subway

and as much as i talk about food, i'm not talking about the restaurant chain...  i am talking about the Subway hike through Zion National Park.  my friend bill had permits to go and invited me along, and since i have never hiked the subway, i was all about it.  now, we didn't hike the whole thing, but we hiked about 9 miles round trip.  only our feet got wet, and i may have fallen down once... but as bill is a landscape photographer, we made it about taking pictures, and i'm glad we did because it is a beautiful place!  thanks bill, for taking me along!  you see a lot of different things while on this hike.  the formations are pretty great.  here are some of the pictures that i got  :)

missouri

man, i just can't keep up on anything!  this trip happened a month ago but my sister, mom, and i and the two kids went and took a really, really fun trip to missouri to see family and celebrate with  my cousin for his wedding.  it was such a good trip and the kiddos did great (with only a couple of come-a-parts).  i was just going to post some pictures, but i decided to tell about the trip too.  so this ended up a lot longer than intended!
mom , jorel and i drove out on the 10th of August (Wednesday) to Burbank to be able to fly out with Jaana and Stevie.  i was so excited to take a trip with my sister, because these days its usually us traveling alone to see one another.  we left after work so got in kind of late.  jorel had to ask and ask and ask where we were (are we in california?!) about 500 times before we even reached vegas!  he's a crack up.  i also asked him some questions while we were driving to try to keep us all entertained.  here are some of those questions:

What is your favorite song?  its a small world and the pirate song
Who is your best friend?  colin and baby stephen
What is your favorite color? orange
What is your favorite food?  cereal
What is your favorite snack? fruit snacks
What is your favorite movie? thomas and friends: thomas' snowy surprise
What is your favorite song to sing? my life has a gift, my life has a plan, my life has a purpose in heaven it began...
What is your favorite thing to play? thomas
Where is your favorite place to go? disneyland, on a plane, the zoo train
What is your favorite book? thomas and the golden engine
What are you going to be when you grow up? get big and tall
What is your favorite vegetable? banana
What is your favorite fruit? apples
What is your favorite shirt? Lightning McQueen
What is your favorite sport?  i want a fort!
What do you want for your birthday? a present
What job do you want when you grow up?  (with some coaxing this time - firefighter, doctor, etc) firefighter, mom is a doctor
What do you think of mom?  krista!
what is your favorite animal? baby cows
What do you think of mummi? she's nice
What do yo think of ginger?  she's mean.  she tore apart my sandwich

he also ate all of my trail mix i bought and seemed pretty happy about that: 

the next morning we got ready to get to the airport and packed all of our stuff in jaana's car.  after a quick bite at in-n-out, we got there and got through security and then found out that our flight was delayed not just a little bit but 3 hours!  the kids did pretty good staying entertained, but we were all pretty anxious to get onto the airplane!  our schedule that we had planned out (especially jaana for stevie) was totally messed up.  we got to the hotel WAY later than expected and were pretty exhausted after the day was over.  plus us getting all of our bags to the airport was pretty ridiculous.  we were so happy to drop that luggage off!  we were totally "those people"

@ jaana's

@ the airport

we ended up sleeping in a little more than we had planned and jaana was going to help our cousin take the wedding pictures so we had to get another quick bite - this time at chik-fil-a (yum!) and went to the temple to watch the couple walk out and get all those pictures taken.  mom and the kids and i went back to the hotel to let the kids eat and nap and such before the rest of them got back.  we only had a moment before we had to head to dinner - which, of course, we were fashionably late to.  leave it to us!

@ the St. Louis Temple

after dinner we decided it was time for a swim and a shower.  after the shower we decided to have a little mishap.  jorel slipped getting out of the tub and sliced his chin open.  of course at first i thought it was SO bad, but it stopped bleeding pretty quickly so by the time i got back from the lobby with the band-aid it looked better.   but, man, it made me nervous for a moment. as soon as the ban-aid got on he was okay, but wouldn't move his chin.  we had a couple of crying kids that night and it was kind of chaotic for a moment, but its pretty funny looking back on it.  i didn't get a picture of it right then, but i did get one the next couple of days.  

so that next morning we decided to get out and see some things in st. louis since we had a little bit of time before our 4 hour drive to joplin.  we started out with breakfast at this super yummy super cute place called My Daddy's Cheesecake Bakery and Cafe.  after that we went to the zoo to ride the "shoe train."  admission to the zoo was free, but it cost 12 dollars to park and 5 dollars a person to ride the train.  it was all worth it and i think more zoos should do it this way.  we didn't have time for anything else and only saw the top of a tiger's head but the kids seemed to enjoy it. 

@ the cafe                                                                           @ the zoo

after the zoo we went to the arch.  this really is a magnificent piece of architecture.  but we were grateful when we got down underneath it in the air conditioning and were able to get a drink!  we didn't have enough time to ride up to the top (bummer!) but it is a pretty cool place.  the arch was designed by a Finnish man so its really part of our heritage :).  st. louis is really cool because as you drive around and look at all of the different places, you really do see some of the history of it.

@ the arch

we had to get our of st. louis in order to make it to my cousin's reception (late again!) and ended up changing on the way and i was driving so i changed in the car when i got there!  it was pretty entertaining.  but we made it!  we didn't get to see the tornado damage like we wanted to, but drove through some of it and it really is devastating. jorel enjoyed hanging out with his cousin luke and he danced it up on the dance floor.  he also was giving everyone hugs that he thought were hard enough to make everyone cough.  so if you didn't he got mad.  what a goof.

@ the reception

we spent that night and most of the next day visiting with family and celebrating my grandpa's 94th birthday.  he is pretty amazing.  my sister got some great pictures of the day and some 4th generation photos.  jorel ran around with grandpa rick and luke all day.  i'm pretty sure that he wore them out.  i ended up getting really bad allergies so i was walking around with tissue all day :(.  i didn't get any pictures that day but my mom got a couple (notice jorel's half smile because of his chin!  haha):

@ aunt diana's house

after the festivities we really weren't ready to leave all the family but it was time for us to get back to st. louis so we could catch our flight in the morning.  we got to the hotel really late, but we were ready to crash.  in the morning we got ready for the airport and weren't thinking and forgot to fill the rental up with gas!  ugh.  luckily budget reimbursed us some because that was a really expensive rental and that's not including the free car seat!  blah.  we got back to jaana's and she went to the adele condert (jealous!) and i ended up sleeping my little sickness away.

@ the hotel and on the airplane

back @ jaana's (mom took this one too) 

the next day mom and i drove back and then it was back to work.  but it was such a great trip.  i'd do it again!

broken

a couple of weeks ago i was uploading some pictures and when i took my camera out of my bag, something was missing... the inside of my lense!  it was a bummer.  but, it is replaceable.  take a look: 

 

i dont' quite know when it happened, there could have been many moments i suppose, but the focus ring cracked just enough to allow for the part that holds the glass just fell right out!  at least it wasn't a really expensive lens!

good times - and lots of pictures!

this last week has been really fun. although my aunt and uncle, Leena and Ossi, left last tuesday, my cousin and his fiance, Antti and Miia, stayed and played. they leave on monday :( but its been a fun month for them to be here. last week we went hiking in a little place that no one can know about... jk but it was beautiful! hiking through cold water - it takes your breath away at times - and falling off of waterfalls... i'm such a klutz!! i have 4 injuries from the hike - two pretty good size bruises, a pull in my shoulder and a good size scrape on my shin. i'm not as graceful as i used to be... hence falling off the rope ladder and into the waterfall... sunday we went over to my step-sister's house grubbed on her home made - cafe rio style food, i think its better than the real thing, and swam in her little pool. jorel is starting to get a lot more comfortable in the water so its been fun. not that he doesn't like it, but he is still unsure and holds on tight while giggling up a storm. some other family - the germans - were driving back to queen creek, az and stopped by to eat on the way home, so i made sure to grab a pic of the whole gang. jorel has been super funny lately, or as usual, and just growing up so fast. i knew he would but sometimes you just look at him and think, holy cow - you just got bigger. also everything now is "cool" as it is his new word! trina and i have taken our boys to the pool a couple of times and thursday was one of them. we also hit up the proposal that evening for some girl time out and we both thought the movie was pretty cute. yesterday tyler was nice enough to take my cousins, markus, derek, jena, and i up to his cabin to do some four wheeling. it was the perfect evening to do it, so nice up at zion ponderosa, we even got a little chilled when the fire went out! and even though the fire exploded and burned a whole through me cousin's shorts, they seemed to have a really good time on their first four wheeling experience. here are some pictures to show some of our adventures... oh but i can't forget to mention that driving back through zion from the cabin a little coyote crossed in front of us and no one in our car had ever seen one except derek - so we said it was a blog moment haha... we also saw a buck and a doe out when we were following the trails.

hiking the falls

jorel's nightly jog - he was jealous to not go hiking i guess

the family

jorel's battle with a pickle (still num num though)

his usual sleeping position - kam must take after him jena :)

loving the dog before we left

WIENIES!

four wheeling and jolly's gulch

more wienies and s'mores of course!

oh and jaana, this pic is just for you!