sisters

photo from a spontaneous saturday with my sister. love it. love her.

everyone moved away

. . . and i hardly got any pictures. brad and kendall and family and aaron and sabrina and family both moved up to seattle, wa. i am pretty bummed about it. but mostly i will miss the kids. :) notice that's who I got the most pictures of.

sabrina and kendall at grandma elaine's a few days before they left.

dominic. i took a million pictures of this kid and he wouldn't look at the camera. he is so cute though.

landon and kailyn, the night we helped them pack the moving truck. not sure why landon is in his power ranger outfit, but i love it. i miss these little bugs.

zion with the girls

hiked hidden canyon with mom and sara back in july. :) I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures. this was such a fun day. we hiked hidden canyon {sara was sorta scared of the parts with chains}, went swimming in a fun swimming hole and then had lunch at oscar's in springdale. perfect day with the girls.

since i've been gone . . .

it seems i've been a little distant lately . . . i guess until i get into a new routine i let a few things slide. the blog being one of them.

new work is finally feeling normal. :) yea!

school has been out for the summer for at least 2 months now.

no summer classes = me cleaning and organizing my house, and looking for other projects. what's with my obsession with being busy? no clue.

this fall will be my final semester before i officially have my bachelor's degree.

i'm already thinking about the next step. more thoughts to come later. . .

considering 8-month certification in kundalini yoga, but after doing 108 sun salutations for the summer solstice, am rethinking how much more practice i need before i teach.

other than that, here are a few of the pictures i have managed to take over the past month or so . . .

took a quick trip to slc with mom and sisters to see my cute niece and nephew in a play. they were darling and would totally wave at us during the play. we sort of instigated that though. :) they got trophies cause it was their last night.

planted a garden. these are the strawberries. also planted artichoke, tomatoes, raspberries and lots of flowers!

enjoyed my banks' roses blooming. only one month out of the year, but love them!

took the family on a hike for mother's day. mom's request. and cami was in town!

lovely summer days. hope to be back more often.

happy late mothers day!

saw this on mother's day weekend when driving home from slc. those are cranes! how rad is that?



i pretty much have the best mom ever. and i don't mind that i am becoming more and more like her everyday. amen.

how cute are these kids!?!

found these pics on khulett photography of my cute niece and nephew. love them and had to share. kevin did an amazing job!

are you kidding me? so darling.

4 years

This is a re-post from my sister cami's tumblr page and because they don't let you comment on tumblr pages, i wanted to tell my sister that she said it perfectly. i miss my dad. it would be so fun to have more conversations with him, more trips with him, more days with him. thanks cami for a great tribute.

it’s been 4 years since my dad has passed, so this post is dedicated to him….

my father is someone that….

makes sure you do what your mother says
holds back your hair when you are sick
lets you eat ice cream for breakfast
walks you down the aisle
gives you nicknames to make you feel extra special
isn’t afraid to acknowledge the elephant in the room
has the voice of a lion
but the heart of an angel
makes up songs about your friends names
gets kicked out of your basketball game because he’s yelling to loud
makes the best mix cd’s
is always up for a good discussions
pops your toes
gets all the cracks out of your back
is the best golfer
is the biggest jokster in the world
gives you money if you rub his feet
farts at the dinner table
is the best bargainer (he always lowered the prices)
cooks the best krepes in the world
scares your date by simply cleaning off his gun
is good at everything he does
rubs his stubbly face on your cheeks
teaches you how to drive stick
makes his presence known
is always up for camping
isn’t afraid to go up and talk to someone
lipsinks
lets you comb his chest hair
plays the guitar
writes songs about your mom
tells the best jokes
doesn’t like wearing ties
falls asleep while watching golf
tickles you until you’re about to pee your pants
scares your friends
obnoxiously squirts you with water
sits and plays with the kids for hours
is not afraid to throw you realllly high in the air
works extra hard
lets you cuddle with him
sings duets with you
makes an impression on everyone he meets
builds the best snowman’s
teases you about everything
master’s the “shoulder boppin” dance move
makes everything he eats look sooo good
gives you advice
makes you dream bigger then the stars
is filled with passion
loves you no matter what
tells you everythings gonna be okay
believes in you
and is always with you.

i love you, dad.

miss you dearly.

an adventure

went on an adventure to find the river on sunday with landon, kailyn, grandma, sara, and the two dogs - sophie and kai. :) it was so fun. i made mom try rollerblading. pretty funny!

love these little kids!

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pretty cool date for a birthday this year. :)

celebrated mine and michael's birthday with the fam last night. {his day is tomorrow.}

cutest smile ever.

thanks for the amazing yogurt cake! my favorite!

christmas and the amazing mac & cheese

i sort of forgot to post about christmas this year. . . and i sort of forgot to take pictures of much. so here a the few moments that were captured by my camera.

cute little landon and kailyn on christmas morning playing with their toys. {slept at brad and kendall's so we could watch the little kids experience santa. so fun!}

brad with dominic. so cute.

token cheesy christmas tree pic.

christmas day dinner. hello! {this was brad's plate.}

i promised shane i would blog about this because he was so excited.

mac and cheese!

haha! he hated eating traditional holiday dishes and wanted something good. so this is the yummiest, cheesiest and most expensive mac and cheese i have ever had. good job babe.

it's huge!

but oh so yummy. :)

hope you had a good one!

sand mountain

took the family on a fabulous hike a couple weeks ago. it was a gorgeous day in st. george, but when we got to sand mountain it was super cold and windy. michael fixed our mom a "coat" out of a blanket that was in the car and we were set. it warmed up as we hiked, but was still pretty windy. we took my mom's little dog, sophie, and she did awesome! so cute to see her hiking right along with with us.

best part of the hike was running down the sand mountain. here are mike, jeff and sara . . . mom took a little longer and so didn't make it on the video. :)

baking with ar mel's

here are the pics from my baking extravaganza with my two sista's. amy has an amazingly delicious bakery she started about a year ago and it's getting bigger and bigger. :) she had a huge order to do and asked for my and sara's help. it was a good excuse to go up and hang with my sister and her family even if we didn't get much sleep.

we were so busy baking that we sorta forgot to take pictures. here a few. the gift bags we made included: amazing brownies covered in cream cheese frosting and ganoche, snickerdoodles dipped in chocolate and chocolate chip cookie bars with chocolate and peanut butter topping. yum! 128 gift bags later . . . whew.

later that weekend we did a little day trip to tracy aviary in liberty park and the old spaghetti factory. i had never been there and it was fun!



fun sisters! we missed you cam!



thanks ame! love ya.

cami's goin' country

amy and her family got to go visit my talented sister who is performing in virginia. {see more pics on amy's facebook} i went last year and wish i could have gone this year. check out how cute my sister is below {totally sounds like reba}:



cami's bf is the guitar player and the one who sings "friends in low places" in the second half of the video. :)



seeing these make me miss her! love you cam! i'm so glad you are going for it!

floating down the virgin river

so i started my day off on friday at 5:30am! i was going to go hiking with corinne and mary in zion and they are way on time people so i woke up earlier than needed to make sure i was ready. :) we hiked watchmen's and then weeping rock and then had a fabulous breakfast at oscar's, which is still my favorite restaurant ever. {mary still needs to email the pics from our little adventure . . . yes mary - email them :) }

then i met up with my fab fam to float down the virgin river. we rented tubes from zion adventure company. they were awesome. they give you huge tubes, you float for like 2 hours down the river and then they pick you up at the bottom. and if you want to go again, it only costs five bucks.

heading down to get in the river.

the stick they are holding onto totally helped out because then the other person could pull you if you got stuck. the water wasn't that deep.

but it was so much fun! cold water. hot day. totally fun and relaxing.

there was even a rope swing!

my mom's first time ever going on a rope swing. can you believe it!? she said she was always holding babies and watching us go. she was funny to watch. :)

the perfect tarzan pose by michael!

jeff climbing the rope.

finished off the day with a little picnic!

totally fun! the river really was awesome. just remember to keep your bum up.

totally awesome trick me and michael discovered. :) love my family!