Barnes Family Reunion

On August 2, all of the Carl and Anavoe Barnes family (or at least most of us - we sure missed Casey, Stephanie, and David) gathered at Grandma and Grandpa's house for the afternoon. It has been a long time since all of us have been together and it was good to catch up. 

Check out the slideshow below to see how much fun we had. 

Aren't the little kids cute!

Josh Turner

We have a ton of catching up to do on our blog. So we are going to try.... Here it goes! July 25th we went to the Josh Turner concert at the Unitah County Fair in Evanston, Wyoming. We decided to arrive early because we thought we could hang out at the fair for a while. WRONG! It was pretty dead. There were like five rides and Jeni treated us to this really awesome ride. It is similar to the music express at Lagoon, but the carts are attached to long arms and you spin around really fast and go up and down - not just like a little hill, but we are talking about a big huge bump in the air. This is Jessica and Alli before the ride began.

Matthew is a wimp when it comes to rides and he opted out. He did enjoy watching and listening to us scream.
We were going so fast and laughing and screaming so hard we were crying. The tears ran sideways instead of down our cheeks. We all felt a little sick when we got off.
After the ride, we weren't sure what to do. So we hung around the fair. There was nothing there, not even the livestock were there yet. It was very disappointing. :( But we were lucky enough to find the obstacle course set up for the dogs and Jeni was kind enough to demonstrate a few of the skills for us.
Since not much was going on at the fair, we decided to go into town to get dinner. And what did we find... the whole town on main street! Beerfest was going on and everyone, and I mean everyone - pregnant ladies, kids, grandparents, was there. We walked around for a while, but lets be honest, beerfest isn't much fun if you aren't drinking and smoking with everyone else. After wasting several hours it was time to go to the concert. Let me just say, I was not pleased with the seating or lack thereof. We walked in and you had your choice of sitting on wooden, splintering, paint-peeling bleachers or standing in the dirt with all of the drunk people. Luckily Josh Turner made up for it all.
Matthew and Alli at the concert. Enjoying the show! We were so glad they could join us and put up with us for so long. Thanks!!
Josh singing - don't know which song, but every song was amazing. I would definitely like to see him again!
All of us kids after the concert. Alli was kind enough to take our picture. We definitely enjoyed the show!

There's more to come, but it is so overwhelming. Does anyone know how to make collage pictures for blogs? If you do, I'd love to know. Thanks!

Happily Unemployed

After ten years at the Church History Library, I quit my job this month. Yeah! While I have made many good friends and had many good experiences there over the years, it is the right time for me to move on and do something else.

I have been happily unemployed for a week now and I love it! I know that it can't be permanent, but I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. I have already gotten lots of sleep and am making lists of all of the (free) things I want to do while I am looking for a new job.

Sarah

Catching Up!

What can we say?  It's a long time over due.  I have no excuse, aside from laziness, but Jessica has been very busy and stressed with school, and Crystal and Sarah have been working very hard and going a little crazy.  So here is a brief update on our lives.

In March I went and visited my parents.  They are so much fun.  I can never get enough of them.  They need to come back. We went to the temple, the rodeo (I've been teaching them how to do self-portraits), the beach (it wasn't too pretty so there are no pictures of that), and we went out to eat a lot.  I miss you guys!

Then they came to visit for Memorial Day.  We took our mom to get pedicures at Gardner Village.  The best place ever for pedicures.  We love it, and they love it when we come. 

Me and Jessica have been hiking a little.  I wish it was more. I'm always looking for people to come with me.  We went up little Cottonwood Canyon at the temple quarry.  And also down south to Kolob and Zion's.  Kolob is my new favorite hiking spot.  It's gorgeous and there weren't too many people. 
Oh, and we REALLY love our camelbaK's.
For Crystal's birthday we went to Vegas. We love Coke Floats, M&M's, and the Bellagio.  I could watch the fountain show all night. Happy 30th Crystal!

This past Thursday we went to the Western Stampede.  It was totally awesome!  However, Matthew didn't enjoy the noise we were making quite as much as we did.  If you can see it, he's stuffed napkins in his ears to block our screams, well, mostly Crystal's. :)  But we really all had a lot of fun and I think we are living proof that you can be crazy and have a lot of fun without using alcohol. 

For the fourth of July weekend we went to Cedar City to visit the Shakespeare festival.  We all saw The Secret Garden and we loved it.  Honestly I think it's my favorite musical EVER. Crystal even admitted to letting a few tears escape. Then Jessica and Sarah went and saw As You Like It. They really liked this one also.

So that's us! We're hoping to have more adventure's this summer so hopefully it won't be so long before you hear from us again.

Winter Sun

In January, I decided that I needed to get out of the cold and away from work for while. So a couple of friends and I headed to Cancun for five days. We stayed in a brand new, all-inclusive hotel. It was so new that they were still painting the walls in the hall outside of our room and the front desk wasn't finished. Though the accomodations were interesting and it wasn't the warm paradise we were hoping for, it was lots of fun.

During our stay, we took two excursions away from Cancun -- my favorite part.


Each of the excursions involved very long bus rides. This is Jenny and I getting ready for a three hour ride in our comfy tour bus.




Our first excursion was to Chichen Itza. This is El Castillo, the main pyramid, which is situated in the center of a large complex of buildings and acts as a very sophisticated sun dial.


Patrice, Jenny, and I in front of the East steps of El Castillo. If you clap while standing dead center in front of the steps, the echo comes back as the sound of a quetzl bird.


Me, standing in front of the observatory.


One of my favorite places in Chichen Itza is the Plaza of a Thousand Columns. The columns represent warriors, which are arranged in rows around a small pyramid. When you go behind the pyramid, the columns just seem to stretch on forever.


We took our second excursion out to Xel-Ha, an ecological water park formed where a river joins the Carribean Sea.



Although it was a little cool, we took a bike ride, floated in an inner tube, did some snorkeling, and relaxed for a few mintues in a hammock.

Sunday morning we went to church, which was absolutely fabulous! The ward was very friendly and welcoming, and I actually understood the majority of the meeting.


We spent the rest of our vacation on the beach. We found this shady spot so that it would be peaceful.

It was very hard to come back to the cold weather and the caos at work, so I am just going to have to plan another vacation.

Sarah

Bald Eagles at the Bay

About a year ago, my friend Becky discovered that bald eagles nest at Farmington Bay in February and March. Who knew? So this year we decided to make an excursion to Farmington Bay to see the eagles. Allisun, Becky, and I loaded into Becky's truck and set out for the bay. The 3 adults in the front seat and 

the 3 kiddos in carseats in the back. 
It was a tight squeeze, but we managed. It did however make it a little difficult to eat our "picnic" lunch in the truck. 

Once we arrived at Farmington Bay, we drove our muddy washboard roads. Amazingly the babies did quite well and slept a good portion of the time. 

Seth (Becky's littlest) 

Nora (Allisun's little one)

We saw eagles almost immediately. I wish I had Matthew's scope and a better zoom on my camera, but alas, Matthew does not lend such expensive equipment to his sister. However, you can still tell the birds are eagles in most of the pictures. 

We figure we saw about 30 eagles that day. On Saturday (Valentine's Day), they were having the real Eagle Day. They do a controlled carp kill and all the eagles come for the feast. They were expecting 300 + eagles that day and a lot of people (that's why we went early). 

 

After watching the eagles and other birds, we headed back to Becky's house. Fortunately, Becky always has live entertainment at her house. Her son Luke is HILARIOUS! He decided to ride my purse like a horse. He is a funny little boy with quite the imagination! 
The babies Seth and Nora were also adorable. We had to take their picture in their cute winter hats. We sat them next to each other and they held hands all by themselves. It didn't last long, but it sure was cute! 
It was a fun day and I look forward to doing it again next year! Maybe in a bigger vehicle. Thanks girls and cute kids! 

Crystal 

Everything's Bigger in Texas!

Since I am off track again, I guess I better update our blog. Our wonderful, generous parents flew us all to Houston for Christmas this year. We were lucky enough to fly out between the storms or we would have been stuck in Salt Lake - yuck! But we all made it to Houston safely and we had a blast! Mom and Dad picked us up at the airport. On the way home, mom told us about these angels that we just had to see. She didn't say much about them, but we could tell she thought they were funny, but we definitely needed to see them for ourselves. The first two pictures illustrate that everything is bigger in Texas, including the angels! 

There was a picture of this house in the newspaper and we had to see it for ourselves. It was incredible! There were a ton of people outside just walking around and taking pictures. One night we went there was even a tour bus! The people who owned the house were serving hot chocolate in the driveway. I couldn't even imagine putting this all up and then taking it down again. The picture doesn't even do it justice. 

These are the larger than life angels. Imagine coming upon these in the night. They were quite frightening. If you could see their faces, you would probably even say they were creepy. But we got a good laugh about them. 
On Christmas Eve, we had the missionaries over. We had a fabulous time eating and singing. Jeni was giving mom advice on how to take a good picture. Mom is usually talking or making a face while pictures are being taken, so they were practicing. I thought this picture turned out great. 
Here's dad with his new toy. This missionaries showed up at our house with gifts from "Santa." They brought him an amp and a new guitar. Nice gift "Santa." We spent most of the evening singing songs while dad and Matthew took turns playing. 
I think Matthew was a bit jealous of new guitar and amp. He is quite the guitarist. I am always impressed by his ability because he's never had lessons and he makes playing the guitar look so dang easy. But we sure do enjoy his talent, when he is willing to share! 
This is mom and dad on Christmas morning. Notice the shorts - the weather was wonderful! It only got cold enough to wear a sweater. We lounged around all Christmas day in our pjs. We love being lazy! 
The day before we left, we took some time to help with the yard work. Who knew yard work could be so hard in December! Matthew and dad did most of the work. They were definitely the muscles behind all the work! 


Surprise! We are finally done. 21 garbage bags later - full of leaves, needles and trimmings. What a work out! 

We had a fantastic time in Houston. Dad made sure we saw all the shopping we could handle - well at least most of us could handle. I've never seen so many malls in my life - and big ones at that. We took an excursion downtown one Saturday. Apparently, downtown is closed on the weekends, so we didn't get to see the underground shopping. I might have been the only one that was disappointed about that, but next time. Other than that, we just spent a lot of quality time together. Matthew thought we were gone a little too long, but I could've stayed a whole lot longer!