Playing catch up

Do any of you ever get so caught up with Facebook that you forget you even have a blog?? Guilty!! Then to be told by your kids grandma that she misses seeing new pictures... ouch my heart! Sorry to those of you in blog~land who actually read my blog! I'll try to be better I promise!! Oh, and Karen, this one's for you! We love you :)

Since so much has happened since May (omg... has it been that long??) i might as well just post pics documenting that last several months. Enjoy!

St. George with Nikki and Garth and NO kids! So much fun  :)

Staying in a cabin with friends Jenny and Mont in Oakley. SOOOOO beautiful!!

Lots of trips to the pool

Hanging out in the theater room Mark finished! YAY!

Making parking lots is so much fun :)

First time up close to a REAL tractor!! SO exciting!!

Chillin out with Ginger dog ;)

Working on the backyard

LAKE POWELL!! (part one)

Mark's birthday party!

Football Season! Go Braves!!

Shucking corn with Papa :)

LAKE POWELL (part two!)

Blowing tire on the truck on our way home from the lake... SO scary!!

Uncle Tyler's wedding

Ashton loves his new cowboy hat :)

1st day of 5th grade!! Justin's growing up too fast!

The Lion King 

Goofin around :)

Hogle Zoo

Playing on the dirt bikes with Papa

Handsome boy ready for church :)

Sleeping with tools cuz he's "such a worker guy"

Halloween

Snow!

Still alive... and 30

Wow it has been a long time since the last blog post...

Nothing really new around here...

except...

I turned...

  30!!

I have to admit, it was depressing. I know I know, it's no big deal... unless its happening to you. Now it's been a couple of weeks and i'm just fine. I survived. I have the BEST BEST BEST friends (Nikki and Kayci) who collaborated with Mark to throw me a black balloon party. I had NO idea he was going to do what he did. 

I drove up and found these hanging from the outside of my house and though... O.M.G...:

Then I walked IN the house and found these:

We had a little party planned but I had no idea Mark was going to do the balloons all over the house, and buy a cake!! He also bought me the most beautiful wall sconses and turquoise candles (the accent color of my kitchen) to go on top.

When my friend Nikki showed up she had a tiara and a feather boa for me to wear... cute.

In other news:

Justin started lacrosse again and is loving it. Here he is playing goalie!!

and Ashton is still the cutest thing... ever!!

Happy Spring!!

Broken

Ashton is broken. Apparently he takes after his accident-prone momma. Friday afternoon I took off early from work so I could take Ashton to his 2 year well-child doctor appointment. I stopped at home first to get some lunch. While I was getting something to eat Ashton asked for some cereal. I turned to the pantry to grab some and Ashton got so excited he started dancing around on the bar stool he was standing on. Well he danced a little too much and stepped right off! Mark and I were both within 5 feet of him but we couldn't catch him. He fell off sideways and his left hand hit the floor first. He has fractured his elbow. So he's in a little blue cast for the next 3 weeks. You'd never know he was broken though; he's climbing on and jumping off of everything! Maybe his new cast gave him super powers?? ;)

What a decade!

Today is Justin's 10th birthday! I can't believe he's already so "old"! We had a very eventful week of birthday celebrations starting with Ashton's 2nd birthday back on January 23rd. Saturday night we had friends and family over for pizza and cake. There was great conversation, delicious deserts and fun had by all!


With Justin turning 10 it has caused me to take pause and reflect on the last decade. For me, it has been filled with tremendous highs and a few lows and a lot of growing up. I had an unplanned pregnancy at the age of 19 which threw me headfirst into adulthood. Justin is truly my best friend and I can't imagine my life without him. He has always been my little sidekick and my bestest buddy. We have a relationship unlike most and I feel truly blessed to have him in my life. I met my love, Mark, back in December of 2003 and we've had a rollercoaster of a ride; but I wouldn't trade it for anything else and I'm so happy to be on this ride with him. I blindly left my job at Zions Bank in 2005 in hopes of finding something better only to land the most terrific job with Operating Engineers Credit Union 1 month later. I built my first home, by myself, at the age of 25... only to think it's time to build another one 2 years later! Crazy, I know. We welcomed Ashton Scott to our family in January of 08 and we're all madly in love with that little stinker! We've added new pets and had to say goodbye to a couple along the way. We've made so many new friends and made incredible memories.


It really has been an amazing 10 years and I'm so excited to see what the next decade has in store!

California!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! I have been writing this post since January 3rd... but life with an almost 2 year old, a new super cute puppy, a full time job, and a crazy busy life has made actually finising this post pretty hard... but I did it (yay me!) Anyway, here is :)

After 4 months of constant planning we finally got to surprise Justin with a fun trip to California. Christmas morning he woke up to find his stoking full and new suitcases packed. He had a letter that he read aloud stating that he and his whole family were going to DISNEYLAND!! With careful planning between Mark and I and Santa Clause we were able to put together a fun filled trip to California which included trips to Disneyland, California Adventure, Lego Land, USS Midway, and Huntington Beach!!
Our flight left at 11:02 and being Christmas Day we thought we'd better get there early; especially since we were traveling with Ashton and all of his "things". My mom came to pick us up at 8:30 (of course we weren't quite ready to go...). We finally got to the airport and realized that I had left Justin's Lego Land ticket at home. So my mom then turned around to pick it up and bring it back to us. She is AWESOME! What Justin didn't know is that there was another surprise in store for him. Soon after arriving at Salt Lake International he saw a few familiar faces... his good friends Bubba and Kaleb and their parents (who happen to be our GOOD friends) were coming with us! After spending the morning in SLC where the temperature was a balmy 8 degrees, it was very VERY nice to walk off the plane in Long Beach where the weather was to hit about 67 that day! The only bad thing about the weather was that my whole allergy system was hibernating in the Utah cold weather. All of a sudden I felt like Melman on Madagascar... "NATURE!! It's all over me!! Get it off!!"... my allergies went NUTS!

We stayed at the Anaheim Marriott which was a pretty nice hotel. We were happy with it. It was within walking (LONG) distance from Disneyland. We went to the Park on Christmas day and apparently so did ALL OF CALIFORNIA. It was SOOOO busy, but we had fun and it was exciting for the kids to be there.

Day 2 was spent "hanging out". We went to my favorite restaurant, El Torito, in Dana Point and walked on the harbor. The boys went through a gate they weren't supposed to and got stuck... it was VERY comical!!

Day 3 was spent at Lego Land. None of us had ever been there before. I have to say it was probably one of the prettiest parks I've ever been to... but pretty boring. The rides were geared towards young kids (most of them) and the lines were very long. The coolest part was mini land where they made entire cities out of Lego's, very cool.
Day 4 was a long day. We traveled to San Diego to visit the USS Midway museum. The museum was very interesting and I think the boys had a lot of fun. I had no idea that the tour would take as long as it did, but it was self guided so that was nice. We got some pretty cute pictures too! I would recommend anyone who enjoys history to check it out.

Day 5 we were back at Disneyland and California adventure for the day and a good time was had by all. The park reached capacity by 10 am... note to self... NEVER visit Disneyland around the holidays again.

Day 6 we were supposed to go to the beach. Everyday had been beautiful so we had high hopes until we woke up to major rain fall for the entire day :( BOO! So we had cabin fever in our hotel and I thought I'd go nuts!!

Day 7 was New Years Eve. We woke up and went to Disneyland. I took Ashton on the kiddie rides and he was terrified. I laughed! I'm so mean... We went home for lunch and returned to California adventure where we stayed for the remainder of the day. This day was by far my favorite. The new years eve party there was incredible!! There were dance parties all over the park and lots of loud music that Ashton loved! The lines on this day weren't nearly as bad as they had been on days past. Mark and Justin stayed in the park to ride rides after the new years countdown. They were able to walk on to all the rides and had SO much fun!

Day 8 was our go home day. It had been such a long week and I think everyone was ready to go home. Since we missed our beach day we decided to hit Huntington Beach before our flight home. It was BEAUTIFUL! They boys played in the ocean and Ashton jumped in the waves. We went to Ruby's on pier for lunch which was good food, but HORRIBLE service. Hopefully the girl working the take out window was just having a bad day...

All in all we had a wonderful trip! It was so much fun to be with adult friends while the kids had each other. I can't wait until we can go again! We're already planning our next vacation... to the Caribbean...NO KIDS! lol :)