I FINALLY went on a Garry Graf HIKE!!

Every time Garry (my father-in-law) would go on one of his famous hikes, I was either pregnant or nursing. To my good fortune this time I could go. We are hiking down the Grand Canyon on the Lava Falls trail....which is very remote. We left on Wednesday, April 8th and drove 3 hours to get to the Toroweap look off point. We came home late the next night on Thursday, April 9th, 2009. We scouted around the area and took some pictures. We found the campgrounds and found the coolest camping spot. It was really neat...sorry no picture. We took off first thing in the morning to the Lava Falls trail. We started hiking around 9 am....

When we first got there the men just had to get way too close for my comfort.

Okay, so I eventually warmed up and had to take my picture on the edge too.

So, this is the beginning of an adventure...it started out fine for the first 5 minutes down the trail. But then Garry's friend Martin had to complicate things. We stopped at a point where there were two trails...one to the left and one to the right. Garry having been on this hike 2 other times said to go to the right. Nate, myself, and Garry took off to the right, but Martin (who has never been on the trail before) left by himself on the other trail. Things were going great, we saw the markers for the trail and kept going down the 2,500 feet to get to the Colorado River.

We hiked for around 3 hours until we got ledged up on a cliff. We couldn't go anywhere but back up the trecherous and very steep lava falls trail! We all just couldn't believe this was happening. How did we get off on the wrong trail?

We yelled for Martin, who was on the other side of what I describe as a wash with steep cliffs on both sides. He is going down the wash to pick up the real trail. Good Luck! We continue to hike up and take lots of breaks...going back up is like straight up...almost. By the time we come to where we think we got off on the real trail we figure it is too late to go all the way back down to the river and hike all the way back up from the bottom. We would be hiking out in the dark. Not my idea of fun.

We keep going up the marked trail until there is no more trail. Not one of us can find a trail anywhere. I still don't understand it, we were all looking and agreeing on which way to go. So, we just start climbing up the rocks and making our own trail up the canyon. We know which way we came in so we just went and went and went. We finally found the first trail we had started on and were so glad to have some direction. We finally got out of the canyon at 3:40pm. Martin is still on his own and we don't where he is or if he is hurt.

We scramble over to the bush where Martin had put his keys to the SUV. We can't find them. We hunt every surrounding bush, we can't find them. We pray. We still can't find them. For the next 2 hours we pulled out and shook every bush in the area of where Martin put his keys with no luck. Finally Martin shows up. We are glad he made it back and got to the river. We ask him if he has the keys...he does. He forgot to tell us that he forgot his water and went back to get it and forgot to put the keys back in the bush he had shown us. Needless to say, I was just glad to get into the car and drive away. I was a little disappointed on not being able to finish the whole hike down to the river, but I will NOT do that hike again. Garry felt bad because he has always finished his hikes and never gotten lost before. Needless to say that was a huge adventure and I was sore the next two days. If I go on another hike with him again....okay so I totally would. It was fun after the fact!

CONCERT!!

So, Nate bought us tickets to Julianne Hough for his birthday....I mean my birthday! :) I think he was rather excited to go. I wanted to go because I like her country music...Nate well....So we got to go to Tuacahn for the concert. It is always gorgeous with the red rocks of Snow Canyon for the backdrop. It was a fun concert.

Here is part of the stage and red rock back drop.

Yes, I (Alisha) did take this picture!!

Yeah BABY!!! We did get up close and personal with Julianne!! She is just as nice in person as on the tv. We now have a hook up!

Tyler won 3rd prize in the second grade science fair!

Tyler loves science. So when the school sent home a paper to sign up for the science fair, he had to do it. We had a lot of fun trying this experiment...it's on Surface tension. Tyler cut out a shape of a boat out of an index card and placed it in water. Then he poured liquid dish soap at the back end of the boat, which made his boat move across the water. It was really cool.

He was judged by some faculty and he WON 3rd PLACE!! He was so surprised and very excited. He gets to compete in the regional science fair...which was today. He didn't win there, but it was a great learning experience. Way to go TY!!!

So many fun & exciting things...

I am so proud to say that I am finally an AUNT on my side of the family. My sister Tiffanie & her husband Chad were blessed with a baby girl on Wednesday, March 4th. I was dying to see her so we drove up north on Friday to see the new family. They named her Taylie. She was 6 lbs. 10 oz. and 19 1/4 inches long. She is just darling. I am so excited to be a new aunt.

Taylie Childress

I am so excited to hold her for the first time, but she wants her mom & she wants food!

Jacey was sleeping or she would have been included on the family photo.

Jacey finally met Taylie after nap time. Jacey just looked at her... and as you can see, they are going to be great cousins.

Well, that was not all. My brother Garrett proposed to his girlfriend Courtney on Saturday. They are now engaged! It was fun being in on all the action. We are so excited to have her in the family. Congratulations!!!

Kylie and Nate pose for a picture right before they get their turn to ride the go carts.

Tyler was so funny to watch. He was super excited to drive his very own go cart. He could hardly stand to wait in line, but when he took off he was so serious. We couldn't get him to smile..until it was over. I think that will come in handy when he is older...at least I hope so.

Alexa and I had fun zipping around the track. It was very cold outside, so we were a little excited when it was over to go back inside the building.

This picture I took of Kylie I thought was adorable. She reminds me of a movie star. She is very photogenic. Kylie you are one in a million!

Here is what has been happening to our family in the past couple of months!

So, I have had a few things to share. But I just haven't made the time to blog about them. So finally today I am changing that. So since it is March and my blog background this moment is still Christmas...I have to do something. So, I just went and attached some pictures, they are not in any particular order, but at least I can show them. Enjoy!!

Kylie insisted that Jacey be placed in HER baby stroller. Kylie loved pushing her around and Jacey thought it was quite amusing too.

Jacey did the army crawl as well as get on her "haunches" and lunge forward to get to the decorations. She finally accomplished her goal in just enough time for Mom to take a picture and then remove her from the decorations.

This is Jacey up on her "haunches". We think it is so cute when babies finally feel like they are so big and can move somewhere on their own. However, we hate it too. She finds everything and puts everything in her mouth. We have to do a nightly vacuuming of the house to help Jacey not eat or choke on anything. Not fun!

This is Jacey being attacked to Tyler's stuffed dalmatian dog and his roboreptile. Brothers have their own way of playing with their baby sisters.

So, Alexa came to us out of the blue and told us she wanted to take her training wheels off and have a big kid bike like Tyler. She was amazing. Dad helped stay by her , but she didn't even need it. She just took off and didn't look back. She was so excited to show Tyler after school. He was shocked! For the first two days she didn't fall once...then she fell. But she got back up and rode off. Great job Alexa!!

Here is a picture of Donna's Birthday on March 3rd. We surprised her by decorating the house the night before. We baked a cake and had her open cards and presents. I think she had fun.

Jacey tried rice cereal for the first time in this picture. This was in January of 2009. She loved it and got it all over. As you can see from the picture. You are growing up too fast Jacey my Baby!!

....Jacey in Kylie's baby play pin....Kylie really thinks Jacey is her baby.

Kylie tried on my sister Shalie's boxing gloves and went to town. She had so much fun trying to box her brother. Tyler is such a good sport.

And this is ME!! By the end of most days, I am exhausted, tired, lost my mind, and completely helpless. Good thing I have such a great husband who takes great care of me. I love you BABE! Boy, that is SCARY.

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman...

It has been snowing so much that Tyler wanted to build a snowman. He recruited Grandpa Graf for help. Grandpa went and got real coal for the face. Ty thought that was really cool. Ty was really proud of his snowman.

Christmas Day!

Our kids let us sleep until 7:30 am, but I did get up with Jacey at 6:15 am for a feeding. We went upstairs to see what was waiting for us. Jacey woke up around 9 am about 5 minutes after we finished opening all of our Christmas gifts. She opened one present and then wanted to eat again. She left the rest of her presents for later. We enjoyed a nice breakfast, and then frantically packed to drive and stay the night at Santa Clara with my parents. We were expecting a huge snowstorm. It turns out that the storm wasn't bad a all. We are just glad we got to spend time with all of our family. It was so fun to have Grandpa & Grandma Graf with us celebrating Christmas. It was the first time they got to be with us for Christmas morning. Merry Christmas!