Swimming Lessons

We tried something a little bit different with swimming lessons this year. I feel like my boys have been stuck in a rut with swimming the last few years, and so we found one of Randy's old students and convinced her to give Mark and Dax private lessons. They took lessons, just the two of them, for 5 days. It was worth it!

Even after the first day, I could see major improvements. And by the end of the 2nd day, they both jumped off the diving board. I couldn't believe it! I never thought in a million years that Mark would jump off the diving board. Mark definitely made the most progress. He swam across the pool and got much more confident in the water. Dax did well the first few days, but for some reason, the 3rd day he decided he was scared to swim across the deep water. No matter how much we told him it was the same swimming no matter the depth, he sort of shut down after that. The last few days were more difficult in getting him to cooperate. But he still loves that water, so I'm sure we can start fresh next year.

Sometimes it's still hard for me to believe Mark jumped off the diving board.

But he did it a TON of times!

Dax jumped off, too!

Seth took regular swim lessons at the American Fork pool. He did great, too. The first few days he did not want to put his face in the water. This is something I knew he wouldn't like. He hates water in his eyes. So finally, Randy bought him a good pair of goggles at the front desk that fit him. It made him a whole new kid. Seth was doing bobs, and going under the water all the time. Totally worth the $17 for goggles. They have changed his life. Seth made a lot of progress in swimming this year, too!

This was the first few days of class. He would cover his eyes during the kicks.

New kid with his goggles. I think this picture is hilarious!

He loves swimming lessons now!

All the way under the water. Another swimming miracle!

I don't need them to be Olympic swimmers, just be able to stay alive in the water, so hopefully we are making our way there!

Cecret Lake

Cecret Lake is beautiful!

Natalie got an email a few weeks ago from an old college buddy. She has moved from the area, but was in town looking for a hike and found our website. She was excited to contact us, and we decided to do a hike with her family. Jill and Tim were married with a toddler and a baby last time we saw them, but that was 8 years ago. Now they have three girls ages 9, 7, and 5 and a little boy just 2 years old. We decided that we could all manage the Cecret Lake hike in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

We love the Cecret Lake hike, and we were hoping to see something exciting. Some of the people we passed claimed to see a moose along the trail, but we had to settle for the salamander larvae we saw swimming in the lake. It was fun to hike with friends, though. We aren't used to hiking with girls, so it was fun to be with them! Dad told jokes, the kids threw rocks, and Mom and Jill talked a lot about how their lives have changed since college. It was a really nice afternoon with friends we haven't seen in a long time.

This is the whole gang all set to hike.

The girls liked to explore as much as our boys!

The wildflowers were beautiful, and the mountains, too!

We did see a deer. Just not a moose like we were hoping!

We got a family picture because we had people to take them for us!

Randy made friends will all the new kids!

We saw a million salamander larvae. The kids loved it!

It really was a lot of fun hiking with friends.

I should find a before picture of Jill and me in college. We look much the same!

Jill snapped this picture of Seth and me. I think it's so cute!

Mark's Birthday!

Mark turned 10 this year. Double Digits! That is big, and it doesn't seem like 10 years have passed since I had this oldest boy of ours. Mark is becoming a grown-up, responsible  boy. It's actually really great. He gets jokes and he can watch the kids for a little while. He is an excellent helper. He does anything we ask with a big smile. Mark overall has a very positive attitude and he loves going on adventures like his Dad! It's nice to have such a great example in our home.

I wanted to do something in honor of turning 10, so I wrapped up 10 presents and he opened one every hour throughout the day. Some presents were bigger than others, but Mark liked it so much, I'm going to have to remember this for the other boys' 10th birthdays!

One of the gifts was eye black and everyone needed some!

Mark's birthday falls on the 4th of July every year, so we had our traditional family get together and party. Mark is always happy if there ends up being a wiffle ball game, which there was, since he lives and breaths everything baseball. He of course said that he just wanted his cakes to be centered around baseball.

Yay for baseball cakes!

I made these for the kids to eat!

Our family picture every year on the 4th of July!

When did he get so big? 

Mark also wanted to go see some fireworks. Seth did not want to go, and so Dad stayed home with sleeping Seth, and I took Dax and Mark to watch the Thanksgiving Point fireworks from a nearby school. There were so many fireworks across the valley that it was like a constant show the entire time we were there. We had a lot of fun together, though.

Here we are in the parking lot!

The fireworks show was awesome!

Mark is a great boy and we are so glad that he is part of our family. He is an amazing reader and piano player. He loves sports! And next year, Mark will be going to school with Randy, so we have a whole new adventure ahead of us, but they are super excited!

Seth's Birthday!

Seth is growing up too fast!

Seth turned 4 this year. He had a really special birthday because we spent his actual birthday at Bear Lake.

So the weekend before we left for Bear Lake, we had a birthday party for Seth. We invited Laurie & Glen, and their boys, as well as Grandpa Ockey. Seth really wanted a very specific cake. He told me exactly what it should look like with a shark chasing fish, and sand and plants and everything. The best part was when he told me how much he liked it. It made all the hours in the kitchen worth it.

Mom has a long tradition of making custom birthday cakes.

He thought his cake was just right.

He is the master of 1,000 faces.

Seth especially liked the frosting.

He got some fun presents this year. Laurie gave him a big car carrier that he loves to play with, and he got a small guitar from Mom and Dad. Seth always wants to play his Dad's guitar, so we thought he might having his own guitar to play. He has enjoyed playing it, and his brothers have, too.

This guitar sounds good when it's in tune.

Seth also got to celebrate his birthday at Bear Lake. Grandpa Daniels bought him a big cake, and got a really fun #4 candle that lit up plus candles that spelled his name. His favorite gift was a Spiderman towel that Aunt Stephanie made for him. He also loved having all his cousins there to celebrate his actual birthday, and he loved spending the day at the beach.

Seth was really spoiled this year.

This towel matches Dax's Captain America towel.

A day at the beach is the best for a birthday.

Seth loves to play dress up. He is constantly wearing a different outfit: cowboy, Captain America, firefighter, and many more. He has a big imagination. Seth also loves to play school with mom. He is already beginning to learn to read, and is a very smart boy. Seth is also very loving. He loves to give Mom and Dad lots of hugs and kisses (or muchas smooches). We are so grateful to have Seth in our family!

Seth loves spending time with his dad, especially if it involves playing their guitars.

Bear Lake Day 5

The final day at Bear Lake was mostly cleaning up, and since many people had gone home, the rest of us took care of it. Dad vacuumed up the house while Mom cleaned the kitchen and loaded the van. Everyone else pitched in, too, and we were done by about 10am. We didn’t really know if we should do any adventures on this final day. Last year, we drove home through Randolph, which was kind of fun, but this year, after three long vacations, we were just ready to be home. We only made one stop, and that was at the creamery at Utah State. We were sitting there enjoying our ice cream when a text popped in. It was Melanie asking if we were at the creamery, too (she’d seen our van when she pulled up).

Grandma gave Mark these awesome sunglasses for his birthday!

We loved the Aggie Creamery. Mmmm!

The drive home was uneventful, except for when Mom slept in the van just like Dax with her head tipped back and her mouth wide open. Too bad Dad couldn’t drive and take a picture at the same time!

Bear Lake Day 4

Grandpa Daniels bought everyone a shirt for the second year.

This was our big adventure day for the Bear Lake Trip. We planned on going to Montpelier and Soda Springs and checking out the sites along the way.  Our first stop was at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. This is a fairly new museum in Montpelier, and we were pretty excited. They took us inside and we started a reenactment of the Oregon Trail. Our guide took us to buy a wagon and supplies first. We learned a lot from this trip, like that women could stake a claim of 160 acres as well as men. After we got supplies, we climbed into a wagon and were bounced and jostled along the trail as we heard snippets from Pioneer journals. We stopped at camp and several actresses took us through other stories from the trail including one about Mrs. Adams who cold-cocked a bear with her frying pan and then killed it. When her husband returned with a sage grouse, she had already skinned and cooked part of the bear for supper! We really enjoyed this museum, and we’d go back in a heartbeat.

The boys really liked this museum.

The wagon ride was on a hydraulic lift and jostled us pretty good.

The camp along the trail was pretty authentic.

There were a few other small museums in the same complex, too. The History of Montpelier Museum was located downstairs, and the curator took us on a special tour. She was really good with the kids and told lots of stories. She even let them run the cash register and showed us the three cent nickel. Upstairs they were displaying quilts and artwork. We really liked looking at all the fancy quilts that told the story of this area.

The boys got to type their names.

Seth is ready for school.

Everybody wanted to run the cash register.

Grandma played the ancient piano.

Down the road in Montpelier we stopped at the last surviving bank robbed by Butch Cassidy. There wasn’t much to see there, just the original floor, one old door, and a lot of tourist souvenirs, but Dax was fascinated with the idea of a real life robber! We had a lunch at a dumpy little place called Dan’s Drive-In before leaving town.

We lucked into the refurbished Montpelier Tabernacle, which is usually locked.

Mark looks like he could have made a pretty good outlaw in this picture, but he's way too honest in reality!! ;)

Cute family picture.

That's Old Ephraim's statue.

Our next stop was Soda Springs. We wanted to see the man-made geyser that is located there. A long time ago, they were digging to make a natural spa and hit water. It bubbled up at only around 75 degrees, not nearly warm enough, but they capped it, added a timer, and it goes off as a man-made geyser every hour. We arrived just in time and watched it spurt about 75 feet into the air. After the geyser we wanted to go check out a small cave. Formation Cave is located just outside Soda Springs and is quite a bit deeper than we expected. Almost all the kids wanted to go down, so we gathered up all the light we had and headed in. There are three natural tunnels in the cave, and we started with the one that goes straight ahead, but it dead ends after only about 50 feet. There is a tiny natural window about 4 inches by a foot, though, that is pretty cool as it lets in natural light. Next, we went to the right. This tunnel extended quite a bit farther, and required squatting for adults. The tunnel to the left was even longer. It had some really low head-clunkers, but we mostly survived and made it to the end. Two tiny natural windows helped us through this cave as well. The highlight, though, was a dark foreboding passage leading down. It was too small for an adult to much more than belly-crawl through, but all the kids wanted to check it out.  They crawled in all together and found a tiny room they could stand up in, but they came out of the Kid Only Room terribly dirty and happy!

Soda Spring Geyser.

You can play right out in it.

It was a pretty day.

This is the short walk to the cave.

The lighting was good enough for a picture of everyone but Stephanie.

The kids washed up after the caving expedition.

After the cave we made a trip out to see some wagon ruts that are along the original Oregon Trail. They were pretty underwhelming, as you couldn’t see the ruts, but just sort of a low swale where the wagons had passed. So we headed back to Soda Springs. We wanted to play in the geyser as it spouted off this time. Unfortunately, for some reason, it missed its four o’clock eruption. We were disappointed, but we headed over to the park and played tag on the playground. Even Grandpa took a turn being It.

Wow. Wagon tracks...

We played near the geyser, but it didn't go off.

Dad checked the temperature.

We had a ton of fun at the park.

Eligah was a hit with the kids.

For dinner, Grandpa treated us to pizza in Soda Springs, and then we said goodbye to Stephanie’s family and Brittany and Eligah as they headed home and we headed back to Bear Lake. We had a quick birthday treat in the park to honor Mark's birthday before we split up. When we arrived, it was the Ockey’s turn for stories. Seth told How Seth Got His Name; Dax told Dad Sees a Skunk (which was ironic since we saw 2 skunks on this trip); Mark told I Stole First Base; Mom told Melanie’s Big Bike Crash; and Dad told Held Up in the Deli and A Bat Takes Over the Ockey Home. We didn’t record the stories this year, but we had a lot of fun practicing and telling them.

Happy Birthday, Mark!

We were full of birthday treats, so we kept it small.

We saw the prettiest (and most horrifying) animal in the forest.

Dad was really frightened at this point!