Some Summer Fun

Just some summer fun. The other day we went to the Living Planet Aquarium here in Sandy Utah. Its not much compared to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but its pretty good for being in the middle of a high desert in Utah. Chris really enjoys going there and seeing all the fish. They even have a little sting ray pool where you can pet the sting rays as they swim by. Here are a few pictures of our latest trip.

Checking out the puffer fish

Wow, if looks could kill.....

Aww, there's the nice smile

Going on a canoe ride entering the South America exhibits

EEEWWW, what are these??

The newest edition to the aquarium is their penguins

Chris loves to play in the sprinklers in the back yard. He couldn't wait until he went and got his swim trunks on, so he just stripped down to his undies. He has a ball just running back and forth in the water. What a goof ball!

and a close up of the cutie boy

Me and Mommy

Bates Family Reunion

Every year in June the Bates family has their big reunion. Here are some pix from this years reunion.

Christopher and his cousin's son, Kooper, doing the 3 legged race. They did pretty good for a pair of 3yr olds

Mr Cheeser himself

Chris wanted to join in on the team roping competition. You can't see it but he's swinging his rope around like he's getting ready to rope the steer. He spent A LOT of time practicing roping the steer while we were out there. Not sure if he'll become a bull rider, bronc rider, team roper, or a steer roper.... time will tell, and we'll just keep taking him to rodeos so he can enjoy watching them all.

Practicing his bull riding

a video of him riding the bull.... then he gets distracted by the peacock

This was a pic of him all ready to go to the Delta Rodeo. He's got his cowboy hat, cowboy shirt, wrangler jeans, lace up cowboy boots, and his cowboy belt with a bull rider belt buckle. He's all ready to go!!

Ok so we went to the zoo yet again. I'm thinking I better just get a family membership, then we can go all the time. Mary, Scotty and Ashley came up to SLC this week, so we took all the kids and went to the zoo. Here are some pix from out day at the Utah's Hogle Zoo.

Scotty and Chris hanging out with the giant elephant

Christopher and me in front of the giant elephant

a trip back in time.... first time I took Chris to the zoo, July 2007... he was 3 months old.... compared to 3 yrs old as the pic above.... and yup he still asks Mom to hold him

Chris riding the elephant on the carousel ride

oh yes, he loves riding the carousel...here he's on a seal

Baby Zuri, and her Mommy Christie....Zuri put on quite a show for the crowd after they let her and her mommy back into this area after the keepers cleaned it up.

Zuri the baby elephant playing around

He's still working on measuring up

Scotty and Chris pretending to be Bobcats.... not sure what brought this about, but thats what they were doing.... goof balls

Baby Ashley....she was just too cute to not put on here

GeoCaching

Jared introduced us to Geocaching last week. Its were you go online and get the GPS coordinates for hidden Caches, put the coordinates into your GPS, then go out there and find the Caches. We told the boys that we were going Treasure Hunting. They thought it was pretty cool. They didn't like when we had to sit in the car and drive around to different spots. Once they got out of the car they had a great time searching all around for the "treasures". In a lot of the caches you will find little trinkets that you can take, just as long as you bring something to trade. A lot of the caches we found just had log books that we would sign showing that we had found the cache. Here are some pictures of the "treasure hunting".

Enoch area Caches

Our first cache

Scotty decided that every tin can he found after this was a treasure

Best Buddies

this was at one of the caches....it was just too darn cute not to share

One of the caches was hidden as part of this plastic bird

Christopher and his Cache

Parowan Gap Caches

hiking up to find the cache

that little silver dot in the center is my car, just an idea how far up we hiked

and now we found our cache....or treasure I mean

L to R: George, Christopher, Scotty, & Triston

we found a "Travel Bug" at this cache. We logged this travel bug and now we have to move it to a new cache for someone else to find. Will be interesting to see how long it will take someone to find and log where we put the travel bug.

Some not so nice looking clouds coming our way

we got back to the car just in time for the rain, and then the hail

Parowan Gap Petroglyphs

Parowan Gap is a canyon and passage through the Red Hills west of Parowan Valley. When the first Mormon Pioneers came there in 1849, Chief Wakara, a widely revered and greatly respected Paiute tribal leader, told them that Parowan Gap was "God's Own House." Recent research and observation is making both the scientist and casual visitor take this statement very seriously. There are solar and lunar events that happen there which were created by no human intervention. Phenomena occur which create a natural calendric structuring of the year's times and seasons with a kind of "Primal Logic of Nature". The pre-Columbian Fremont Peoples of the Parowan Valley noticed these yearly events and recorded them by date number and in many symbolic petroglyphic inscriptions. You can learn more about these at www.parowangap.org

Loving the Zoo!!!

Chris loves to go to the zoo. On Wednesday we went to the zoo with my dad (or "My Papa with no hair" as Chris calls him).

Checking out a parrot...or is the parrot checking Chris out

I think this tortoise is bigger than the little man

hhhmmm... any resemblance??

this looks like a good place to take a rest

just being goofy

little turtle

Christopher's past Hawaii Trips

Kailua-Kona, October 2007

His first trip to Hawaii he was 6 months old. There were 7 of us on this trip. My Mom and step-dad, Christopher, his dad, me, my sister Mary and her little boy Scotty.

Chris and his Mommie at Spencer State Beach

Uma Uma Falls

Look at those blue eyes!!!

Rainbow Falls with his Mommie

Maui, February 2008

In February of 2008 we went on a quick trip to Maui. Lil Guy was 10 months old. There were 4 of us on this trip. Myself, the little guy, his dad, and my friend Alison. We were only there for two nights. My brother saved us by getting us a room at his timeshare in Kihei. We were a block away from the beach, and as we were walking to the beach on the first morning we could see the whales out in the water. It was so neat to see. I can't wait to go back to Maui and go on a whale watching cruise there! I bet its AMAZING!!

Chris watching the birds at breakfast

Kaanapali Beach

Oahu

September 2008

Chris, me and my step-dad took a little trip to Oahu to celebrate my finishing of my Medical Technology Program. It was a crazy two years to get that program done, but I survived it!!! And now I'm an ASCP board certified Medical Technologist....well now they've decided to title us as Clinical Laboratory Scientists. Oh well, I did it...and we went to Hawaii to celebrate!!!

At the USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

Punch Bowl

Buddhist Temple

Battle of Nu'uanu Pali lookout

Waikiki Beach

Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head in the background

Kauai

February 2009

So I was finally able to convince my parents to try an island other than the Big Island of Hawaii. I convinced them that we should try the island of Kauai. I really enjoyed this island. It is so green all over the island. We did an island tour by van, air, and water. The trip by air was fun.... until a little boy threw up all over me as we hit the turbulence going over the Na Pali coast. We survived, but it wasn't very pleasant. We did a tour by van (that was originally suppose to be a bus, but ended up being a van). It got a little cramped in the van but, oh well, we were in Hawaii!! The boat trip was a lot of fun. Chris found a lady from Korea (I think) and immediately turned on his flirting and had her eating out of his hand in no time. We even made it to a few different beaches and enjoyed the sun and sand. I think that Kauai was a very beautiful island and I would love to go back!

at the beach with Mom

Chris even went out, kind of, in the water with his Gramma

Some pretty waves in the background

this was just such a funny face he pulled. This was at the Kilauea Light house lookout

there's the light house

Waimea Canyon. Think the Grand Canyon only with lots of green foliage on it, very pretty

Lil Man checking out the canyon

a waterfall in Waimea Canyon

and zooming in on the waterfall

Menehune pond

Menehune (Alekoko) Fishpond
Legends abound about the Menehune, an ancient race of "little folk" who made their home on Kauai. These mysterious people were thought to be very industrious and used their great strength to accomplish mighty feats overnight. The seaward end of the fish pond was left unfinished because dawn came before the Menehune had completed their work. Many generations later, the wall was completed. However, the stonework which closed the gap was far inferior to that of the mystical Menehune.

Spouting Horn, or Blowhole on the south shores of Kauai

Lil guy at the Fern Grotto

Mommy and Me

Lil Guy made some new friends

Lil guy hanging at the pool eating Oreo's

Island air tour, yup he's asleep

those were suppose to be my earphones, but he wouldn't let me wear them, so I'm wearing his
Waimea Canyon from the air

start of the Na Pali coast from the air (shortly before the little guy got sick)

a nice shot of some beaches near Hanalei Bay

The new girlfriend Chris made on the cruise

Mommy, Gramma and me

Lil Guy had the best sea legs of anyone on the boat I think (maybe because he was so much closer to the ground than the rest of us)

Beautiful Sunset

He loved playing in the sand!

cute toes in the sand

YUMMY Sand

Gramma and Me, enjoying the waves on our last day before we had to head back and shower and then get on the plane home

As you can see the little guy has had many Hawaiian adventures, and yet he is still asking to go more and more. His Auntie Shirley bought him a kick board, that is a good size for a surf board for him. So now he is asking me when he can go to Hawaii and go surfing. I told him if we can get him into swim lessons, then we will go surfing next year when we go to Hawaii. As of right now we haven't decided if we are going to Hawaii, or Kauai. We've invited my brother-in-law and his family to join us next year. If they go that will put the party up to 9!!! WOW......so I guess there will be more pictures of Hawaii to come :-) Hope you've enjoyed!