Day 2

On the second day we had breakfast and then Jon was off to his conference while I was off to the Spa! I had a facial and it was wonderful! The Spa at the hotel was really nice! That afternoon I had lunch with Jon and the Senior Vice President came and sat at our table with us. As I said earlier, it was nice to get to meet the executives in a nonprofessional environment and just visit. After lunch we took the hotel shuttle over to the zoo inside Hershey Park. It was surprisingly a pretty neat zoo to just be tucked away in the back of an amusement park! We both agreed it was much better that the Phoenix Zoo! Jon was like a kid in a candy store! He knew what everything was and was making noises at the bear, the deer and elk! It was a little embarrassing actually! :) But, he enjoyed seeing all the animals there.

Crystal and Jon in front of an elk

Jon wanted to try and make it look like the alligator was about to eat my head! :) (Do I look scared?)

When we walked up to the bear and Jon started making grunting noises the bear actually walked over towards us, sat down and lifted it's hand up like it was waving to us! It was pretty funny!

The deer that Jon said he would shoot if it were in the wild! (Always thinking like a hunter!)

A buffalo

A porcupine eating it's dinner!

A lynx

Day 2 conitnued...

On Tuesday we also went to Chocolate World. This is where you can shop for EVERYTHING Hershey and take a mock tour of how they make the chocolate and it smelled pretty good in there too! We also took a trolley tour through the main part of town. It is a cute little town! The houses are all old but have been restored to beautiful homes. All of the street lights on the main street are Hershey Kisses. The story of Milton Hershey is actually pretty amazing. If you ever get a chance you should look it up!

The Chocolate Factory

Hershey Kiss street lights

Chocolate Ave. (Main St.)

All of the houses we passed were beautiful like this one. They all had nice green lawns, shutters on the windows and steps up to the front porch. It was just so cute!

Our singing trolley conductor

Chocolate World

Look at all those kisses! YUM!

Our Last Day

Our last day in Hershey we actually slept in until 8:30am. Which really isn't sleeping in if you go by AZ time. That meant 5:30am. But, it felt like we slept in! We had breakfast and then headed off to Hershey Park. Jon was not feeling well, so I was left to ride their new ride, Fahrenheit, all by myself! It was petty fun, but not like rides at Magic Mountain! They had a single rider line, so I only had to wait 10 minutes instead of an hour. The water park was fun. They had some pretty crazy slides. The picture below shows East Coast Water Works. It is a giant structure with water slides, hoses, tipping buckets and everything water. We went into it and ended up getting so cold waiting for the slide on top that we worked our way back down! The kids would have loved it though! After the water park we went to the gardens at the hotel. They were beautiful! There was also a butterfly house that we walked through and saw some amazing butterflies that I had never seen before. Jon quickly became obsessed with taking pictures of butterflies and flowers. I have only posted a few here (we have about 30!). It was gorgeous there, and I loved smelling each of the different roses. To end our trip, I had probably one of my most embarrassing moments ever! When we got to the airport in Harrisburg they told us our flight was delayed by just over an hour. Well, that would make us miss our connecting flight in Chicago. So they told us to hurry fast through security and they would rush our bags to the plane and we could fly out on a flight leaving right then. We were going as fast as we could and as we were getting on the airplane, I was digging in my bag trying to get my book out and was not paying attention to my walking! Next thing I know I trip onto the plane and fall into the fight attendant, first down to my knees and then all the way down to my face! I could feel tears welling up, not from pain, but only from embarrassment! Jon and I did not have seats together, so I went to find my seat and the seat next to me was not taken. So, Jon moved all his stuff from where he was, in a middle seat, and came to sit next to me on an aisle seat. As soon as he did that, the guy in that seat showed up! So, Jon moved back to his seat with all of his stuff. The people on the flight were not happy with us anyway, because they had to wait for us to get on the plane. So, you think "I'll never see these people again and they will forget about it by the time we get to Chicago." Not true! When we got to Chicago, Jon was waiting for me outside the bathroom when he heard 2 people from our flight talking about how "comedic" we were with me falling and us trying to move seats around. I'm glad we were able to entertain everyone! So embarrassing! But, overall we had a really great trip!

East Coast Water Works

Fahrenheit! It starts off with a 97 degree drop!

After a fun filled and tiring day at the water park!

The gardens with the hotel in the background.

Jon's flower pictures! They were beautiful!

Butterflies mating.

I thought this was really cool with the bee in the flower!

Emma

Here is Emma's professional dance picture! I thought it came out pretty cute! She loves taking pictures and is always willing to say "cheese"!

Dance Recital

Dance Recital

Saturday June 21 was Emma's dance recital with Arizona Desert Dance. Emma absolutely loves going to dance there and she did a great job for her recital. After the dance was over and the lights went down, Emma was still standing there with her arms up in the air! She really took to heart the "hold your last pose"! She literally needed to be escorted from the stage! :) Jon was sad he had to miss it, but he flew out to Hershey, PA that morning. (Pictures from that trip coming soon!) But, Emma had support from Grandma Clark, Grandma and Grandpa Trafzer and Aunt Stevi! We now have a whole month with no dance...she is going to miss it! Thank goodness it's only a month!

Ready to go!

Curtain Call

Emma with her soon to be Aunt Stevi

Emma and mom

Dress Rehearsal

Last Wednesday was Emma's dress rehearsal for her dance recital. We had to come straight from swim lessons that day, but we made it on time and managed to get her hair to look decent! :) She did really good for dress rehearsal. But, I was also there helping her to remember to smile! I know I have mentioned before what a great class Emma is in. All of the moms chipped in and bought Miss Lainie a gift certificate and flowers to have the girls give her at rehearsal. They're a cute group, I can't wait for dance to start again!

(top) Mele, Reagan, Sophia, Gabi
(bottom) Ali, Ava, Emma

Ava & Emma

On stage practicing...I love how each girl is in a different position!

Emma's dance class with Miss Lainie

Swim Lessons

Emma completed her 2 weeks of swim lessons on the 20th of this month! She loved every minute of it and did pretty good. From day one not knowing anything, to the last day jumping into the pool by herself, was an incredible transformation. Some of you may recognize her teacher, Miss Sharisse. (Julia and Sabrea mainly) It's Sharisse Blau! Sharisse lived down the street from me for a while when we were kids. It was so good to see her again. She was a great teacher and the kids all loved her. Emma's biggest challenge was jumping into the pool without holding hands with Sharisse. On the last day she only needed a very slight push from one of the other moms (who was kind enough to play the mean mom :)) and in she went. Of course, a little bribery never hurts! She picked out a new Snow White Polly Pocket! There were only 5 kids in her class so it was very one-on-one attention. At the end of the frist week Emma found a new favorite thing to do...dive under water for dive sticks! There was a bucket of dive sticks that the little kids were allowed to play with and then the class after theirs had big kids in it that would retrieve all the sticks. Emma caught on to this and wanted to try it. She started throwing the dive stick on the bottom step and Sharisse would help her swim under water to get it. Emma loved this! That Friday Sharrise let Emma take home a pink shark dive stick just for the weekend, which Emma named "Pinky Sharky"! She carried that thing around all weekend! She even "dove" for it in our little inflatable pool! She loves going under water and is getting better about taking big breaths! Jon thinks it's crazy that his little girl has a tan line! It's actually pretty cute! Now we just need to practice and keep up the skills that she learned.

In Memory of Mila

The 18th of June marks the one year anniversary of my niece Mila passing away. Most of you know the story of this precious little girl. She was very special and is missed by all who knew and loved her! We dedicate this blog to her, in her memory.

All About Jon...(sorry, it's a long one)

Jon's birthday was yesterday and with Father's Day the day before, he got a little spoiled! I can't say the weekend started out great for him though. He earned the nickname "One Eyed Willy"!
Jon left on Tuesday for a scout outing. They were going to West Clear Creek and were suppose to be gone until Saturday afternoon. There is no cell phone reception down there and that is the longest we have gone without communication! This made me a little nervous! Well, Friday I was taking a nap because the kids and I had been out in the pool for about 2 hours! I had a dream that Jon called and told me they were coming home early. Then, the phone woke me up and it was Jon! I got so excited I didn't even think anything could be wrong! He told me he was hiking through the river bottom where it was very thick brush. He had just taken his shades off when a tree branch poked him straight in the eye! He told me he was on his way to Payson Hospital to have it checked out. One of the Priests was driving his truck and I needed to find a way to get up there to drive Jon home. A member of the Bishopric was going up so he could pick up Braiden and take him back to the outing. I called Jon's mom and she agreed to come watch the kids while Jon's step dad drove me to Payson. (We are so grateful to both of them for helping!) Once we got there I headed back to see Jon...he didn't look so good! His eye was really red and you could see where stick had hit it! OUCH! We waited for almost 2 hours after I go there until the doctor came in and looked at it and cleaned it out. He has 2 corneal abrasions, but luckily they are not serious. He just has to put ointment on it for about a week. They did not give him a patch, but he was tempted to go buy a pirate one to wear to church on Sunday! :) But, he has been keeping that eye closed all weekend and so he was called "One Eyed Willy"!
I think he had a good Father's Day. The kids were so excited that it was Father's Day and then Daddy's birthday! They gave him a digital frame so he could take it to work and put it on his desk. I gave him a new dress shirt to wear to the Awards Banquet next week. On Sunday I asked him if he really wanted me to attempt to make him breakfast, or if he would just be happier eating something he made himself! He asked me to make waffles, which turned out pretty good! He helped me with dinner, but I stilled tried! He also was called to be the 1st counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency on Sunday. He will miss Young Men's but is ready to take on a new challenge and he is excited about the people he will be working with.
On Monday we took him out to dinner at the Keg for his birthday. The kids gave him the Indiana Jones dvd's and I bought him a new watch. He has been asking for Nixon watch for a very long time and I decide he finally deserved it! It was a birthday /congratulations present! I was worried he may not like the one I picked out, but he loved it!


Just as we were finishing our dinner, Jon's mom called to invite us out to ice cream with them. So we ended the night with some delicious Nielsen's Frozen Custard! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JON! We love you!