The Surprise

The day the big surprise begins! It is a tradition in our family to make the birthday person a big candybar poster. On this poster I drew a map from our house that ended at Grandma's house in Utah. So Elle awoke on her birthday to find that her day was going to be spent driving for 13 hours in the car! Emma was just as surpised as Elle but she found that the best way to spend those 13 hours was sleeping through 5 of them. Tanner and I had some great conversations and even though Tanner didn't really want to go on a birthday adventure he treated his mom and sisters with patience and love and I was sure glad to have him along!

We got to Grandma's house two days and many dvd's later only to find that Katie and Grandpa had to do some major coaxing to get Grandma to go home! Grandma found the four Greer's in her kitchen instead of a big screen tv and boy was she shocked!


We shared lots of hugs and kisses. It made the trip all worth while to see the shear look of unbelief that Grandma had on her face as she realized that we came to see her.

We know Elle grew some this year as she passed Grandma up. It is always a goal of my kids to get taller then their Grandma...which isn't that hard to do but Elle was very proud of herself.

Hannah came up to Oakley to keep Grandma company. She was just as surprised as Grandma and even started crying when she saw all her cousins and Aunt Krys from Minnesota!

We had a great first day in Utah as is was filled with catching up with hugs and love for Grandma and Grandpa and relaxing in beautiful Oakley Utah a place I have grown to love visiting and am going to miss so much when my mom and dad end up selling their home which they have on the market.

TRIP TO UTAH

Hello friends and family! I decided to surprise my mom by making an unplanned trip to Utah. Scott told me on Sunday July 6 to pick my week I wanted to go visit Utah this summer (I think he thought that I would go in Aug.) and I decided on Tues. July 8 to leave on Thurs. July 10 (Elle's Birthday!) I also decided to surprise Elle and Emma so I packed everything up on Wed. and woke up early on Thursday morning told the girls we were going on a birthday adventure (Tanner was in on the planning) and to get into the car! The girls were shocked! It was so much fun. We left at 7:00am and pulled into Little America in Cheyenne WY at 8:30pm. Thirteen hours of driving through some of the most beautiful green country (Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, not so green was Wyoming) in the USA!! Thank goodness for Tanner...he kept me awake through all that driving by talking nonstop the entire time. Have any of you ever had the experience of listening to Tanner talk for thirteen hours straight? Well it was the best!

We arrived in Oakley Ut at 3:00pm the next day and my mom was nowhere to be found. She had been staying in Granstville in her vacation home (the 5th wheel trailer) and was refusing to leave and drive back to Oakley. Katie and my Dad were doing their best to get her out of Granstville but as you all probably know, Barbara doesn't like any one telling her what she has to do! Finally Katie told her that there was a surprise for her in Oakley and she better leave. Well my mom drove up to Oakley to find me and the kids in her kitchen and it was such a total unexpected surprise!! (She thought she was getting a big screen tv, sorry mom to disappoint).

The nineteen hours of driving was all worth it to see the look of shock on my mom's face! The kids were great on the drive and I will so totally do it again (I have to still find 6 no 7 license plates New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, West Virgina, and Virgina, oh and we can't forget Hawaii so says Elle) except for the surprise part. My mom told me it was great to have a surprise but she needed a little warning so she could get herself properly medicated for our next visit! (I still love you mom even when you are not medicated).

We spent a wonderful 7 days in Utah. The cousins spent time together playing cards, going swimming, riding 4 wheelers, watching movies, shopping at the outlets, eating lots of Popsicles and making s'mores! It is just the kind of summer activities that the best memories come from! The sisters (Krystine, Allison, Katie and Barbara) got to go out to lunch share time, stories, advice and love as well as guess some great secrets!! But as the time drew to an end the kids and I were looking forward to getting back to our lives in Minnesota. We all missed our dogs and very most we missed Scott! So just as exciting as it was to drive out to Utah we were all excited to drive home!

I took 263 pictures on the trip but my blog helper Tanner has left to go on High Adventure with Scott for the rest of the week. I don't know how to down load the pictures onto the computer without his assistance so for now all you get is the written word! Tune in next week and I will add some really wonderful pictures to go along with the blog!

Until the next blog....I love you all!

Activities this summer

Here are some pictures from the many activities the kids have been doing this Summer:

The girls have both started horseback riding lessons this summer. They have been wanting to do this for 3 years. Emma enjoys horseback riding lessons. Her horse is named Zan.

Elle loves animals and is having a great time learning to ride horses! Elle day dreams about her horse Muffy every day.

We were dropping Elle off at her first YMCA camp. She was gone for a whole week and I think I missed her more then she missed me! She had a blast and taught all the young women in the ward the "shake your little tail" cheer so they could do it up at YW Girls Camp.

Elle and Emma goofing off with the camera one day!

One of my favorite things are sunsets!! This picture was taken at Young Womens Girls Camp. I was able to go to Young Womens Camp this year as camp director. It was a wonderful week of fun and friends!

Tanner and his date Victoria getting ready to leave for prom back in May.

Welcome to my blog!

I have been thinking about doing a blog for a while but it wasn't until I saw Jamie's blog that I got really motivated to take some action. Tanner has been walking me through the process for the last hour and now I am to the part where I get to actually write something! This seems weird because blogging seems kind of a way of journaling. So here I start my blog (or journaling) and it is open to the whole world to read, well I don't think that the whole world will read my blog but hopefully my sisters! By blogging I hope to share my life and world with those I love the most, and because I am far away from them this seems a fun way to do it. If you are not my sisters and you tune in from time to time and read about my fascinating life you will also discover that my grammar is atrocious and if I didn't have spell check (thank heavens I do) I probably spell on a fifth grade level. My sisters already know this and make fun of me constantly in my emails but now the rest of you will know that this is one of my many failures...Scott, Tanner and I actually had a discussion last night on how horrible the school system was in (and probably still is) Granstville when I went there twenty years ago and it is their fault that I don't know how to compose a sentence or read one book while I was going to high school there!

Well I will have much more to say later I am going to finish setting up the blog now!