Summer Vacation...Part 5...Lots of different stuff.

The week after we went to Oregon for the wedding we hung out with family and friends.

Summer Vacation...Part 4...Kait & Simon's Wedding

Kait & Simon were married on July 11, 2009. I've always had a tender spot for Kait. She is such a sweetheart and I can't believe that she is married and in college (it makes me feel so old.) We love Simon too! He is such a nice guy and we're looking forward to getting to know him better. I'm so thankful that they invited us to be a part of their special day. The only bad part is that Livvy got sick and wasn't able to be in the wedding. She and I had to leave right after the ceremony. But, Allie and Ash stayed with my mom and had a ball, as you can see.

Summer Vacation...Part 3...On the road again

Road tripping again. My cute cousin Kait married her high school sweetheart, Simon this summer. She invited my girls to be her flower girls, much to their excitement. So, we went on the road again from Salt Lake to Bend, Oregon. My mom went with us and we stopped in Twin Falls as our halfway point. My dad happened to be working there so, we stayed with him. We got to see the new temple there and the bridge over the Snake River. Twin Falls was really pretty! The girls got to swim and enjoyed the time there.

Summer Vacation...Part2...The 4th of July

The girls and I drove up to Utah on July 1st and Phil met us there. We spent the 4th at Evergreen Park in Salt Lake with some friends and then went to a BBQ at Duane and Bev's. We ended the day watching the fireworks at Sugarhouse Park. It was so much fun!

Summer Vacation...Part 1...Las Vegas

Phil had a crazy travel schedule for the summer, so the girls and I decided to spend some time with family and friends. We left the day after Father's Day and drove to Las Vegas. We spent a week there with our friends and enjoyed every bit of it. Sorry we missed seeing some of you though!

Planting some flowers, baking some cookies and a future rock star...

Phil is the gardener in our family and always gets the girls involved.

He had them help him plant a few flowers in the front yard.

Alivia absolutely loves helping Daddy plant things. She is his Home Depot sidekick too! It's one of her favorite places to go.

These lilies are almost as beautiful and the girl holding them but, not quite.

Ashlie is always asking to stop and smell the flowers.

It reminds me to enjoy the little things in life!

Ya'll probably think that I don't do anything around the house but, I'm just the one behind the camera for all of the fun stuff. We always make sugar cookies the week before Easter. I make the dough and Phil rolls it out. Of course, Alivia loves to help in the kitchen too. She loves it when we make cookies or brownies together.

And for the future rock star...

After much begging and pleading and a little prodding from her guitar teacher, we got Allie an electric guitar. She loves and it fits her very well! Her guitar teacher helped her tune it and get it all ready to play! She is also going to take voice lessons starting in the fall.

Six Flags...

We made a trip to Six Flags while Donna was here. We had sooooo much fun! The girls were utterly spoiled. There was Phil, myself, Donna, Jeff, Allie, Ash & Livvy. Between the four adults we were all able to ride a lot of really fun rides that you would never see at Lagoon. At the end of the day, Uncle Jeff stayed with the girls while Phil, Donna and I went on Mr. Freeze. It was the craziest ride! Lots of straight ups and downs, twists and turns and loopty loops. I was so sick after but, I had so much fun! Jeff splurged and got the girls these capes! They love them and dressed up in them for days afterwards! Everyone had a blast!!!!! We'll be going back for sure!

The Grassy Knoll

While Donna was here, she and I took an afternoon and went to the Grassy Knoll. It was really interesting and we enjoyed it.

Book Depository

On the very right hand side, second row down, is where the fatal shots were supposedly fired from. After seeing the window and the places where JFK was shot, it is easy to think that there was probably more than one shooter.

Do you see the X in the middle of the road? That is where the throat shot was.

Just about 50 feet down the road is another X for the head shot.

Donna at the Grassy Knoll. There is kind of a reverent feeling here. Next time we will go through the museum.

Numero 33...

It's been two weeks since my birthday. I had to get over the fact that I am actually 33 now. Ugh. I feel old. But, I did have a great day! It started with anticipating the arrival of two of my favorite people. One, my hubby was coming home after being out of town and Two, my SIL Donna was flying in for a long weekend visit. (I have a lot of favorite people...so don't feel bad.) Then I made LEMON SQUARES (my favorite and traditional birthday dessert.) After I was done with those I went to get in the shower and left Livvy on the couch watching Strawberry Shortcake. While in the shower I had the thought, I really should have moved the LEMON SQUARES out of Livvy's reach. As soon as I got out, I ran to the kitchen and this is what I found:

If you can see I dusted them with powdered sugar when I was done and then while I was in the shower, Livvy decided that they needed chocolate on them too. So, she got out the NesQuik and dusted over the powdered sugar. I wasn't really mad but, laughed and just started over with the LEMON SQUARES. Thankfully they are easy to make and oh so yummy.

Phil brought me some flowers and then he and the kids surprised me with a new Canon Rebel camera. I was sooooo excited. It was a really fun day!

Ashlie has turned into a little photographer with my old camera and takes pictures of everything. I checked the old camera card and in one week she had taken about 720 pictures and 20 short videos. Oh well, we'll nurture her creative side!

On to 34...for a few short weeks Phil and I are both 33.

Road Tripping with my Girlies...

Over Spring Break the girls and I decided to make a road trip to Austin to see my cousin Havilah and meet her husband Ryan and her girls, Casey and Gabrielle. We got to stay with my Uncle Reed and Aunt Joy. I haven't seen Havilah for almost 13 years. We've always had a good time together and this time was no exception. I love her dearly! She is like a sister to me. When we were kids we would write letters to each other and I was always jealous of her beautiful handwriting. She always had the prettiest stationary too.



This is on the road to Austin. I took a picture because it was such a pretty drive and reminded me of central Utah with all of the scrub oak. We took a back road down because traffic getting into Austin in the evening is horrible.



We went to the State Fair, where Casey was showing her goat. The girls went through a little petting zoo and met Elsie the Borden cow and her calf Beauregard. We had fun!



Havilah has the best dress up box ever and the girls went nuts with it. Not to mention that she has sewn almost all of the dress ups. She is the coolest mom on Halloween!



We spent quite a bit of time with Reed and Joy too and enjoyed every bit of it. They live in Dripping Springs, which is about 20 miles west of Austin. Their house is in a wooded neighborhood where deer roam around. The girls got to feed the deer and loved it! Unfortunately I was still laying in bed and didn't get any pictures. It definitely felt like home.



On Saturday night, Havilah and Ryan had a big barbeque at their house with a bunch of family and friends. It was fun to meet some of Ryan's family. Ryan is a really talented musician and has composed some really awesome music that he shared with us. It was fun to get to know him.

We had a great time and felt right at home. It's so nice to have family close! We will be making another trip to Austin soon!

6th Folder 6th Picture Tag

How lucky is that? On this tag I pulled up our family picture taken just a few months ago.

My posting has been very spotty sorry! A little addicted to Facebook these days.

I tag: Cindy, Maribeth, Megan, Amy, Mindi, Racquel

Posting Issues

Blogger is being difficult for me so, I haven't posted on our latest adventure but, I will when I feel like being more patient.

American Girls...

The girls and I ventured into Dallas and went to the American Girl Store today. They had so much fun and it was like "a kid in a candy store." (Only a lot more expensive.) I took a few pictures of them with my phone so, I hope that they show up okay.

Spring Break...

Spring break started off very soggy. It rained most of the weekend but, yesterday and today have been beautiful. We planted our garden yesterday, today we spent at the park, tomorrow we are venturing into Dallas to go to the American Girl store and Thursday we'll be heading down to Austin to see my cousin and her family. It should be a fun filled week for the girls. Next week will be fun too because we have some visitors coming. Yay! I'll have some pictures to post next week.

Thank goodness for the wind...

I never in my life thought I would say thank goodness for the wind. But, today I was so glad it was windy. Why, do you ask. Because I never would have been able to run 3 miles without water in dead muggy air. It was 85 degrees when I finally got out the door to run. I'm supposed to run 8 miles tomorrow. So, I think better get out early and hope it's slightly breezy. Running in different climates is definitely an adventure.

Post-edit: I ran my 8 miles today (with my waterpack) and felt pretty dang good and the weather cooperated, so it was fabulous!