Cabin in Scofield

Kyle drew a once-in-a-lifetime archery tag in Manti this year, so he has been spending a lot of time getting ready for it. (It starts August 15th.) He's been worried about how much time he has been spending away from the family. So with intentions of scouting the Scofield area, he decided to rent a cabin for the weekend and take the family. I'd never even heard of Scofield before then and now I seriously love it there! I love how small, quiet and quaint it is. I didn't terribly love the fact that cell phone service is SO limited, but other than that, I really like the place! It's about a 45 minute drive past Provo. Heading through Spanish Fork Canyon, it's only 17 miles out from a turn off. We went with one of Kyle's good friends from college and his family--Rhett, Melissa and Kylie Ferguson. Kylie is 5 and Kyah just ADORES her. She was her little shadow all weekend long. As you can see from the picture, she'd even stare at her to see what she would do next.
Anyway, Scofield is a small recreational city built right on a gorgeous lake. The lake is small, so it is not overly crowded. Each of the homes built on the shore has its own personal dock. The weather is beautiful. In the winter time, it is a great place for snow mobiling. I love that its only about 2 hours away...it's still a get away, but it's not so far from Salt Lake that it takes all day to get there. So Kyle and I started dreaming. There is quite a bit of real estate for sale there, but we were drawn to one piece in particular. It is a run down (probably condemned) cabin on a prime piece of property. It's a really good size lot right on the lake. It has it's own little sandy section of beach and its own dock. Kyle and I started talking about how ideal the place would be as a vacation cabin. We could tear out the old cabin and build his dream cabin. We'd build something big and open so there would be lots of room to host friends and family. We would build a big garage on the property to house a boat we could leave there year round. We'd have to invest in more snow mobiles and four wheelers too, of course. The agent for the cabin we were renting happened to stop by and we asked him about the property. He told us not to bother because they were moving the shore line (really good real estate agent....talk people out of being interested in property and don't give them any information...I'll bet he makes a killing!) We e-mailed the actual listing agent to see if we could get more information on it, seeing as how we were going to tear down the other cabin anyway.
As of right now, we're just waiting to hear back from them. We've also started looking at some property on the other side of the lake they are trying to build up. It would be closer to the marina, but it's just not the same!
The nice thing about the idea is that this would just be a vacation home, so we would not be in any HUGE hurry to get it done. Kyle always said he'd love to build his own house. (That's obviously NEVER going to happen now that we've gone through the building process.....we are never moving again!) If we built a cabin, he could do it when he had the time, and do it just the way he wants it. If we do all this slowly, we can just save some extra money and pay for things when we had the cash to do it, so we don't have to go into any debt for it. I am really really excited about the prospect of doing this! It might be a couple years down the road before we are done, but get ready to party the cabin with the Jorgensons! All will be invited!

Kyah and Spencer holding hands on the drive down there! Two hours proves to be a pleasant trip. They never hit the point of "get me out of this seat!"

Kylie and Kyah waiting for the dads to come back from riding their dirt bikes so we could go swim in the lake!

This is our would-be dock. It needs a little work, but so does everything else!

Spencer LOVED the water!

Kyah with Rhett in her first time at the lake. I sure gained a new understanding in how quickly a child can get into trouble in water. Kyah was quite timid at first. Kylie is a bit more experienced with water, so her parents let her just go play while they stood on the shore (of course with a life jacket on.) Kyah is not such a big fan of the water and it took her a few tries of dipping her feet in to go a little deeper. Once she decided she was ok with the water, I was at her side the entire time. Although she was getting more used to it, she still was very very cautious. She watched Kylie jump up and down in the water diving into it head first. All of a sudden, she got this surge of bravery and in a foot and a half of water, copied her, diving down head first. Though she was clearly tall enough to just stand back up, she freaked out and started to thrash, not knowing what to do. She was face down in the water for about 2 seconds before I scooped her back up. She clutched on to me and screamed for a good couple of minutes. She was never in any danger, but I just couldn't help but shake that feeling of how potentially tragic a situation like that could be. Panic set in with her and all rationality ceased. That's something that gnawed at me for days!

California, knows how to party....and so do we!

So this post is long past overdue, but there were SO many pictures to go through after we made a compilation of everyone's pictures, the idea of going through them overwhelmed me....hence, putting this off. We had our family reunion in Southern California last month. It was fun, but let me just say....vacations are no longer vacations anymore, when you have little ones. It is SO much work! Melissa and I drove down there with our 4 kids--two 2 year olds, and two 10 month olds! That was a fun (sarcasm intended) drive. Thank goodness for DVD players! It may have taken a little longer than the drive normally takes, but we made it. We stayed in a less than stellar hotel (thanks Priceline!) where we had several run-ins with an employee. It's hard enough to get the kids to go down when you take them out of their routine, but try putting them all together and it was interesting.
The first day we were there, we debated whether or not to go to Disneyland with some of the other family (it was a free day to choose what you wanted) but we decided after getting in after midnight and really struggling with the kids sleeping (or lack of sleeping) we didn't want to get up early and try to get ready. It took Melissa and me until 1:00 to get ourselves and all 4 kids ready and out the door! Remind me not to ever be a single parent! Or have twins! We had a nice relaxing day and took the kids to a really cute splash park down the street. They really enjoyed it. This is my cousin's sweet little girl Mattison!
Thursday, we all went to the beach! That was a fun, fun day! It's interesting to me, how when you have little kids, you end up packing more stuff for them, just for a few hours, than you would for yourself on a week long vacation! We spent the whole day there. Kyah played for a little bit, then laid down on a blanket and slept a few hours. Very unusual for my non-napper. But when she finally woke up, she really seemed to enjoy herself.
My aunt let us bring her (not so) easy-up tent. We tried and tried to get it up so we'd have shelter for all the little kids. It ended up completely breaking, so Melissa made it a makeshift shelter. Thank goodness for it. Each of the kids ended up taking a nap under it at some point.
Kyle flew in this evening in time for dinner. We stayed until late night and had a BBQ in the fire pit on the sand. Good times!
Friday we went to the train museum and LA Zoo. It was SO hot and humid! This is a picture of all of us huddling in the only spot we could find shade! I have to admit....I wasn't the happiest camper there! It was pretty miserable. I was ready to go home! After we'd been a the zoo for a few hours, we had a little discussion between all our family to see who wanted to stay and who wanted to go home. I had a car load, so even though I wanted to leave, I didn't have much choice. 10 minutes after some of the family left, I got my first bee sting. There were thousands of bees swarming everywhere! Let me just say how thrilled I was about that!












Saturday was our last play day. We spent the day at the park. It was an enjoyable day, just sitting around talking and being able to find shade when it was too hot! We were able to get a whole lot of pictures!
The first one is a redo of the picture we took at our last family reunion 2 years ago (minus Elizabeth.) Youngest to oldest, only a 4 month difference--Memphis, Amy, Kyah, Kennedy. It was fun to see them all play together. I sure wish Emily and Jill were closer so these girls could grow up together!
This is the next group of babies all born within around 6 months of each other. Youngest to Oldest--Lydia, KayLee, Spencer, Mattison, Damien.
And finally, our whole group!








At the end of the day we all went back to Aunt Jeanine's house to watch a movie in her back yard with the projector. It really was a lot of fun and I can't wait for the next one in 2 years!