Fall break

She loved taking a nap in this hammock.

 For Bryce's Fall Break we went camping down in beautiful Brown County. The trees were probably a little better the weekend before, but it was still pretty amazing. The weather was great the days we were there and the ground was dry so Daphne's rolling around in the leaves wasn't a problem. We were joined by our new friends the Dawsons, and had a really fun evening with them. Even though our darling girl decided none of us should get any sleep that night, it was still a good time. We didn't hike this time around, but we drove to some of the good vantage points, played with leaves and sticks and enjoyed the beauty of fall.

 On the way home we stopped at a pretty fantastic pumpkin patch. It was just on the side of the road, there was no hay ride or hike to get your gourd. Just plenty of beautiful, (and beautifully priced) pumpkins right there to choose from.

check out all those colors!

 

We also hit up Zaharakos Ice Cream parlor for lunch and made a stop at the outlets. I continue to be disappointed in the options for baby boy clothes. Every time I go shopping for little brother I come home with a new wardrobe for Daf.

Epic Road Trip

We went on a big summer road trip, and had a wonderful time. Unfortunately we majorly failed at taking pictures; I think we took 8 in two and a half weeks. Oops. So here is our big adventure in miles.
Indianapolis to Overland Park, KS: 8 hours 2 mins, 502 miles
-We stayed with Bryce's brother Kyle.
-Daphne played with her cute cousins and loved crawling all over 3 months younger Soren.
-Rested up for the next leg of our journey.
Overland Park, KS to Breckenridge, CO: 10 hours 36 mins, 685 miles
-Caravaned with Kyle and Kristen. Driving across Kansas was the most boring thing that ever happened to me. I was almost glad when my brother-in-law got pulled over because it broke up the monotony.
-Stopped in Highlands Ranch to visit our cute friends Tom and Ashley. They're having a baby soon!
-Stayed in an enormous cabin with the entire Fortner family.
-Went on a few hikes (nature walks)
-Road bikes.
-Survived the stomach flu.
-Played with the cousins.
-Whipped down a mountain on an alpine slide.
-Fell in love with Colorado. It's on the list of places I think I should live some day.
Breckenridge, CO to Yellowstone:9 hours, 17 mins, 506 miles
-Stopped in the charming old west town of Dubois, WY for Daphne's first camping experience.
-met up with my parents, brothers, Aunt and Uncle Geddes and Cousin Elisa and her family.
-Camped in Teton National Park for three nights.
-Saw a moose, elk, bears, pelicans and herons.
-Visited Old Faithful and bunch of the other awesome geysers and hot springs.
-Swam in a glacial lake
-Did a little hiking.
Yellowstone to Lehi, UT: 7 hours 7 mins, 402 miles
- Stayed with My brother Daniel and his family.
-Daphne played with some more fun cousins, and again enjoyed crawling over Beatrix whose 4 months younger.
-Went to 7 peaks
-Rented bikes and road down the Provo River trail.
-Wandered around BYU and relived our college days
-Spent time with my favorite sister!
-Went to a wedding reception for Bryce's old roomie Justin Hale, and hung out with some of Brycee's old friends.
-Ate venison steak, Yum!
-Decided we want to live in Utah. Too bad you can't spit in Utah without hitting a dentist.
Lehi, UT to Omaha, NE: 13 hours, 32 mins, 955 miles
-Stopped at possibly the coolest rest stop ever.
-Experienced humidity again.
-Stayed the Night With Bryce's sister Becky and her family.
Omaha, NE to Indianapolis, IN:9 hours, 37 mins, 608 miles
-Made it home to an air conditioned house and dinner in the fridge thanks to my amazing friend Courtney.
-Never felt quite so happy to be home.

So add in about 300 more miles for trips from place to place in each location and about 8 more hours in the car and that equals about 63 hours and just under 4,000 miles.
Yeah, it was long. Daphne was a stinker and I had to sit in the backseat with her almost the entire time. I was also nauseated the whole duration. But we had a great time. There were so many little good moments on this trip that in spite of everything, I think it was one of my fave vacations ever.

My favorite part of our trip was seeing Daphne and Bryce spend so much time together. Bryce pretty much took over the childcare. He changed diapers, took care of bedtime, managed meals and basically relieved me of parenting duties. He was amazing and besides the obvious enjoyment on my part, Daphne loves him a lot more now. Yay!

Red, White and very blue

My little Brother Ethan has been visiting for the last couple weeks, and for the culmination of his visit this weekend we planned a big trip to Michigan lake and Chicago.

It was perfect beach weather, and Daphne ate less sand than I anticipated.

But she didn't like Bryce burying her
We had wanted to camp, but it was 4th of July weekend. SO we camped in a trashy motel. I say "camped" because we definitely used our sleeping bags, and considered putting up the tent.
We went into Chicago to see the Cub's play. This is the only picture I got of Chi-town, the train.
On the way home we stopped in some tiny town for a freedom festival. A few rides and some funnel cake makes for a celebration in my book.


This slightly disturbing looking picture is of Ethan helping me by getting Daphne dressed while I worked on other things.
Such as: treats for the families Bryce Home Teaches,
And treats for the party we went to.
We went to an awesome party at our friends the Henricksen's house. Amazing ribs and lots of fun people.


And of course lots of things for Ethan to light on fire.

Now my little buddy has gone home, and I'm feeling pretty blue about it.

We miss you Ethan. Come back soon!

Nauvoo

When I was 14 my family went to Nauvoo. They decided to go during the week of Girl's Camp... my 4th year of Girl's Camp, which as everyone knows is the very best year. So I never went to Nauvoo until this weekend.

We started our adventures with a horse-drawn carriage ride.

We visited Carthage Jail. This was definietly the most moving part of the trip.

We planned the trip with our friends the Farnsworths. We got to have lots of fun with them, but due to overlapping nap times we didn't see them as much as we would have liked.
We saw the "Rendevous" Program

We enjoyed talking to all the cute senior and sweet sister missionaries.

We went to the Print Shop, the Tin Smith, The Black Smith, The Wainwright, the Brick Yard and all the fun places where they show you how things were done back in the Pioneer days.

Daphne liked to get really hands on.
We walked down the "Trail of Hope" It was especially neat to see the journal entries (as well as the homes) of a couple of my ancestors.
We crossed the great Mississippi several times
Bryce kept Daphne entertained while I did a temple session

We loved just getting to be with Bryce for 3 whole days!
We did the Community Of Christ tour of sites. It was really interesting to get a glimpse of their beliefs. There was a distinctly different feel between the LDS sites and theirs. This is at the grave site of Joseph, Hyrum and Emma.


The whole weekend was wonderful. We had great whether, good company and our testimonies were sure fed. Learning more about the sacrifice all the Saints made back then makes me grateful for their examples in perfect faith, and inspires me to be more willing to sacrifice for truth.

(I'm also reallygrateful we decided to stay in a hotel instead of camping.)

OPRAH!

Did you watch Oprah on Wednesday? Me neither. But if you had, and you hit pause at just the right second when two guests were walking out of the back tunnel you would have seen me and three of my friends wildly jumping up and down and pretending for all the world like we knew who those two people were and we were exccited about it.

That's right, I went to see Oprah a week and a half ago. Now, I know what you're thinking... Doesn't Oprah always give her studio audience some fabulous prize during the course of the show? You'll have to wait to hear about that.

Early Friday morning Jenna, Lindsey, Kim and I squeezed into my car and headed for Chicago. Thankfully, the roads were clear of ice and snow and weather was great. When we arrived we had a few hours to kill so we had breakfast at Le Peep and perused the Oprah Store. Did you know you can buy items from Oprah's personal wardrobe? (Is that the smell of success or body odor?)

We then trudged back through the knee deep snow to Harpo Studios where we waited an additional 2.5 hours for our show to start.

Having to sit backstage for so long did afford its amusements. We saw Jennifer Hudson being literally carried onto the stage by two assistants because her stilettos were about six inches tall and needle thin. We also saw some guy from Project Runway being escorted past us. We got to hear them both being interviewed about how Oprah has changed them, the world, etc.

Finally it was time. The theme was Soap Opera stars. I was severely disappointed no characters from my Soap, Days, were featured. And to be perfectly honest, it wasn't as overwhelmingly awesome I expected, but it was definitely cool.

After the show we had an amazing dinner at Maggiano's, (more lemon aioli sauce, please!) And headed to our hotel. I felt like I was back at BYU living with roommates. Talked and laughed long into the night then fell asleep just after 11pm. What can I say, we're all moms of little babies and looked forward to a restful, full night of sleep.

We headed home to our babies early Saturday morning and after one blizzard and a 45 segment of stand still traffic we made it home.

I can't even emphasize how much fun I had with these girls. I could do without Oprah. Give me a weekend with friends any time!

Oh yeah, our fabulous prizes...nada. No cruise, no car, not even a pencil. Can you even believe it? Oh well, the memory is the real treasure, right?

(Ellen DeGeneres, if you're reading this, you are now and will always be my favorite. You are way better than Oprah and I would love to come to your twelve days of Christmas show next year.)

Meet me in St. Louis, and Kansas City and Omaha!

We took advantage of Bryce's week off last week to do some sight seeing and family visiting in the Midwest.
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First stop: St Louis, MO where we saw a Cardinals game,

Went to the zoo and the World's fair sight,
Visited the famous arch, and walked along the river where we could see the steam boats going up and down,
And went to the Temple.Next stop, Kansas. We got to spend a couple of days visiting with Bryce's brother Kyle and his wife Kristin. Their little girl is stinking cute, but I didn't get any pictures of her.
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We went to a Kansas City Royals game. The team pretty much stinks, but I think Kauffman Stadium is my favorite of all the ball parks we've been to so far.Then we hit up the church history sites in the area: Independence, MO, Liberty Jail, Far West and Adam ondi-Ahman. I loved the visitor's center at Indepedence. Their presentation about families was so touching, and the video segment of President Monson's talk on Finding Joy in the Journey Now was super inspiring.
We were the only ones at Adam ondi-Ahman when we visited. Incredibly beautiful and peaceful! (there was a shocking rainbow behind me, but you can't really see it)

And finally we stopped for one day in Omaha, NE to visit Bryce's sister Becky and her family. They took us to the Mormon Trail center and Winter Quarters temple. Another great visitor's center! I think my favorite part of this visit was while walking home from church, Charlie (four-year-old in the yellow shirt) asked me, "So what do you like about plants?" We discussed the subject all the way home. He likes trees and grass the best.

These kids are so well-behaved! I hope that's a trait all Fortner children are born with, and not just a result of Becky and Justin's superior parenting skills.

We didn't really get our fill of Bryce's siblings, but luckily we will see them in Seattle in a few weeks for a family wedding!

For our next summer trip we are going a little more exotic. Jamaica, I will see you in a few days!