Home Away from Home

Hard to see but that is Abby and I racing down the Alpine Slide- yes, she won! (but I had Zach ;)I just thought this was a cool pic with the light, at our favorite new Mexican restaurant in Park City- El Chubasco! Yummy---

Here's me getting ready to bounce, bounce, bounce--- we should have jumped before hiking the mountain though- I was tired! But it's always fun to flip in a harness (Chris wimped out!)Me, midflip... hahahaha
Abby's getting ready to go- no surprise- she's like a Mexican jumping bean! Flip, flip, flip!
Once Claire got the hang of it, she was a flippin' flipper! Lot's of fun!

Nice view huh?? Hiking in the backcountry above Snowbird-pretty, and the kids were troopersClimbing the tunnel to the other side of the mountain, the flash lit it up, it was dark!
Cute girlies in the wildflowers!
This was on the trail up to the top of the mountain... view of Mineral Basin! Gorgeous!


The kids were mad that only Dad got to put his feet in the creek... ice cold snow runoff!On the Chickadee lift to the Alpine Slides- their favorite thing!!
On the Peruvian Chair lift, to the top of Snowbird... beautiful!!
Chris and I LOVED this sign, as we take our young family up the mountain, Abby's head is covering it a little- but it says "Be prepared for Self rescue" Hilarious!

This was us riding on a gondola up (and down) the hill, that's our condo in the background.Here's Chris on our Condo balcony, the view from our living room...
Park City commissioned a bunch of artists to design Moose's that are placed all over the city- here's one, but our favorite is "Stanley" at the Tanger Outlets....
Just a picture of our Hooligan's on Main Street during Park Silly Sunday Market...
Here we are setting off on our weeklong adventure, getting lunch at the Texas Roadhouse! Yum!Anyone that wants to bag on Utah can eat their heart out, it was a beautiful day!
Zach was just being cute and trading off holding the girls' hands instead of the usual Mom's, so...
This was in front of the Westgate Resort... fun, fun, fun...

We got suckered into a timeshare in Park City last year, and even though I threw a fit about it to Chris (ask him, it's true) I have to admit, it's nice to have a close place to get away to, and more, it forces us to take vacations!! We spent all last week up there, the last week of the kids summer vacation, just swimming, eating, playing, sleeping, watching Olympics, alpine slides, hiking, chair lifts, a day at Snowbird, riding a mechanical bull, jumping on a bungee tramp, and watching a marathon of America's Next Top Model, and shopping. I know-- it was a great week! So I thought I would share a few random pics of our vacation... enjoy!

And I have to elaborate on a few funny things... we don't have Cable, or Dish or any TV right now at our house... so one of the treats of the week was Disney channel for the kids, and Food Network for us. The great thing was that the Olympics started so that's what we did about every night, got obsessed with Olympics. The other funny thing though was that, on Friday we stumbled on the beginning of America's Next Top Model and got sucked into a marathon- and yes, I said we!! I teased that I was going to blog about it- Chris was just as, if not more into it than I was- he says it was the cutthroat competition... hahaha! But we had fun vegging too...

Breaking Dawn

In light of my brother-in-law's recent post about Mormon cultural sins, I had to share a little about a guilty pleasure and a confession about my true thoughts of this cultural phenomenon!

While the books in the Twilight series are National Bestsellers, so not limited by any means to an LDS audience, there is no question that they have been making the rounds through the LDS circuit and have a HUGE following. Granted- I enjoy the "Twilight" books, and considering I would not consider myself a "reader"- the fact that I read them at all is a huge compliment to the books! Having said that, here is my confession against the grain so to speak... I don't think that Stephenie Meyer is the greatest author ever, after "New Moon" I was convinced that Bella was a spoiled brat and hardly a great heroine, and a shallow character at best- she drove me absolutely crazy, a whiny spoiled brat! Edward was jealous and controlling, and not a great role model for teenage love (ie, it's probably not a great idea to let your boyfriend sneak in and spend every night with you). And frankly, I was rooting for Jacob a little by the end of Book 3!

Having said all that... Breaking Dawn, helped relieve a lot of that for me. I won't give any spoilers for you slowpokes who haven't finished it yet- you know who you are! BUT, I have to say that Bella redeems herself quite a bit, and my take now is just that she really was meant for Vampire life after all, and her wimpy, whiny former self is better off lost! And I was surprised at how much I like Bella being a vampire. Yes, I actually do like Edward, and he obviously had more self retraint than Bella, hello!? It would have been nice to have more details about the vampire/human honeymoon sex, I mean come on, how does that work?? And yet, I'm glad she refrained, knowing it's meant for a younger audience... maybe an adult version!? hahaha... And I'm happy for the fitting happy ending for Jacob that solved so many problems in one fail swoop! And I wish I had an Alice in my life! But there is one HUGE, flaw with the book and I'm not sure how it managed to survive editing... Renesmee? Seriously??! But, despite my polar feelings on the books- I enjoy them like everyone else and had finished my "copy" (Thank you Derek) by Monday afternoon... and on one final note.... you Twilighters really do need to get a life! Just a few random thoughts- but what do you think??

My Adorable Kids

Isabelle AliseAbigail Madelyn

Claire Adelaide

Zachary Evan James

I couldn't get a good picture of them all together, so I figured I would try to get a couple decent ones of them separate... taking these may have made me a little late for church on Sunday, but sometimes it's worth it. It's not often that they are all cute and clean at the same time, so I have to take advantage where I can get it... so here are my attempts at some cute closeups of my munchkins. Chris was pointing out that lately, little old people stop us (frequently) and tell us what a cute little family we have--- a bunch of little old people can't be wrong, it must be true.

Photographing Kids

For any parent who has tried to take a great picture of all their beautiful kids together- these shots are for you!! It is the MOST frustrating thing, I'm not asking for much, just one decent picture once in awhile where they are all together, looking the same way, and possibly even smiling... of course, it doesn't help when one of the subjects is an almost two year old...

Heidi's a Jungle Gym

My kids have thought I was their own personal jungle gym since they could move... and here are some pictures of a crazy night at the Maloy manor to prove it! And it's not very often that I'm actually in the family photos, so I thought I would share these great pictures that Isabelle took of our wild, and wacky ways.

Mutant Grape

Chris is always bragging about our "genetically" perfect fruit... nevermind... anyway... Claire thought it was hilarious when she found this 'freaky' grape and really wanted to share with all who would listen so I figured I would share. So here is our conjoined triplet siamese grape- I know, you're jealous... and yes, this grape was harmed when we separated the conjoined triplets.

Independence Day

For the fourth, we decided to go to our timeshare in Park City... it was great! The kids only care about the pool (supposedly it's the largest indoor/outdoor pool in Utah) and probably wouldn't even have gotten out for fireworks if we hadn't made them. But we all had a great time, and once we did pry them out of the pool, we were off in search of food. We found a grocery store across from the golf course, stocked up on picnic foods and snacks, and found a great spot amongst the crowd at the gold course adjacent to the resort where the fireworks were being shot off--- it was great! There we sat with great food, among the beautiful canyons of Park City, surrounded by families just eating and having fun--- we had to wait AWHILE for the works to begin but it was worth it and they put on a great show... it was getting cold by that point too, so there we all were using Chris as a pillow and scrunched together under our one blanket- ah, memories! It just might be our new tradition--- Happy Independence Day America!