Tulip Festival at THanksgiving Point

Every year Thanskgiving Point has a Tulip Festival. They have beautiful gardens there that I could spend hours in during the summer when the roses are in bloom but until today I had never been to their Tulip Festival, held every Spring. Heather and Clint came down to go with us. Truthfully, it wasn't quite as nice as I thought it would be, but it was still fun to walk around the gardens and take pictures...I love Spring! And the colors were beautiful...so enjoy some pictures from our day there-

There really were some vibrant colors in the flowers. I loved these little pink balls!

One of my favorite spots in the gardens is a place called The Secret Garden. It is, just as it sounds, a little hidden garden. The archway leading into it is covered with honeysuckle which wasn't in bloom yet, but in the summer is beautiful. These next few pictures were taken in the Secret Garden. It's a very romantic place...

You should see this place in the summer!

The other place that I really like is the waterfall gardens. There are the three big ones pictured below...and above these waterfalls is a path surrounded by smaller waterfalls that all eventually join into the three big ones.

These are a lot of pictures, I know but sometimes it is just too hard to narrow my choices down. Thanks for coming with us Heather and Clint. We for sure have to go back this summer!

Spring Break- (Warnng- lots of pictures)

Austin was off for Spring Break this week so Steve took a couple of days off and we went on a road trip to Mesa Verde, Colorado and Moab, Utah. We drove down on Thursday and stayed in Cortez, Co. the first night and thought it might be fun to drive out to the Four Corners. For those of you who don't know, this is where four states- Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona all meet.When we got there the place was closed but having driven all that way we were not to be deterred so...we climbed through the barb wire fence! I should have taken a picture of us doing that but didn't think to at the time.We all took turns doing our own thing to show that we were in four states at the same time.We didn't get caught and lots of other people were doing it, too. Besides who closes a place like this at 5:00?

On Friday, we went to Mesa Verde National Park. This place was amazing...full of Indian Cliff Dwellings. This is the Castle Cliff Dwelling. We were able to go on a tour of this one. We are standing on top of a cliff looking down on it.Our tour guide, Ranger Rebecca took us down to the ruins.This is one of the many Kivas ( ceremonial pits) that were here.

To get out we had to climb through this narrow passage and up three wooden ladders. It was awesome! This castle cliff dwelling was thought to be the center marketplace and there are about 60 other smaller dwelling in the cliffs all around this one. Some of those are pictured below.

We also got to go down into the Spruce Tree House, which is one of the best preserved dwellings.There is a kiva there with the roof on that you can climb down into just like the Indians would have.

They are not very big. Austin had just enough room to stand up. This is him coming out of it.We did manage to find coyote village which Austin loved because he could climb all through it.Coming up out of this Kiva was a little scarier for him!

Friday evening we traveled back to Moab and Saturday we went to Arches National Park to check out some arches we missed on our last visit there.

It was a bit chilly out but nice for hiking. I actually have three layers on which is why I look so puffy!

Landscape arch is one of the largest in the world!What an awesome view! We are standing next to the fiery furnace ( to the left). There are too many pictures to put on this blog but it was beautiful here and we had a great time. One other stop we made was to the whole in the rock house.

This house was made by blasted into the sandstone. We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside but it was really cool. The home is 5000sq. ft.- built right into the rock!

It was a great little getaway and I think Austin enjoyed himself even if he had to go with just his Mom and Dad!

Birthday Celebration

Heather's Birthday is Tuesday but we celebrated today because everyone is here for conference weekend. As tradition goes, whenever anyone in the family has a birthday, they get to pick what they want for a birthday dinner and desert and I will make it. Heather chose ( with a little help from me) to fondue this year for her birthday...a favorite in our family!

We always have a broth for the meat. Broths are easy to make. Just use chicken broth and add fresh garlic and whatever spices you want. I also make a cheese fondue that is to die for. Because I know there are some of you who will want it, here is the recipe-

1 lb. Swiss cheese grated

1/2 Gruyere cheese grated

3T. flour

1 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. white pepper

Combine the cheeses and toss dry ingredients in to coat.

In saucepan pour 1 1/2 c. white cooking wine and 3-4 tsp. fresh garlic. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a good simmer and add cheese handfuls at a time, stirring until cheese is melted. Add cooking wine as needed for the right consistency( it should be like a thick gravy). Transfer to fondue pot.

We had chicken, beef and mushrooms for the broth and bread, apples, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower for the cheese. As you can see we are very serious fonduers! After eating this delightsome feast, we took a break to digest it all then had a chocolate fondue for desert...YUM!

We had strawberries, bananas, fresh pineapple, apples and starburst candies for our chocolate fondue. If you have never tried starbursts this way, you are missing out!I use guittard milk chocolate chips ( I'm not sure of the spelling but it is a very good chocolate). Melt 16 0z. in the microwave while heating 3/4 c. milk in fondue pot. Add melted chocolate to milk and mix well. Then I like to add some caramel syrup in it...delicious! Just look at the look of pleasure on Clint's face Of course we can't forget the presents! I had bought Heather the shirt she is wearing early as part of her birthday gifts. We also gave her a new watch. She knew she was getting that because she was with me when I bought it at Fossil.She also got a Bath and Body lotion, bubble bath and body spray set...warm sugar vanilla, one of her favorites!
Since our posts will be very similar this weekend, I will let her blog about the other gifts she got while at our house. What a great weekend! Happy Birthday Heather. We love you!

Girl's night out

It is General Conference weekend for our church which means we get to listen to our prophet and apostles as they speak to the church worldwide on TV. There are two sessions on Saturday and Sunday with one session Saturday night for the men. While the men are at their meeting...it's girls night out for us! Han, Heather and I headed out to dinner at Rombi Island Grill.

Heather and Han both got rice bowls which did indeed look very delicious but I got one of my favorites...The Aloha Chicken Salad.Chicken, lettuce, gorgonzola cheese, onions and diced mangos with a mango/passion fruit dressing...Mmmmm! Their chips and salsa are great,too.

After dinner we headed over to Rod Works - a favorite home decor store of mine. The store was absolutely packed though (ladies night during conference is a huge deal) and we didn't last too long in there. I was looking for a clock to go in my computer/sewing room and they didn't have what I wanted anyway. Next we headed over to the mall, wandered around a few stores, complained about the prices, then checked out Deseret Book where we found some good deals of which I am not at liberty to divulge because they are gifts for upcoming birthdays and such. It was very crowded there too and the checkout lines were very long

This is Heather and Han emphasizing how tiresome it was waiting in those long lines. Then we were off to Target where I got some new summer P.J.s, then home to meet up with the men.
We all watched the movie "Bolt" together. A very cute movie. We all recommend it. Kyle gave it a B+. Good times!