Ferndale Farm and other such sights of Connecticut

Visiting Ferndale Farms was top on my to do list because it was so enjoyable for me as a little girl to go next door to visit "Grandma's farm" it's no longer her farm but it has stayed in the family. The girls loved it as much as I did as a little girl. We saw, goats, chickens, and glimpsed at the pigs, as their pen was so smelly it was hard to even enter. Kale wasn't so much into it, but the rest of us enjoyed this part of the visit.

Darrin and I were pretty committed to running while we visited, that is till we realized in the state of Connecticut there are no flat roads, you are either going uphill or down. Plus us Coloradians are not used to humidity so there was a learning curve there. While we were out running one day I found another Ferndale Farms. I asked my Grandma about it and I guess it's in the family too and their produce was blueberries. We got to go pick our own, and it was seriously such a nice blueberry patch, well taken care of. We picked about 6lbs, which was plenty. We made blueberry pancakes the next day and found out that Kale is a HUGE fan.

Another amazing, memorable sight was our stop at Doogies. This place is famous for it's 2-foot long hot dogs. Surprisingly the food was really good too. I originally thought that Darrin and I would share one, but he saw that thing and decided to take the challenge on all by himself. So to answer the question that everyone has asked when they see this picture is "yes, he did eat the WHOLE thing. And no he did not throw-up after." That's my kind of man!

For the record this is the EXACT face that Darrin has holding everyone of our newborn, he even cradles them the same. What does this mean?

Then there was Joel...good ol' cousin Joel. I hadn't seen him since I was 14 years old, and it was such a great reunion. Both Darrin and I were so glad that he came, he was the funny guy that we could make inside jokes with and he was such a good sport with the girls. They loved him endlessly, and before we left, he was like "Wow, Darcy I don't know how you keep up with these kids all day." I took it as a total compliment, what I didn't tell him, and he doesn't know is that I am not strictly entertaining them all day, they do play on their own a lot. I'll just let him believe I am a good mom!

Here is Baylie sitting on Joel's shoulders. I am not sure what's she doing...picking fleas? Either way it looks like Joel has had his fill.

Here are the girls with Great Grandma Orcutt. Her birthday is on the 4th of July which was the day that we flew out, so we had a pre-birthday celebration. Complete with party hats!

My Aunt Judy had quite the to-do list for all of us, I fortunately was deemed the crafty one in her eyes so the assignment I got was to create this cute flag wreath. She gave me the flags, Styrofoam ring, and the picture, and I went to work. I was so happy with the end result.

Jaya stole the camera and took some shots of Kale and I.

This was at the end of Grandma's birthday BBQ. Eden ended up in the wading pool. Our kids did amazing playing together. There were no other cousins or kids their ages, and they got along so great. It was such a delightful trip.

those stinkin' Princesses

The concept of marriage is a little confusing to my children, Eden asks me every time I go to the Temple (even when Darrin isn't with me) how my marriage was. She looked at the wedding photo of Darrin and I the other day and her and Jaya got into an argument because Eden was convinced that it wasn't daddy in the picture. So maybe it's just Eden that's confused, I guess it could be her age. So where do the princesses come in? Well I'll tell you.
The other day after church on the way home Baylie announced to me she was going to marry Colby (a little boy from her class), then Jaya busted in and said "Yea mom it's a rearranged marriage" I said "a what?" She said "you know a rearranged marriage, when your marriage is decided for you." Seriously I promise I have not picked my children's mates, although I know I will be tempted someday, and I don't remember teaching them about PREARRANGED marriages either. So, I chalk it all up to the princess/Disney/barbie movies.
As a side note, if Baylie is going to pick good little boys like Colby to marry, then I will go for rearranged marriages any day.

Exploring

I love how serious Darrin looks here building his peg house!

We ventured out our 3rd day of vacation and had a day for the kids. We found a children's museum and went exploring. After the Lego motors, dinosaur room, turtle tanks, and seeing a python out of it's glassed shelter wrapped around the worker's arms, I was ready to go. I have nothing against museums, but I do have a massive fear of snakes. As we were looking for the exit it turns out there were 2 more levels to the museum (oh yeah! and yes that was said sarcastically). The lower levels turned out to have more excitement then I originally thought they would. I was bummed though when the "pretend to be a weather reporter" booth wasn't working, I've always wondered if I would have been any good at that. We even got to the end the day pretending to be Jonah who was swallowed by the whale, with the GIANT whale statue.

Taken on the Jellies

Jaya who may as well been born with fins, was slightly taken back when she got her first jellyfish sting. I have always heard that you just have to wait out the sting, not much you can do about it. Nonetheless, my Grandma gave into her whining and was insistent that I track down the lifeguard to see if there is something I could give her. I found out that you can put vinegar on it, but as stated by the lifeguard "it doesn't really do anything, and they are all out anyway!" There you have it. I have also heard that you can pee on the sting and that will help but since that would be slightly inappropriate at a beach full of relatives, I wasn't willing to test this theory. It took about 20 minutes till it stopped burning. The next day when we went to the beach again, Jaya had to make a decision if she was willing to swim, and she decided she would try it. She had much better this day and was grateful she swam.

Here is the picture of her sting

Eden's experience on the beach I have to say was ideal. She swam and played in the sand. After a few hours of playing we even got ice cream from the local truck. As we ate ice cream I looked over to see little Eden eating her Popsicle laying down enjoying the sunshine. Then I realized she was almost asleep. I thought it was so funny she could be eating and sleeping at the same time. By the time I grabbed the camera it was enough attention to rouse her and she started posing. She was such a mess though, where the Popsicle had melted on her legs sand had stuck. I just let her lay and enjoy, which she did.

The rest of us including Baylie, just loved the downtime, swimming to the raft, building sand castles, hunting for shells, and visiting with family.

Grandma Orcutt, Jaya, Papi (my dad), Kale and Darrin

Destination - Connecticut

Part #1 - Birthday BOY
My grandma Barbara Orcutt was our wonderful host for our 5 day vacation in Kensington, Connecticut. We got there on June 28th, and the next morning was Kale's FIRST birthday. We have a family tradition to have crepes for breakfast on someones birthday. How fun to share this tradition with my Grandma.

Here's Darrin's experiment crepe - scrambled eggs and whip cream, yummy

We did sing for Kale but other then that, there were no presents, cake or ice cream. I was feeling a little bit guilty until we went to the beach, and then I thought how many Colorado babies can say they spent their first birthday on a beach, that's a gift in itself.

Plus turns out Kale likes sand way more then cake anyway. I am not joking when I tell you he was eating handfuls of sand... just imagine that when it came out, pretty gritty!

Pit Stop - Denver

I had a hard time deciding how to write about this little pit stop, because I don't want anything I say to be viewed in a way that I was unappreciative or disappointed in the least, but this MUST be documented. So Brent, just know you are a WONDERFUL host and brother, the rest of this is written in good humor, WE LOVE YOU!

We arrived in lil' Mexico AKA - Thorton, Colorado in preparation for our flight which would be the next morning. We saw first hand a bachelor's life, and it really was an adventure. We had corn dogs for dinner, which who doesn't love? Visited with my, now mission bound nephew Shane, and Brent so lovingly gave up his own bed and bedroom for our family. We all slept in the same room with 90 degree temp outside, with a fan the size of my fist to keep us cool. As you can imagine I woke up from the heat a few times, and around 3 am turned to Darrin and whispered "Are you awake?" which it turned out he was. We then went over our airport game plan, on how to tackle the 5 hour flight with our 4 children, that awaited us only hours away. It turned out to be a great planning session and we got a few more hours of shut eye before we woke up to embark to Connecticut.

Darrin's sister Jenni, also lives in Denver and gave us a ride to the airport, and I could just imagine what we must have looked like to her as she dropped us off, with car seats, suitcases, backpacks and a stroller.

This little pit stop was great, we are so blessed to have such a wonderful family.

Thanks, Brent & Jenni

Summer Vacation 2010 - Cheyenne

We had a wonderful family summer vacation with lots of pit stops along the way. The easiest way to document this trip is going to be in parts.

Pit Stop - Cheyenne, Wyoming

Our hosts - Justin & Jolene

Darrin is the 5th of 6 children so by the time we got married and started having children most of his siblings were done. I have begged and pleaded with most families to consider having more children, so that my kids would have cousins their ages but I guess when you're done you're done.


The thing that has amazed me, is regardless of the age difference the cousins have always been so involved with our kids. They carry them around, play and watch them endlessly. It's so wonderful to have our great niece's and nephews.

Jacob holding Eden

Here are Jaycee and Jodi

Besides the wonderful time spent with cousins, we got to visit the library which won national awards as being AWESOME (and yes I think that is what the official award said).

We were oohed and ahhed by "the good" fireworks, the boys went shooting, the girls visited, we even got to tease my niece a little bit about her surprise visit from a boy (she'll turn 16 in September and then she can officially date). Last but certainly not least, my all time favorite game "Ticket to Ride" was played.

We had a great trip, which is always the case in Cheyenne

Thanks Ross family, you are awesome!