Murdock Canal

About a month or so ago my neighbor told me about a hobby called letterboxing. It's like geocacheing but you don't need a gps and you find stamps that you stamp in a journal to record where you've been and you make a stamp that you stamp in their journal. Basically, a treasure hunt you can do anytime with the whole family. It's a great activity to do with the kids when we get bored and my personal favorite parts of the activity are exploring the area and finding great picture places I wouldn't have found otherwise. Here are some pictures of our first adventure. If you want to find out more go to www.atlasquest.com or www.letterboxing.org for more information and clues to spots around your area.

Computer woes

I am way behind posting because I had a computer problem. I wanted to get more hard drive space on my computer and wanted to delete the iphoto trash bin since all those photos are backed up at least 2 times. Jon told me I should highlight them all and hit delete. Sounds good right? Wrong! All my photos ended up reloading into the library and all the sudden hours of work weeding through photos had gone down the drain. So I had to go through all the photos again to weed them out and google how to really get rid of them. To give an idea, I had over 10,000 photos in my library and weeded it down to 3600 over the last week and a half. I didn't want to work with new photos or old ones for that matter until the task was done. I am all good now. Whew! I never want to do that again! So I'll be posting some of the highlights of the last month or so when I have in an attempt to catch up a little.

Prairie Dogs

These were the funniest creatures ever! We found them at a rest stop and I'm quite sure we weren't the first people to feed them given their behavior. I counted at least 8 of them around our car at one time. They were pretty friendly and one even tried to crawl on Jon and into the car to go home with us and be our new pet. Sam, the animal lover, was in heaven and kept trying to draw them closer to him so he could look at them.

Martin's Cove

Martin's Cove is on the way to Mount Rushmore so we made a stop there on the way. We were hoping to make it during visitor's hours but were half an hour off. It was still nice to wander around and look at the plaques with the history and look at the monuments. It's sad and inspiring at the same time. The top picture is of Devil's gate which is in the same area. It has some cool Indian legends associated with it. You can't tell in the picture, but you could walk through the gate, it goes all the way down to the ground.

More Mt Rushmore

As promised, here are some more pics from our Mount Rushmore Trip now that I am more awake. It was fun to go East on a trip for a change and be crazy.

Mt Rushmore spaze trip

This was the craziest thing we've ever done- and among the funnest! We woke up Sunday morning and decided we wanted to go see Mt Rushmore- approximately an 11 hour drive from us- and within an hour we were on the road. We just got back this afternoon. I am very tired but will write more about the trip and add some more pictures later. I'll just say this for now- the drive was gorgeous and I hope to go again sometime when I can plan it out and take the time to do more- the area is rich in things to see including caves, wildlife adventures, historical landmarks, and more. We very rarely go east and this was fun.

Backwards Day

Jacob's preschool class had a "backwards day" where he wore his shirt backwards at school. He loved backwards day so much that he talked the others into having a backwards night with him and putting on their jammies backwards. I had to put my foot down on having diapers backwards like they wanted, but all in all they had a lot of silly fun. I'm happy to report that it was only for one night.

Spider Boy and Rock Girl

Sam loves Spiderman. This is a picture of him trying to throw a web at me with his spidey powers.
I wonder what she is thinking about while holding that large rock? I hope it is not her brothers- that could be dangerous.

My kids on marriage

This is a conversation I overheard today between Sam and Katie.

Sam: I can't marry you Katie.
Katie: Yeah, because you don't have a pretty dress.

Now we know, if you want to marry- regardless of gender- you need a pretty dress.

My son the Talking Doughnut

Jacob had a school carnival this last week. When they asked him what he wanted painted on his face he said a doughnut. Better yet, make it green and add brown frosting. It's so random and makes me laugh. I can't say it would be my first choice, but it sure made him happy. The rest of the night he kept telling everyone he was a "Talking Doughnut".

Baby J

We went up to my new Niece's baby blessing in Idaho this last weekend. I wanted to practice newborn photography and made a make shift studio on the hotel bed. These are my favorites. Isn't she just a doll!

Tulip Festival

These were taken at the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival. Their gardens are so beautiful! We had such a fun time walking through them and seeing all the varieties.

Come here duckie!

Sam loves animals- all animals. Usually he pets and talks to cats and dogs but today it was ducks. I would never of thought of petting a duck, but I suppose it makes sense from a 4 year old perspective. So cute, but I can't blame the ducks for jumping into the pond as soon as they figured out what was going on.

Cave Art

I've been trying to get all marking utensils clear out of the kids reach to prevent incidents like this one from occurring. However, a purple crayon must have slipped my grasp and I ended up finding cave drawings all over the tv, wall, and chair. The chair was the one I could laugh at the most so I'll post it. Jacob says it is a picture of the temple. I can kind of see it too, but still... I'm not sure mr clean magic eraser will work for this one.

A Job!

We found out today that Jon got the job! We are so excited as this means we can stay in UT and we will get medical benefits for the first time. Wahoo! The best part is that when he finishes his masters degree by the end of this year then we will get even more benefits and stuff to look forward too and hopefully can get into a house. That would be a dream come true.

Happy Easter!

We went up to campus and took some family Easter photos while we were all dressed up. The kids had a great Easter. We had an egg hunt around the house and front yard and it was so fun watching them find eggs. Katie kept running up to us and telling us she had found an "eggie" between each one, Jacob was running wild trying to get them all, and Sam had to open up each egg and see what was inside before going on to the next.

For Our Angel Baby

"...Why is it that infants, innocent children, are taken away from us, especially those that seem to be the most intelligent and interesting. The strongest reasons that present themselves to my mind are these: This world is a very wicked world; and it... grows more wicked and corrupt. ...The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again." -Joseph Smith

We sure miss our little angel. The few moments we had with him in this life will last forever in our hearts. We would like to give our gratitude for the outpouring of love and prayers we've received during this difficult time in our family. How interesting that this happens around Easter. As we celebrate Christ's triumph over death, we are reminded that he opened up the way that all shall rise from the grave and live again and we know that we will hold our little Benjamin again because of it.

With Love, The Abbott Family

Balloon Bounce

Sam got a balloon at church today and he started bouncing around the room with his head on it. It was so funny so I had to share. Enjoy!

Sticker Mischeif

These make me crack up. The kids had found some of my sister's stickers and put them all over themselves. Katie even tried to put one on her eye but her hair got in the way. Their smiles are always so big when they are doing mischief :)

The baby verdict

Today we had our 20 week ultrasound. Everything looks pretty good with the baby. Of course we found out the gender and...

It's a BOY!!!!

We are excited. I think Katie will do better with a brother anyway. She is such a princess and holding that status for longer might help ease the transition to not being the youngest anymore. Possible names:

Benjamin David
Jackson David
Nathan Myron

We'll just see. Of course, if it were up to Sam the baby would be named Cookie Monster, but I don't think we will go with that.