

So my dear friend from another ward and I had a little 'friendly' (..or not so friendly..you see her holding me down with her foot! ..what a cheater:) push-up competition. I won, of coarse! I think I did 14 man push ups and the only reason I stopped was because the rocks were digging into my palms. I was cranking them puppies out so fast she didn't even know what ran over her.... and if you're reading this, Kindy, well, you know it's true:) Ok, so the real reason she's got her foot on me is because I did it to her first...and she was cranking them out too...but I still won:)
Repelling.....
fierce and mighty leaders!


I've repelled many times, but this was Nikole's first time. She was pretty nervous about the height but she really was brave! We had a really steep, crumbly climb up. It was hard, nevertheless, we made it! I told her that I saw the terror in her eyes as she was getting over the ledge. Once she got over and was on her way down, she was totally fine. Proud of you Nikole!!

Brooke turned 14 while we were at camp, so I brought "breakfast in bed" for her. Eclipse cup, plates and napkin...donuts, muffins and a wig to wear on her special day!
at the lake
We got to make lanyard pens. Brooke is seriously a pro at this stuff! I was feeling all good about myself because I know the ways of the lanyard..I used to make tons of things out of it 'back in the day'. Brooke can weave designs and practically spell words out in her stuff. She's hardcore and knows how to do way more than I even imagined! I highly recommend her to anyone who may be in need of anything involving lanyard!!
Sis Tubbs was going around french braiding every ones hair. I would have offered to help, but her braids looked so good that I didn't want anyone comparing, lol. Instead, I got her to braid my bangs so they'd be out of my face. Thanks Aubry!!
..most of the gang...
Our fourth years finally come into camp!!
I brought this swimming pool so we could pamper ourselves a little. We had a great time and just as we were getting ready to get our feet out, Bishop Weaver pulled up, so guess what he got? ..a pedicure of coarse!! The girls loved it and he was a great sport!

On the last night, there were extra girls in our tent, so Shel and I stayed in my tent that we put up as a 'changing room' for anyone who wanted to use it. Vikki brought some of her yummy homemade salsa and chips so we let her sleep over with us:) We had a great time. Laughing and snorting and talking!!
~~~Ghosts of Girls Camp~~~who could they be?.....

My big brother and beautiful niece

Blake & Nikole!!! My brother and niece came to visit in June. Blake stayed for about a week and Nikole stayed for almost 6 weeks!! It has been such a fun fun summer being able to see Blake and have Nikole stay with us for so long!! She said she had an amazing summer going to girls camp with me and she got closer to alot of the kids in our ward that she knew from last summer....she really "enJoeyed" her summer stay with us, that's for sure! LOL! I so appreciated having her here and helping me out so much, esp with all the swim lessons I was doing!
Here are a few pictures we took while Blake was here. He and Marty were off golfing most of the time and they really seemed to love it, regardless of the 115 degree, blazing sunny weather!

We had fun Cheering Brant on at one of his games...

He's played catcher most of this summer season, but Marty has pulled him in to pitch a few times. It was fun to see him so switch it up during the game .

Nikole and Aunt Tiff:)
Jacob was not happy about being in the heat, but he did ok as long as he had his drawing pad and pen!
Marissa was a little bored,lol! I think it was more like, a little tired, because she fell asleep like this!
Great game guys!!!

After the game we went to Lo-Lo's to eat chicken & waffles! Yum-yum!!

There was one day, while Blake was still here, that two of my swim lesson kids came and as they were walking around to the pool they found this baby birdie on the path that leads around the side of our house. His wing was broken and he couldn't get around very well so we picked him up and tried to care for it. It was love at first sight as far as Marissa was concerned! Stephanie (who just happens to be an amazing photographer!!) didn't have her fancy camera, but she used mine and took some cool photos while I worked with her kids in the pool!