Weekend at Grandma & Grandpa Brems

On Friday we headed down to Boulder, Utah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Brems. Robert, Emily, and James drove up to spend the weekend as well. I had heard so much about Boulder so I was very excited to finally be able to experience the home cooking, peacefulness, and fun small town living of Boulder. I also got to see the Garden of Eden- as Mark refers to their house.

Here's James...he was so fun to play with! Such a cutie! :)

James playing with his truck...check out the cute tongue...I think it means true concentration.

Robert playing with James. It was right before our fishing trip with grandpa, but my favorite part of the picture is Emily's hat in the background.
Grandpa took us to a reservoir to do some fishing, but first we went on an ATV ride. Here's James posing on one. He's ready to go.
Robert and James. James learned to love the ATVs and later in the weekend would go up to Robert and say "PEEEASE!"...asking for a ride. He even learned how to start it up just by watching Robert. He's so cute..and so smart.
After the ATV ride we went fishing with Grandpa. He brought an extra pole for Emily and I. He called me over immediately and said "I assume you know nothing about fishing so I will teach you." It made me laugh but I was so grateful. What a fun opportunity! He taught me how to worm the line, cast, hold the pole, and reel in the fish.
Here's my first fish! :) And it took less than a minute to catch, which I was very grateful for.
Mark decided to do some fishing while Grandpa was helping Emily. He caught a couple but they would escape before he reeled them in...
Emily's fish. She claims hers was the biggest...we'll let her continue to think that. :) My favorite part of this picture though is grandpa. I love his laugh!!! He would just start laughing...more like giggling...every once in a while. I loved it. He also had some fun little inserts to say occasionally that always made me laugh. He's a cutie.
Grandpa helping Mark cut the line from his first fish.
Mark's first caught and reeled in fish!
Me trying to cast. Emily says I look more like a ballet dancer...whatever, the line got in the water. :)
Robert's fish.
Mark's next fish.
The boys.
Grandpa had already caught four fish when we arrived and as we were getting things packed up decided to go for another. I swear he knows the place so well that he puts his line in and in no time he has another fish. It was a lot of fun to fish with him!
Scenic picture of Grandma and Grandpa's backyard at night.
Well, Mark and I brought some sparklers for James to play with. It was his first time...this is the before shot....
Robert had just lit the first one...this was James' reaction. Not too sure what to think...
"Ooh, maybe it's not so bad." He got into a little more...
The three boys and their sparklers. It was fun to see James playing with it. Emily was sure to write his name and some other words with him- a must with sparklers! :)
Mark and his favorite little buddy!
We were trying to get a picture of James smiling. Emily taught him to raise his hands and say "cheese." So here he is saying it with so much enthusiasm..."cheese!!" I should have been video taping..it was so cute!
Before we left on Monday we stopped to take some fun family shots.
These are all taken by grandma and grandpa's stream running through their yard. It was so beautiful and peaceful there!
So when we were sitting down and getting situated for the picture, grandma leaned back a little and realized grandpa was right there. She was resting on his shoulder...she snuggled in a bit and said..."ooh, this is very nice!" It was so cute. They truly love each other very much and show it in all their actions. I hope Mark and I can be like them when we're their age...all energetic and still madly in love.
A look up at the property from the side of the stream. Thanks, Emily for the picture. It's so beautiful and I know we will cherish our memories from this weekend for a long time!
Mark went off and took some scenic pictures as well...the stream.

The boys.
The girls.
The rest of these pictures are pretty much for Mark's bragging rights...he got some pretty cool pictures of the hummingbirds outside of grandma and grandpa's house. We would eat breakfast at a table just below this feeder and if you sat in the seats closest you could hear the sound of the hummingbirds' wings. It was so fun...there were swarms that would come to eat out of the feeder...they were so cute.



Well after the pictures and fun, Emily, Robert, and James headed back to Phoenix. Since Mark hadn't been feeling well we decided to stay another little while so he could take a quick nap before we drove back. So we headed in house. Grandma went out to water some plants and do some gardening. Then grandpa....well I think we pooped him out...we found him in the same spot we'd all left from, taking a little nap himself.
This was kind of neat. When we were heading down fishing we drove by this house and grandpa told us the story of their rock wall- Repentance Fence. Every time one of their boys got in trouble (I think I remember that there were a few boys in the family) they would have to go out and get so many stones- depending on what they had done. The fence went all the way down to the house...it was pretty intense. But I thought it was kind of a fun story.
Here's another view of the fence...a bit harder to see but you can see that it really did go on a ways...this was only the beginning of it...about a third. The story reminded me of my dad's story of having to pick out the stick you were going to be hit with.
This was a little building we passed in one of the small towns on our way back home. I just thought it was pretty fun.
Some scenic shots...I was getting bored in the passenger seat and we passed some really pretty areas and cool rock formations.
So that was our fun weekend in Boulder. We had a great time and look forward to future family trips like this one!!! :)