Our Trip to California

Over the 4th of July we went and visited Troy's Dad at his beach house in a teeny tiny town called Cayucos, California. We had the best time. It is usually foggy and cold this time of year (well any time of year really!) But we had the most beautiful weather!

So because it costs a million dollars to fly anywhere we drove to California it took us 14 hours!!! Here are the kids smiling cause it is only a couple of hours into our drive. Here are some of the things we saw on the way. The Windmill Farm. The Airplane Graveyard.

On our second day we hiked up to the top of a hill where we saw the most amazing view. This is what we hiked to see. This is what Samuel was doing the whole time! He just jumped off rocks. Scared me so so much!!

The rest of the week we played at the beach,My kids are adorable right!!! My cute glitter toes!!

My sexy boogie boarder!!!

We built sand castles, We chillaxed (as Mikayla likes to say)

One night for dinner we built a fire on the beach and roasted hot dogs and made S'mores!!! We started our 4th of July by going down to the beach and seeing all the sand sculptures at the sand sculpture contest. Owen made his own sand sculpture. (its an alligator in case you were wondering)Next we watched the parade the town puts on. All the floats are made by residents and their families.After the parade we came back to Grandpa Mikes house and had dinner and the kids played in the hot tub. You would have thought it was a full sized pool by the tricks they were trying to pull in there!This is what we looked like watching the fireworks. It was so cold that I even put my hood up over my head and snuggled next to my cute hubby! This is our view of the fireworks. This is Mikayla and Grandpa Mike in the Kayak. I didn't want to take the camera with us just in case we tipped over so I don't have any pictures of us in the kayak but I did take a couple after I had gotten out and the kids went for a second ride. Owen and Grandpa Mike. This is Mikayla, Me, Cynthia, Morgan and Sam in our super cute life jackets! This is Troy and the kids at Elephant Seal beach. The boys love to watch them fight. The girls just think its weird! This is Troy and the kids by the City sign of Harmony, CA. If you look closely you can see that there are only 18 people in Harmony and they still have their own post office! (Don't get Troy started about this!!) But they have a little shop where they blow glass by hand and you can watch them. The kids thought it was really cool! This is a couple of the pieces they make.
But the best thing we did was spend an entire week with our little family with no interruptions. It was AWESOME. It has kind of been a tradition for us but I enjoyed it more this time then I have in the past so I will probably be better about making sure it is on our calendar quicker and more often.

I Forgot to post this.

Here is the final product of the family pictures we took with Troy's family. I think they turned out cute!

Girls Weekend

As part of my summer of fun I got to go down to St. George with my Mother-in-laws and Sister-in-laws to Tuacahn to see The Little Mermaid and Grease and to do a little or a lot of shopping. We had a great time.This is the outside of Tuacahn. You can already see how incredible the surroundings are.

This is the back ground of the plays. Isn't that the most amazing back drop!!!

This is us before Grease. (Me, Kelli, Shelley, Pepper, and Laurie)
The show was great! Little Mermaid was just ok there were high winds that night and they couldn't do any of the cool effects with the water and other things. But it was still pretty good. I took this picture of me with my Ipod just for fun.

We also went and got Mani's and Pedi's. I had just had glitter toes put on so I went for a Manicure instead of a Pedicure. I thought that they turned out really cute.

New Nephew!

I have a new nephew!!! My sister doesn't want to put his info out into the world just yet but I will say he is cute as a button! He is having some problems and is in the NICU right now so prayers would be greatly appreciated. Dr.'s say he will hopefully continue to show signs of improvement so we are praying he can come home soon. I did want to say a big public

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

My Own Personal Concert!

The other day when Morgan had her friend Hannah over they thought it would be fun to put on a performance for us. It was so fun to watch! They had programs and seating assignments and even refreshments after it was over. I thought it would be fun to post it here so that everyone could enjoy it!

Sam sings a long a little bit your welcome for that.

Oh and please forgive my little outburst at Sam. A director needs perfect conditions in order to work people!! ;-]

Its That Time Again

It was finally time again!! Time for my girls only weekend with my mom and sisters. We look forward to this every year. This year because Kara is 8 months pregnant we had to stay close to home so Kaci flew out here. As it turned out her husband had to be here at that time anyway so we got to see my niece and nephew too! When people asked us where we were going I didn't know how to explain that it really isn't where we go because we have so much fun now matter where we are. It is a bunch of playing, shopping, and giggling. We really do have the best time. Anyway so this year we went back to Troy's Dad's condo in Park City again. We thought that it would be nice and springy in Park City at the end of April. Apparently Park City didn't get the "it's spring" message. We had a high of 36 and 6 inches of snow. But that didn't stop us! We started our weekend at our traditional place THE MELTING POT!!! Oh that is the yummiest food!!! It is expensive though so we only get to go once a year so it is a big deal for us. This year we decided that since Kaci was here for such a short time and we would be gone for a lot of it we would invite my dad and brother to come with us.
This is my sisters Kara and Kaci and my brother Evan. Kara wouldn't take a picture without putting her hand in front of her face so Evan is holding her hand down. After this dinner I stopped trying to get Kara to smile, so, she was having a blast she just didn't want to smile. :-] My Dad has similar picture taking issues but his are incurable. We have tried. Kara will go back to normal when she has her baby. It is brought on by pregnancy. My dad will never take a good picture as long as he lives. :-]This is me and my mom. She is awesome, I'm just sayin'.
This is how we hit the outlet malls. Both my sisters forgot to bring coats with us (It was supposed to be spring after all) So they borrowed the 2 winter coats I had and I borrowed one from my father in law that he keeps up at the condo. This is my mom, Kaci and Kara. I tell you because it is hard to see underneath all the layers.

That's me in the black coat. It was much larger then me but it was warm!This is what the weather looked like at the end of our day of shopping. We stopped to get some things for dinner and I took this picture from the car in the parking lot. It was crazy cold and snowy! But that didn't stop the fun! That night we broke out the Martinelli's and the playing cards! We pretty much laughed for 3 days straight.
We took these pictures to say goodbye to Kaci and to show all the snow that we had gotten the night before. Thanks again guys for good times and thanks to the hubby's for making it possible for us to go. Can't wait until next year!!!