Memorial Weekend 2009

Usually on Memorial weekend we go camping with my parents. This year my mom decided no kids. Instead of just sitting home I decided to take the kids and spend the weekend with my cousin Desiray and her daughter Ember in Salt Lake. We got there Friday night and came home Monday. It was a very busy weekend and I'm drained now, but it was well worth it. My grandparents are serving a mission at Temple Square, so we spent the day with them on Saturday. We walked around Temple Square, went to lunch, and saw the Joseph Smith movie. It was great spending time with them. Sunday was the zoo day. When we got up it was cloudy but we were determined to go, so we bought umbrellas and off to the zoo we went. When we got there we got rain ponchos too, it ended up being a good thing because the umbrellas kinda got in the way. It rained pretty much the whole time, but it was still fun. It wasn't cold just a little wet. The animals were more active because it was cooler, there were animals out that I don't think I've seen out before. When we got home from the zoo it was nice and sunny (go figure), and the kids had been begging to get in the hot tub. Des and I gave in, since that was one of our favorite things when we were little. It only lasted about 45 minutes, it was too hot for them. Monday was Aquarium day. It was pretty cool, they had things we had only seen on t.v. They had jelly fish, an octopus, a giant lobster, sting rays that we could pet, sharks, eels, and all sorts of other sea creatures. There were tons of people there and we had to wait in line but it was well worth it. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from each adventure, the rest are in a slide show at the bottom.

Temple Square

Grandpa & Grandma Buttars and kids. Kids left to right: Ember, Dustin, Aurie, Dakota, and Kayla.
Isn't this beautiful?





This too...
...and this?

We thought so.

Hogle Zoo

Here we are at the zoo!

Do you really have to take pictures???

We won't get wet.

Do you mind?.......I'm eating.

Hot Tub

Kayla and Dakota thought they could get under the water before I took the picture but I was faster.

Maybe it's a little too hot.

Aquarium

Check it out we're in the ocean!!

Jelly Fish are pretty cool.

Petting the Sting Rays.

Little Sting Ray's.

Gotta Love Licorice

Pam was eating Red Vines, Dustin was staring, and yelling at her. He wasn't going to stop until she gave in and let him have one of his own. Needless to say, she gave in (how can you say no to those big brown eyes?). He loved it so much he didn't even care when she cleaned him up.

New do's

On Thursday Dustin got his first hair cut. We barely cut it but it looks so much different, he looks so grown up. His big brown eyes stand out so much more now, I love it.

"Wait a minute, what do you think you are doing to me?"

"I don't think I like this."

"Okay, fine just hurry up!"

Kayla also decided that she needed her hair cut. I thought she just wanted it trimmed, but I thought wrong. She got 6 or 7 inches cut off. It's okay though, it's very cute on her, she loves it, and we don't have to be able to pull it up for dance anymore. Thank you Kristi, you did an awesome job!!!

Saturday May 9

It was a beautiful warm day on Saturday so we decided to go to the park. Dustin got so excited watching the girls play that we thought we should let him play too. It was a lot of fun.

Dustin loved the swing, I think he would have stayed in it all day if we would have let him.

He didn't really care about the slide, we didn't even get a smile out of him.

All of the playing tired him out.

Gymnastics Meet

Aurie had her first gymnastics meet, and she did awesome. I think I should have put her in gym instead of dance 3 years ago. She didn't even care that there were people watching she just got up and did her thing.

Here she is on the bars, doing a flip. I think it would scare me, but she just did it like it was nothing.

Here is the beam. Once again she made it look easy.

Awards!!

She got first in 3 events, beam, floor, and vault. She got third in bars. Good job Aurie, we're proud of you!!