Happy Halloween from our crazy family to yours!

Thanksgiving Trip to AZ

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone........I hope you all had a great day!

I had a week off work for the holiday so we decided to go on a long weekend trip to Arizona. We stopped in St. George for a night and found this pretty little river off a road in the desert.

There were lots of mini waterfalls and with the leaves still turning colors, it was so picturesque

Dusty even found a little baby frog on one of the lava rocks

Dusty eating lunch on his rock :)

We took the jeep up to the top of the nearby mountain and it was a stunning view

We passed a Joshua Tree forest in AZ and we just had to get in a photo op with one of the giant trees that we found out is part of the lily family!

We also found a ghost town with mining equipment still left around. Dusty had to try it out (it didn't work if you were wondering)

On our way out of the town, we stopped at an overlook - it was pretty amazing!

While we were driving around by Lake Havasu, we came across a bar in the middle of an old mine camp.....it was totally bizarre.

This was a view of the bar with all the buildings converted into food and snack shops - you could walk around and do whatever you wanted.....play horse shoes, listen to the band or just chill

Like we did here....

We found a little oasis full of palm trees in the desert - I didn't know they grew wild in AZ until I saw this.

Just up the road we found the giant cacti, which we love and had to imitate

Burros were also a common sight - they are so cute!

Dusty having fun off roading...you can't tell but we're right on the edge of a cliff!

This was a nature reserve above the Havasu damn

This track was at the end of a bumpy dirt road and led into all the lush undergrowth of the reserve.

We loved the mixture of the dense trees and the desert cactus

We spent two days at Lake Havasu and it was so nice to have the warm weather to enjoy it

We found a lake shore park and there was a dog show with the police showing the K9 unit skills - you don't want to mess with those dogs!

They had an English theme at the lake with Telephone boxes

and of course, the original London Bridge......it amazes me that they went to all the trouble of moving it to the middle of nowhere but it is quite the sight to see.

We then spent the rest of the week with the boys which was really fun!

Summer Catch Up

As wet as this summer was, we were still able to get out and about but not as much as usual. We camped here in July in our favorite camping spot by Nephi but we only got one photo as it started to rain and we spent the night in the jeep listening to music.

The grandparents kindly took us boating with the kids and they had a great time jumping in even though it was freezing and raining - not surprisingly!

The grandparents had a good time watching and filming

Grandpa then had a great idea to go craw fish fishing with chicken thighs on the end of string and it actually worked -the kids caught a ton!

James being a craw fish - I think.....

Tim and grandad bringing in the haul

Tim planted his school cabbage in our garden and got to harvest it in August - it was massive. James was on a very important call at the time - Lol!

Dusty and I went to New Mexico on a camping trip and again the weather didn't cooperate so we still went out to the dessert but had to stay in the local town for the night.

We found this place on our way to Sante Fe

There were so many places to hike, we loved New Mexico

Santa Fe wasn't exactly what we expected but it did have a pretty church

And a great bar

Dusty after one too many....ha ha! We really found these weird toys in the street - it was spooky

We also toured around Albuquerque and I really liked the atmosphere - I wish we had more time there to soak it in

The weather improved and we headed out to the desert - finally!

We loved going out into this....good weather and no one around

Watching the sunset over the desert

Enjoying the view

We found this oasis on the way home - it was so pretty

Finding things like this makes a great drive home

We also took the kids on one last camping trip in September and they had a blast trying to set up camp.

Tim took particular care building the fire pit

Finding Lizards is the boys (including Dusty) favorite thing to find

See how happy it makes them

Roasting hot dog time

Climbing rocks also ranks up there with catching lizards

Driving home we found this cool rattle snake....he wanted to attack us immediately - we kept a good distance away

We got Tim a super bubble maker and they had a great time firing it

And of course they had fun playing with the almost finished fence (just the stain left now and it's finally finished)

This is slightly out of order but Dusty and I went to Ely, Nevada for Dusty's Birthday and they had a steam train driving through when we got there.

This is the hotel we stayed in - Hotel Nevada, the oldest high rise hotel in Nevada - it was really interesting and was like staying in a museum

I love this photo of desert driving in the jeep

We found an interesting old town on the way out

I'm pretty sure I got tetanus from this house as I stepped on a rusty nail while trying to get to the wall - you can kind of see the pain in my face here

Setting up camp and thank goodness it wasn't raining in Nevada

Luckily I didn't get lock jaw and we could hike around

I think that pretty much sums up the past 3 months and I can't wait for next summer when hopefully the weather is better.