Who Knew Chickens Would Be The Highlight?!

After we left East Canyon on Sunday, we decided to take a detour on our way home and drive through Emigration Canyon along the Mormon trail. As we passed the "This is the Place" monument we decided to stop and see if they were open. The village next to the monument is usually open and populated with actors from the early pioneer era but since it was Sunday it was almost completely vacant. The little gift shop/visitors center at the front of the village was open and inside we were told we could go into the village and walk around for free but none of the buildings/houses would be open and there would be no "villagers" about. MC and GM made a pit stop in the visitor's center while BR and I explored a bit. We decided that we'd go into the village and check it out since our kids were game for it. Shortly after we entered the village, we encountered a whole bunch of young chickens running around one of the houses. My kids were so intrigued by them that we decided to stop and let them watch the chickens for a while. I figured they would soon tire and want to move on, but I was quite mistaken! I believe we stayed nearly three quarters of an hour and as we sat there we all decided which ones were our favorites. They all had their own unique "personalities". (MC and BR would have stayed even longer just watching and playing with them.) It was fun to watch how engrossed they were with these little birds. (BR said that it was the best time he'd ever had and decided he wants a pet chicken!!)

We were a little shy at first Getting braver... BR had little yellow dots on his shoes that they must have thought were seeds of some sort. It thrilled him that they loved his shoes so much! :) Their little feet tickled ours as they walked over them BR was the first one to be brave enough to pick one up When GM went over and sat by the kids the chickens had to check out the new feet :) MC holding her favorite, the white one (it was very skittish and it took a while for BR to catch it for her) :P BR caught my favorite one for me. It turned out to be a very calm one that everybody liked holding.



After a while we coaxed the kids into moving on. We saw other animals around, but they were all in pens and it wasn't as much fun for BR and MC because they couldn't interact with them. We found a few buildings open in a little "play house" area. The kids had fun exploring the little houses, the TP and the train, but the most fun they had was when their dad decided to start chasing them and squirting them with their water bottle.







They would have done that for hours too but GM got worn out. :P

Long Chicken video

East Canyon

Our annual Dalton family vacation/reunion was the first week of June this year (June 3rd-8th). It was very different this time than other years. First of all GM wasn't there until Thursday night and most other years he came up for the evenings even if he had to go back down the canyon every morning to work. Another big change was that I decided to give my kids more independence this time as long as they used the "buddy system". They were free to go from our condo to my sister Amber's condo, to my sister April's condo, to "The Bus" (my parents' motorhome-ized bus) as much as they wanted as long as they stayed in groups (with their cousins). They slept at "The Bus" or other condos most of the time and lots of times ate their meals with grandma and grandpa or their cousins so I didn't see them very often!! Because my kids are the main focus in photography, and because they were off with their cousins so much of the time, I took very few pictures this time as well.


If you look closely you can see BR in the background eating breakfast and watching TV. :) In the foreground is my oldest niece doing some scrapbooking. (My sisters and my mom and I also did a bit of scrapbooking.)


MC getting ready to go swimming.



I spent a lot of time with my sisters and I took some pictures of Amber's kids (her kids are also some of my favorites to photograph).






We went during the first week of June, from June 3rd through the 8th and it was very cold and rainy most of the time. In my opinion it was much too cold to swim (this wasn't helped much by the fact that I'm not a big fan of swimming), and I thought, foolishly, that my kids would feel the same. How wrong I was!! They went to the pool every single day, multiple times, rain or shine!! The only thing I made them get out for was lightning storms or if no other "big people" were going to be there. (BR would have probably been there twice as much if he could have stayed on when nobody was there or when the weather was too bad to permit swimming! GM and I call him our little guppie!)

GM decided to surprise me and come up on Thursday evening instead of the planned Friday evening. (I was glad to see him!!) We went to the hot tub together, 4-wheeling together and watched a movie or two together, but he also went off and did stuff without me as well. He went shooting with BR and my brother-in-law Alan. He also swam with the kids and I believe he went mini-golfing with BR.

A Tribute to Aunt Peggy

We were looking for our wonderful Peggy treasures one day to take pictures of them for her and so MC wanted to "sing" how much she loves her since MC loves to cuddle with this lovely blanket from Aunt Peggy. We do love you Peggy!