BIRD is the WORD

We spent this past week up at Snowbird at the good old Iron Blossom. It was so much fun because my ENTIRE family got to be there! Spence, as you all know from the last post just got back from the mish, & then Stacy & Chris & their 3 girls all drove into town. We swam, played games, played tennis, watched movies, slept & ate, ate, ate! Now that's my kind of vacation. :) All was well until Friday afternoon when Mike, Chris, Spencer & Spency's friend Andrew decided to rent some scooters & go up the tram & then ride down the mountain. As they were about to leave Stacy says to Chris, "Make sure you come back with all of the pieces you left with!" Well about an hour or so later we get a call & Chris had hit a pothole on the trail & broken his ankle badly. The ambulances came & took him straight down to Alta View Hospital where he got some X-Rays & was evaluated & it turned out that he had broken his ankle & some of the ligaments had come off. So, he ended up staying over night & having surgery the following morning. All went well & he is now "recovering", I just have one question, Would it still be considered "coming back with all the pieces that you left with", if they were all still technically there, just all broken & mashed up? Anywhoo, on a much lighter note, let me semi-explain the pictures above. As you can tell in the top one that they are all swimming, but I don't even want to try to explain Mike in this photo, so moving on... the next one down is Camren & Lyse eating some ice-cream (Cams favorite treat!) on the balcony of the condo. The third one down is all of the kids playing The Candy Bar Game, now you have to know that I grew up going to Snowbird every summer of my life & every time we were up there, there was a game of The Candy Bar Game played, so it's basically tradition. The adults played our own game of it too, but there is no evidence on film-so sorry. The last picture I think is so sweet, the cousins wanted to sleep by each other & one of the night's we ourselves walked in to go to bed & this is how Jaden & Aly wound up, all tangled up in each other. Although really you can tell by the picture, it's mostly just Jaden all over Aly & both of them just sleeping soundly either way. What a fun trip! Thanks again Mom & Dad for letting us come up year after year, it is ALWAYS a BLAST!

He's BAAAAAAAACK!!!!

It's official, my youngest brother Spencer just got back from his mission to Japan & it is so much fun to have him back!!! He is the comic relief of our family. He is one of my favorite people to be around on the whole planet! My parents & Jess & Matt went over & actually picked Spence up from Japan, so I was kind of in charge of getting all of the "Welcome Home" stuff in order. So this morning I went & tied yellow ribbons around all the trees leading up to my parents house with a family neighbor Lisa Elder & then I went with Spencers "friend?", Megan & put up cups on the walkway above Bangeter. Which in & of itself was quite the task considering the cups that I had bought didn't exactly "fit" inside the chain link. I'm sure it would have been pretty humorous watching us shove the cups into place. But all in all it was a success! My older sister Stacy & her clan all came into town today as well & it was so fun being all together as a family again, I have to admit it made me a wee bit emotional at times. Later in the evening I went to go grab some Village Baker for everyone for a late dinner & Spencer offered to come with me. It was so fun to have him all to myself for our little food run. Spencer is just such an awesome brother & friend. I am so proud of him & so happy that he is a part of my family. When he was gone, it always felt like something was missing. And even though I know that he is going to miss Japan, & for my own selfish reasons I am sooo glad he's HOME! :)

WOW, What a Hole!!!

The process has BEGUN! Wehoo! Ladies & Gent's we have a hole! I never thought that I could get so excited over some dirt, but as soon as they start diggin' that dirt, that's when the excitement begins! And the best part of it all was that Mike or Larry didn't have to do any of the work (I guess that is the benefit of paying someone else to build your house, now isn't it?)! More updates to come, I'm sure I'll be over there taking a plethora of pictures to share! Stay tuned....

MODEL BEHAVIOR

Krista had some of our nieces over for a sleepover & we ended up doing make-overs & "Glamour Shots"! Krista did the lovely hair & I did the make-up, hello, do they even need any? No, they are all so gorgeous, Naturally! It was so much fun, it's always good to have a "girlie" night! They all cracked me up too, while we were waiting for some of the girls to get their hair done, we decided to get a pen & pretend it was a microphone & we'd pass it around & we were making up a rap about our night. Keep in mind that it was midnight by this time & we were all a little bit delusional. But it was hilarious, they were crackin' me up left & right with some of the rhymes they were coming up with! Good times!

A bunch of goons at Lagoon

Thanks to my in-laws, our family got to enjoy a great day at Lagoon! The top picture is Jaden & Camren with their Grandma & Grandpa- I looove that picture! Vickie & Larry are some of the nicest, most generous people I have ever met & I am so lucky that they are my in-laws! We had so much fun going to Lagoona Beach & on all of the rides. Camren especially loved the Dinosaur Drop, he would laugh so hard every time it dropped, it was soo cute! Love Lagoon!

Sun + Fun = LAKE POWELL

We spent this last week down in Lake Powell, and not that any of you care, but yes Mike & I did drive all the way home from Mesquite last Sunday & then the very next day we drove all that way back out to Lake Powell. Needless to say we are a little bit sick of driving- apologies go out to our Chevy Prism who made the long haul all possible! Anywhoo, the "vacay" was a Blast!!! The weather was awesome & the water couldn't have been a better temperature. We stayed on my parents best friends, The Sartori's, Houseboat. They are the nicest, funnest people & our family has always gone to Powell with them every year since I can remember. We got to swim (the boys favorite thing to do, especially after they realized that they could do it "all by themselves", with the help of their life jackets, of course), Jet Ski, Wake board (did you see how stinkin' cute the picture is of Camren going with Mike?), Knee board, Cliff Jump, swim some more, & just relax! I believe I was able to take a nap every single day that I was down there. Ahhh, Bliss! :D