It wouldn't be a birthday without a treasure hunt, miniature golf, and a water fight!

Maren turned six just a few short days ago. I can hardly believe it! She is such a fun little member of our family. She loves to play with any of her siblings, she loves to help cook, garden, clean, but most of all she loves to sleep in moms bed at night!

This year she had some definite ideas about her birthday. These photos are all out of order, but you get the general idea of what we did. We also used several cameras due to battery issues.
We knew that we would be very hot after miniature golf so we decided to have a large water fight. I think these pics are from a previous fight that we had a week earlier. If you want to see the one from her birthday you will have to go to Sara's blog.


Esme was very much into it. Maren and Hannah not so much. In fact, Hannah cries if you get more than a drop on her. Leslie was a bit blacklisted for the day for getting her legs wet, I think.

Josh and I thought it would be great fun to go miniature golfing with everyone.

Here is Nana taking her first shot.

Esme had a bit of help at first, but ended up just taking her ball and placing it right in front of the hole and knocking it in with her little pink club. She was a pretty good shot from a few inches away!

Sara smacked this one a bit to hard and landed in a pond.

Whit looks like quite the pro here.

Esme being very posy!

Rebecca, Arden and Gabes made it for the last shot of our game and it was a great shot. They ended up staying and playing while we went home to get the rest of the party ready!

Maren's last shot!

I must say the food was very tasty, but it is always tasty! Maren chose pizza and we had fruit and cake and ice cream. Sara and Whit made the most delicious drinks, and they were pretty good looking on top of that, but again you will have to check out her blog to see them.

One of the festivities was a treasure hunt for Maren and Essie, Jonas and Gabe participated even though they helped hide. I have video of the hunt that will come later. The treasure were two crowns for M and S, they were tied to a very giant pink balloon!

Let the presents begin! Maren asked for some pretty unique gifts this year. This is a pillow pet than she has been asking for for about a year. Every time we see one at the store, she asks me to buy it for her.

She also asked for a nightstand and lamp. Which I think is hysterical, since she never sleeps in her own bed. I was thinking this is great, it will make her own room more exciting. Sara and Les did such a great job on the nightstand. Again, if you go to Sara's blog you can see all of the artwork on the table.

She got such wonderful gifts, and I want to thank the family for coming and making her day so much fun!

Timpanogos Cave!

This is us on the way up!
There aren't any pics of us on the way down, cause we went down in different groups.


Hee, hee!

I have no idea why Jonas is always making this crazy face.

Okay, we were very tired after hiking for an hour and a half.

This looks like you are in a sharks mouth.

This was a very fun family trip. I must admit, I never want to take that hike again! We did get into trouble for relieving in the outdoors twice(Jonas got caught going off the very uppermost peak), but I think they must get that a lot! On the way down Kels walked the entire way with Es asleep on her shoulder. Jonas left me and Maren and caught up to Kels. Josh and Hannah finally caught up to Maren and me at the bottom of the hike.

And just a little story! Esme took a little toy Cinderella on the hike, fell asleep on the way down and dropped it. Someone hiking down the trail picked her up and wedged her into one of the various sings on the way down and Maren and I found her. Lucky!!

It's not very often that my family goes somewhere without cousins, aunts, or friends along. We had a great time, but everyone was starving and tired by the time we got home.