McAlister Matters

  This big guy turned 5 last week! All the kids got sick after our Capitol Reef trip so we couldn't have a party for him until last Saturday. We had pizza, cake and ice cream. Paul wanted a lemon cake (yellow) with orange frosting, his favorite colors. Paul's a cheerful little dude. He loves playing with his cars, dinosaurs and robot toys. He's becoming a good little builder in Minecraft too. Paul has faithfully completed 175 days of pre-school and is set to graduate next month. He's already busy checking the plants and trees in the yard. He's always very interested in their progress. Paul is getting good at math and practices at meal times. He loves to watch Paw Patrol and Spiderman shows and whatever the girls are watching too. He's still a champion at matching games. We love you Paul! We had a quick visit last Friday from Julie and her family. They came for dinner and we ate pie. It was fun to have them visit our house. Click for more pics!

  With a foot of snow on the ground, we left Bountiful last Wednesday and headed to Loa Utah. We stayed there for 3 days and visited nearby Capitol Reef National Park. It was Spring break for the kids and we wanted to get away. The park weather was clear and sunny for the most part, just a bit chilly in the mornings. Capitol Reef is nice because there are not a lot of crowds. We went on several fun hikes with the kids. They had a blast climbing on rocks and sandstone. We saw lots of petroglyphs and Kahlan copied some in her sketch book. We hiked to one big arch.  We ate pie at the old farmhouse and hiked along a river. Penny was a good hiker and we didn't have to carry the kid carrier backpack this time. We had trail mix and lots of snacks and picnic lunches. We also discovered an Indian pizza place with delicious curry pizza.  It's hard to do big hikes having 4 kids with small bladders. But we survived. Paul and Penny came down with fevers after we finished our stay. And Paul