Will Ferrell as Bush

When playing with a 4 yr old all day I recommend this...

Jumbo sidewalk chalk.....fun!

Wading pool filled with barely tolerable freezing cold water to splash in....fun!

But water PLUS jumbo sidewalk chalk which make Indian Princess (or prince) warrior body paint?  SUPER FUN!

He very much preferred the dirt over body paint once he realized we were in "getting super dirty" mode, but what can you do with Indian warrior princes these days?

*side note: I think it is funny that I have seen all these snow posts on my friends blogs these days and here we are in the pool!  Gotta Love Vegas!

Choo! Choo!

Saturday was the first weekend in a month that we stayed in town...so to celebrate we drove to Boulder City! (for you non-vegans that is a little town just outside Vegas on your way to the Dam).  Mark found out about an old train ride there that runs every Saturday and Sunday.  The weather has been super nice here and Taj loves Thomas the Train toys and videos so we wanted to see how he handled the real thing.  My brother Travis and his little girl Alexis came along and we it was really fun!

Have you ever seen a cuter damsel in distress?  I think she's handling the pressure well don't you?

Not to be out done....

This is the train that you actually ride in...it pulled to a very loud squeaky stop right when we got there and Taj (although you can't really tell from this photo) was ecstatic!  "Choo-Choo!! Choo-Choo!"

Look how HUGE this was!  This is the "museum" portion of the station which meant like 5 or 6 old cars were under a canopy.  But...it was only like $8 for the ride and all the cute old train conductors are volunteers so I'm not complaining.  When you live in Vegas you take whatever historic family oriented outing you can get.

The happy travelers!  We sat in this open car most of the ride.  I think the top speed we hit was 20 mph.  After it was up and running they let you wander to the other cars and check them out.  I think one of the them dated back to 1911 but they all had been fully restored inside.  

(side note here:  we shaved Taj's head recently.  Whenever we do it I think he really looks like Charlie Brown!)

Trav and his girl! Alexis is quite honestly one of the smartest 4 year olds I've ever meet.  She is thoughtful and loving and happy but you have to think fast when she asks you something because she will call you out if you are sort of just making up the answer to try and sound smart. Trust me, I've tried! :)

And then last but not least Trav demonstrating how this old fashion on-board restroom might work!  (silly boy, you should know better than to pose for a picture like this when a girl who has a blog is holding the camera!  Live and learn! )  After the ride we went to lunch at the first A&W that was ever built around here.  Trav said he remembered that Dad would always take them there for a root beer float whenever the family went out to the Dam or Lake for a day.  It was a great day with family.  I like my life!

Brianhead....

I still have photo order upload issues....

We went to Brianhead last weekend and it was super fun!  We have really funny friends with sweet cabin hook ups and Taj was in heaven at the Simmons house!  What a life we lead! :)

Have you ever played the game Apples to Apples?  It is fun and we played a round but then we came up with a much better way to play.  We just started dishing out cards that we thought described the person we were giving them too!  Needless to say we were all laughing historically and no it did not have anything to do with giant wall of booze behind us! :)

This is Dusty and his cute wife Cori is in the first picture above!  I have had a very solid group of friends since high school and I can't believe how lucky it has all worked out!  My husband loves these guys and I adore their wives!  One big happy group of hommies.  And there were also two other couples that are in Jake's ward that came too.  This is a picture of Brock and Abby below.  It was fun to hang out with them and Tina and Curtis (although I didn't get any pictures of them :(.  They fit right in with our craziness but in this case Brock's monster drink was likely a big help! :)

Taj fell asleep like this about 5 minutes after we left our house and slept pretty much the whole way to St. George!

When we arrived at Jill's house it was a party the second Taj's toes touched the cement.  He had a blast!  I love seeing him recognize his cousins now and get so excited to play with them.  Thanks again Simmons family for watching him for us.

And here is us on the slopes.  I would actually consider this one of my wimpiest snowboarding sessions in a long time, but still quite worth the trip.