Little Climber Legoland Summer 2011

Here we are at the Legoland fort...Levi is insisting on being a big boy and doing it all by himself!



He watched Lucy climb up a rope tube...


And then the next minute, he was like "I can do that!"

And look...he made it all the way on his own.


Love those little climbers

Lucy made it as a volunteer in the princess show. She got to be a jouster. How cute is that little horse costume!


And when we got home I promised some face painting because there is no way I am paying $14 for something that is going to wash off the same night!

Hey, I am not that artistically inclined, but she asked for rainbows, so I got off easy!
I love summer!

The Fair 2011

The Fair was soooo much fun this year! Dave got unlimited Fair tickets for his birthday this year so we were able to go a few times! Lucy was old enough to really enjoy it! And I was not 8 months pregnant like last year so I fared better too!

We started out visiting the horses. Lucy was crushed when she found out she couldn't ride the horses there, but tried to suffice with an imaginary ride! She takes horses seriously!

Well, yeehaw! She made it look so fun...Dave and Levi wanted to join too!
We let Lucy choose one ride because we were kind of on a budget. She chose the spider swing! When she watched it go around and made her selection there was tons of kids aboard, but when she got on, she was the only kid in line! I thought that would make her sad, because it sure looked lonely, but she smiled so big and put her hands up anyway. Just having fun in her own little world, thrilled that she got to ride something!

At night the lights were really beautiful! Even though the kids were tired, nobody was about to close their eyes and miss out on any magical fair moments. Here is the kids looking up at the lights and rides! Pure amazement, huh?


Got some big smiles in there too!

Levi was getting really tired, but he only opened his eyes wider. Yup turns out we have another live wire in the family...seriously though... sleep is so overrated! Maybe one of our kids won't mind putting his head down when he is tired like Dave... I look forward to this child with very dear emotions, but for now I just enjoy the party!
Here was our view of the fair from where we parked...so beautiful, huh? Very worth the walk up the hill with the stroller, plus we saved 10 bucks!


I went back for more fun on another day and entered Levi in the diaper derby. I had high hopes since I won the diaper derby at the Del Mar Fair 26 years ago. I thought maybe it was in the genes... ...but Levi just started socializing with another cute baby, backed off the line, disqualified himself, shattered his mother's dreams, but still got the 3rd place ribbon, because only 2 babies actually came in and Levi did turn around and make it the whole way across and come in third. He is fast, but I guess we didn't train hard enough! Levi wasn't impressed with his ribbon!



On the other hand, Lucy had a magnificent time! Papa let her go on the trampoline!

I have never seen a happier 3 minutes! Pure bliss!


And then if that wasn't good enough, he topped it off with a pony ride! She has been asking to ride a horse for months now! All of Lucy's dreams came true in one magical day!

I expected to hear how thrilling the ride was, but when she got off she asked me "When do I get to run on a horse?" One step at a time there cowgirl!

What a fun time! Thank you so much for the tickets Mom and Dad! We had a blast!

Hiking Gals

August 29

Monica invited me to go hiking up at Snowbird. I don't know why I never thought about the fact that ski resorts would be the perfect place to hike in the summer. It was incredibly beautiful!

My camera was out of commission for the hike, but I remembered that I had a camera on the video camera and experimented with it. Not too bad!

I love this picture because it shows what awesome hiking Mom's we are!



Lucy loves to hike! She won't stay in the back pack for long anymore. She wants to do it all herself! What a little mountain girl.

I loved that for once she actually wanted to wear her hat (I think trying to let baby Issac borrow it had something to do with her wanting to wear it more than usual!)


Lucy insisted that I have 2 ponies, just like her (and it has gone on like this for many days now!)


Oh, I love my little hiking family!

We played around in the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Issac was sooooo cute. He was tired and had started to cry, but as soon as Monica put him in the pool he was very happy and smiley! (I didn't get any pictures because the camera ran out of battery).

After we left, Lucy kept asking "Monica, Baby Issac Back" Even a few days later she was still asking about them. She must have had as much fun as we did.

Thanks so much for inviting us Monica! What an awesome day!

Pioneer Day

July 24

So glad I could make it back to Utah just in time for Pioneer Day. It is just not the same in other states!

Ring Toss

Milk Jug toss


Petting Zoo
Indian Teepees. We got to dance with the Indians.

I wanted to get a shot in one of the old wagons, but Dave didn't think we should be climbing on the displays.

1930 Model A Convertible, Grandpa Dale's favorite mobile. Had to get a shot for him:


A classic firetruck

There's my cuties! We finished the day with a Showstoppers Concert... of course the real show was Lucy dancing in the audience. She brought the house down! Oh what fun!

Only 319 days until the next Pioneer Day! Start Preparing!

Old Friends. Good Times.

June 29 - Had a fun Little Reunion

While in Spokane we hooked up with some of the old gang for a sweet little get together. We didn't plan to all be here at the same time, it was just a very happy coincidence (that I always hoped would happen someday), so we were wonderfully surprised get together! How cool for Dave to experience high school & college (glad I could be there for the college bit) with such wonderful friends and now see everybody with their cute little kids running around . I'm sure he could have never imagined ten years ago what cute little kids they would all have. I sure wish we could go through the child rearing phase all together too, but I guess there were other people in Texas and Arizona who needed some seriously cool friends!



Lucy and Dakota Daines playing in the Pool.



The kids were pretty tired. This was the best group shot I got. They are sooo cute playing altogether.

And here is the gang. Ahhh, what a good looking group!

A Poppleton Kind of Day

June 16 (Yeah I know this is a little late!)- Before heading North for a while, Lucy and I had one last Poppleton Family day (as everyone gets older and moves different places this is a rare occasion!). There is nothing I love more than being with my whole family. We (Lucy and I) convinced everyone to meet us at the beach, indulge in some pizza, then head for the pool. We finished the night with an impressive rendition of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in the Ward Talent Show (watch the video below). It's been a long time since we all performed together, so it really topped the day off. All in all, between the beach, the sun, the water and the musical performance it was a Poppleton kind of Day! (We were lucky too! It was cloudy all week, and the days following. It seemed as thought the sun came out just for us!)






For your viewing pleasure you can watch our performance below. It's a little embarrassing (except for my brother Brian, my musical hero), but why keep secrets? I mean the whole ward already saw it and we all need to laugh a little more in our day. Today you can laugh at my expense. Let's just say Dave is really glad he was already out of town and not roped into this one.

Talent Disclaimer: This performance should in no way taint your views of my family's true talent. We didn't want to all perform with our true talent, because making everyone jealous of our family talent isn't what talent shows are all about (Yikes!!!! Just Kidding!) Let me plead my case, We put it together in about 30 minutes, props and all, so you gotta take that into consideration. We didn't want to go all out since we knew there wasn't even a stage at our church building. Without a stage it wouldn't seem like quality theater anyway, so we decided to just have fun, as you will see was undeniably had! That's all that really matters anyway right? Decide for yourself and feel free to leave your honest comments. I am tough. I can take it!

The Last Month

Honestly I was just having too much fun to write down what we were doing. Now I am trying to catch up and record the little moments in our life from the last month and I think it would take me much too long, so I put together a little slide show of the last couple weeks we spent in California (excluding the beach, I made a separate slide show for that, which I will post soon with a goodbye beach poem I have yet to write!)




Well there you have it! One little slide show and I'm practically all caught up!

I'm Gonna Miss this...

Our last moments in America were spent visiting my family in San Diego. The best way to explain this weekend was perfect. We did all of my favorite things: played beach volleyball, swiming, Moonlight Theater, birthday party...it just doesn't get any better. It was the first time in 3 years my whole family was home during the summer time and it was even better than I remember. The best way to describe my feelings is with that one country song (I dont know the artist because I just never know who sings the songs) "Your gonna miss this. Your gonna want this back. Your gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast." And I know I will. There were times when I had to ask myself "why are you leaving again?" Maybe we should reconsider and just be beach bums the rest of our life!

I was sad not to have my camera at the beach or at the birthday/holiday family party, but I will try to relive the joy. We had a wonderful party to celebrate all the birthdays and holidays we would be missing. We sang happy unbirthday to everyone and then sang some Christmas carols for Christmas, and some spring songs, and some beatles songs just for fun. The real key is, if it is with my family there is definitely going to be some singing. Then we decorated gingerbread houses and I fell asleep while putting Lucy to sleep, so we had to wait until the morning to open presents, but I guess that is kind of like Christmas anyway!

We watched a wonderful play at the Moonlight Amphitheater, one of my favorite summer family traditions My Dad and Lucy during the intermission of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Lani and Heidi enjoy our Moonlight family tradition

And here we are swiming (this was Lucy's first time swiming if you don't count the waterpark, normal pool swiming I guess)What a fun Dad she hasHere are her aunties watching Lucy swim from the deckOn our way to the volleyball tournament my Dad was outside waiting for us. We thought it was pretty funny when we saw him waiting near these other two guys. THey all look so much alike (my Dad didn't know why I was taking this picture...he thought it was just to take one of him and Lucy, but really I was trying to capture the humor of the spot he had chosen to wait)
Ah, picturesque San Diego

Carousel Ride at Belmont Park
Visiting Great Grandma Barbara (my Mom's Mom) in Los Angeles before our flight out of LAXJust two hours after this photo we were in the Security check line, waving goodbye to my parents with tears in my eyes as I imagined my life without these wonderful people for the next year. And we are on to a new adventure.