summer time!

This summer was SOOOOO much fun.  Makenna and Jace are at such fun ages now so we had all kinds of fun this summer.  A typical week consisted of:

Monday: Explora/Library/pool (one of the 3)

Tuesday: Free movie day/ park day

Wednesday: Free movie day/ Balloon museum story time

Thursday: Pool

Friday: Pool

If it sounds like I'm super mom I'm really not... it's all for selfish reasons!  You see, at the beginning of the summer I found that we were all much happier if we got out of the house.  The kids didn't fight, the house stayed clean, and we all had much more fun.  I think we were home all day maybe 3 days the whole summer.  Yeah, that's how I roll.

We also really enjoyed our family evening walks/bike rides/scooter rides, and especially enjoyed the sunsets.  They really are AMAZING here in Albuquerque.  This one below was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.  Good thing they don't go away in the winter.  :)

If I sound pathetic about summer going away, it's because I am!  Every year I go through this.  It's like a part of me is dying!  Don't get me wrong, there are definitely things I love about the rest of the year, but I'm an outside kind of gal which is not so fun when it's freezing outside.

Just so I feel a little better I will make a list of things I like about the cold!

Balloon Fiesta

Snuggling

Using the fireplace

hot cocoa

Wearing jeans again

Snow/snowboarding

Using my car as a refrigerator when I have to go to multiple stores(!)

The holidays

check back soon, I have a few posts to update!

Newport Beach

As I write this post I am feeling so sad! I do not want summer to end, and I feel like this trip was the end of it. It was THE perfect end to a really great summer.

For our anniversary, I surprised Scott with Charger's tickets! (Well kinda, I kept it a secret for a couple days!) Of course, it was pre-season, but also the only time the Chargers play on Saturdays, so Scott was in heaven. It was REALLY fun. So much different than any game I've been to. The crowd is ROWDY and loud, but that made it fun!

nice cell pic for ya

Well then the next day we headed to the Newport Beach house where we stayed the whole week!

It was our anniversary on Monday and we spent the day shopping, laying on the beach, eating Mexican food with a view of the ocean, and walking the Huntington Beach pier at sunset. It was perf!! I don't know if that was my dream day or Scotts!! Um I think it's obvi!!

HB pier

The next few days consisted of:

Bike rides on the beach cruisers

laying like a whale on the beach

looking for rad shells

games with fam

Grunion runs

roasting marshmallows and other junk

Stuffing my face

Girls shopping outing

flying kites

Wait hold up, what is a grunion run you ask? Supposed to be this totally awesome event where thousands of fish come to the shore to mate at night. We went all three nights... we saw 2. Sweet!!

Kara thought this would be a sweet pic... it pretty much is!

Makenna was such a good big cousin to Clark

true Jace style- tongue out, ball in one hand, looking good...

cutest dad evs

totes adorbs

a little blurry, but too cute to resist!

The whole fam

thanks to these girls, most of this post is abbreviated. Hope you enjoyed that. Fo sho

Now if only fall could hold off for a little while I will be a happy woman.

Swimming Lessons

Makenna has been taking swim lessons for 2 weeks now. Before this summer she didn't know how to swim because I was too worried about taking 2 young kids last year, so it is crazy how much she has learned this summer! She can now swim so well, and loves to dive for diving sticks. She absolutely loves it and would spend all day out in the water if I let her. We have been swimming a few times a week this summer. It has been GREAT.

Her cute class and teachers- she's number 4

FAMILY

As you can see, we had our family pictures taken by Liz, and can you tell I love them?! I LOVE THEM!! Thanks so much Liz for taking them! You are the bomb!

Here is a close-up view of a few favorites...

4th of July

The 4th was a lot of fun this year. We got together with some friends on Sat. night for some fireworks. I like that the little kids think the cheap fireworks are so cool, as you can see by these faces... :)

Then on Sun. we BBQ'd with the Burns and lit off some more fireworks. Then we got in our cars and parked our car on a cliff to watch all the fireworks in the city, specifically the balloon fiesta fireworks. So pretty. The party doesn't stop there in Albuquerque. People light fireworks well into the night... and the next night... and the next night. Scott, Stacy, and I went up on our roof to check them out. Our neighborhood has quite the display going on! It really was a great weekend. I love our country!

Utah-Idaho trip

Our first stop was to see BFF. (Do you like the engagement pic?) It was so much fun to see her again and have our kids play! We spent lots of time outside. It was beautiful while we were there. I was also to see my good friend Rebecca that just moved away. I miss them both!

Then we headed up to Eagle, ID for my cousin Courtney's wedding. This is her family. It was such a pretty wedding! Many of my cousins were able to be there along with all of my Aunts and Uncles, so it was so great to see everybody!

We all went white water rafting together the next day. Holy cow that was so fun! All the girls got to be in the same raft and we had a blast! After we had done all of the white water, we played some games on the raft and all pretty much ended up in the water. It was freezing, but fun!

We were also able to visit with my grandma for the last time. She is really not doing very well and doesn't have much time left. (The above picture is from last year) It was very hard knowing that I would never see her again. She is such a sweet and special lady. I have always loved being around her. She's always so happy and sweet and funny. Makenna and Jace were able to see grandma for the last time too. It was really sweet to see Makenna with grandma. She rubbed her feet and touched her hands, and said sweet things to her. Jace liked seeing grandma and talking to her and gave her a little kiss goodbye. It was a good teaching experience for me to tell Makenna a little about dying. Makenna had LOTS of questions. It was really sad when she said things like "I don't want grandma to die. Then I will never see her again!" I explained to her that we would see her again and that grandma would probably be waiting to say hi to us in heaven. That really seemed to make her feel better knowing that. That makes me feel better too. :)

A good reminder

Today was just one of those days. I didn't have a lot of patience, and the kids probably didn't deserve the kind of mom I was today. When Scott got home I told him how the day had gone, and he reminded me that we should probably read our scriptures better. I have to admit that we are horrible with family scripture reading! Basically we hardly ever do it.

So tonight after story time, I got out the Old Testament reader and began reading from the beginning. As I read, the spirit flooded into that room. My kids were so interested, and every time we finished reading a story, Jace would say "read more mom!" It really was amazing. We read a few stories, then I put them to bed. They did their usual, "mom I'm hungry!" and "mom, I need my bear!" and "mom, it's too dark in here!" If I had still been in my impatient mood I would have just shut the door and said good night! But tonight I had all the patience in the world. I saw them as precious children of God instead of the little rascals I saw them as earlier. It really is amazing what a difference reading the scriptures can make. I have been praying lately to have more patience, and what I really needed was to invite the spirit into our home through scriptures. It really is that simple. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father is constantly looking out for me and helping me through the hard days. :)

Love that little rascal!

What I have been up to!

1. Was in my first car accident on memorial day... I was just driving along minding my own business when a car that was pulled over to the side of the road decided to u-turn into me! She got the front, then we spun, and she hit the back too. We (sis and I) were fine, the car was not. It's still being worked on...

2. Went on a wakeboarding trip with the Young Women last weekend. I absolutely love being in Young Womens, and looks like I will be sticking around for a while longer now that I switched from adviser back to 1st counselor last sunday... whooohoooo! We spent the day swimming, sunburning, wakeboarding, tubing, boating, talking, and laughing! I love pretending I'm still a teenager!

3. We got brand new carpet installed a couple weeks ago. I am in LOVE! It has been so long since we've had decent carpet, oh wait, we have never had decent carpet! We had the privelege of choosing pretty much any carpet we wanted thanks to my brother in law that works for Mohawk!


kids like it too

4. Went to Tim Mcgraw a couple weeks ago with sister and some friends. It was the bomb. It reminded me of the good old days with high school friend Jenna blasting Tim on the way to school! Good times...



5. Sister has been here for a month now. I have loved it! We like to watch our tv shows together at night, go shopping, and get weird drinks at sonic! My best one yet is blue coconut sprite with pineapple! Thanks to my friends that helped welcome her it means a LOT to me!

6. Of course I am doing crafty things here and there. Here is my latest...

can you tell who is who?

7. I started a diet a week ago. It is my own diet that I made up because it works for me! It basically consists of being super healthy until dinner time. I never crave sweets until later in the day, so I just try to eat as healthy as possible, and then at night I just make a normal dinner (my family appreciates that too!), and then I still get to eat dessert too. There's just no way I could cut out sweets because it makes me go crazy! So far I am down 3 pounds in a week... Wooohooo! Hopefully I can finally lose the last 10 pounds I have been holding on to!

8. I started writing about the kids on this one so I had to remind myself, nope! This is not about them this time! haha

9. As I said in number 5 I've been loving the summer tv shows! My favorites are the Bachelorette, So You Think You Can Dance, The Hills, and The City. Don't judge me cause I watch the Hills. :) It reminds me of home!

10. Lastly, I have been gardening! My veggie garden is OK. Tomatoes, onions, carrots and string beans are growing, but squash, zucchini, and cucumbers still have not graced us with their presence. I replanted some yesterday so hopefully we can get some soon! I have also finished planting my rose garden, and flower gardens.

veggies including the millions of little weeds I have this year

Roses and Gladiolas

random flowers I thought were cute

Victory's wedding

My cute niece got married this past weekend! It was so great to be able to go through for her endowment and then sealing. I'm excited they live here in Albuquerque too!

I love how happy couples are when they first come out!

Just thought this was pretty!

Dance recital 2

Makenna had another dance recital this past weekend. She did sooo good! She is such a natural on stage, it kills me. She really loves it. There were probably 1500 people there watching, and she was not nervous at all. It was so cute!

Toe pointed and all!

These pics are from after the dress rehearsal so her hair's not done great, but she was being so funny I had to post them all here. That girl cracks me up!

This is after her recital. She LOOOVED the flowers! She's been excited for about 2 months to get flowers after her recital. I stinkin love that girl!