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Early on the third we enjoyed the tradition of watching the hot air balloons.  This year, Brendan was much more aware of what was going on…and a Tony the Tiger balloon made an appearance.

On the morning of the fourth, we went to a neighborhood breakfast.  Then we drove over to our church and helped clean, since Adam had volunteered our family to do so.  But, the real fun began at Grandpa Stone’s house.  The kids love Grandma and Grandpa.  They love throwing rocks in the stream behind his house.  And they all have a good time in the hammock.  This year they even had a race to see who could roll down the hill the fastest.  The food and company was great.  So many cousins were there because Jen and Joel were blessing their baby Breanna on July 5th.  We, of course, took some family pictures.

So, there are more pictures.  I will put the rest of them on my facebook page if anyone wants to see them.  The family crazy pictures and the kid crazy-face pictures are worth the time.

Later, we went to Nana and Grandad’s house and the kids were able to ride a horse.  We then had an amazing barbeque…where it is our family’s tradition to pretend like we didn’t just have dinner at Grandpa’s.  So, we ate dinner again.  Then we went out front and set off fireworks and the kids played with glow sticks.  It was a beautiful day.

June 20th has come and gone and my little brother is now married! As weddings go, it was a long, stressful, busy day. The bride and groom both came down with the flu a few days before, and the weather was not cooperative, but we managed to pull it off. The wedding was in Provo canyon and it had been raining on and off all day, so the vision they had for the reception was not to be. We managed to have a short, (but beautiful) ceremony and snap a few pictures before a torrential downpour sent us all running for the pavillion. We tried to have the dinner, but it was raining and the wind was blowing so hard, most people headed for home. We decided to move to the Veterans Hall in Lindon City Park, the very same place where James and I had our wedding luncheon. They managed to get the word out and so many friends and family showed up! It turned out great! Of course, the rain stopped and the sun came back out eventually. I hope they had a good day, at least one filled with memories! Congratulations, and I love you two!

Here are just a few of the…over 500 photos we took on our vacation.  I figured you didn’t really want to see all of them.  I will scrapbook a nice portion of those.

This is our family in front of Carhenge…yep Stonehenge made of cars.  Adam was very excited about this site and the kids asked several times during our vacation to go back there.

Brendan in front of Carhenge.

Our family in front of Mount Rushmore.  I was so excited to be back here.  I came with my family when I was about Jonathan’s age I think.  It was gorgeous.  We went to the night presentation where they lit up the mountain.  We were able to visit the visitor’s center and even walk the trail below the mountain to see the sculptor’s studio.

We saw lots and lots of wildlife on our drives.  We saw buffalo, deer, squirrels, prairie dogs and even mountain goats.  But, my favorite were the burros.  They work in pairs to block the movement of your car while the other goes to ask for food at the window. Eventually they were both at our window enjoying our red licorice.

Our family was lucky enough to dress up and have over 60 pictures taken of us as cowboys.  The kids loved it.  We had a lot of fun together and made some memories.  These pictures will be really fun to scrapbook.  I thought Brendan was awfully cute in his beaver hat.

The weather was pretty cloudy and rainy the whole time we were there, but it let up for one nice sunny day.  We hurried to the alpine slide and took a couple trips down the mountain.  It was lots of fun.  Brendan sat with Mom and then with Dad at the base of the mountain.  He sat down on a stump and waved at the people sliding past.

Here we are at the Badlands.  Very beautiful landscape.  The kids enjoyed learning about fossils and seeing the wildlife.

Of course we had to go see Devil’s Tower.  It was amazing!  We showed the kids “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” just a few days before we left.  They were convinced that around every turn they would see an alien ship.  It was very cute.  I love experiencing things with my kids!

I just got back from my trip to visit Teressa in Tennessee. It was so fun and busy and crazy, I feel like I need a vacation! Our friend Holly is living in Atlanta right now and she came up to visit with us for a few days, so between my two kids, Holly’s one, and Teressa’s three, we had a full house! It was a great time to catch up with my best friends and have our kids get to know each other. We were busy the whole time so I will just relate some of the highlights! The first Saturday we were there we went to Strawberry Jam, a festival at a  strawberry farm where you pick your own strawberries to purchase. The kids had a great time, we sloshed through the mud, stuffed our faces with yummy, fresh as you can get strawberries, and left with two huge boxes of fruit! They also had farm animals there for the kids to pet, Savanna was the brave one and fed the horses! A country band was playing music and I really felt like I was welcomed to the south! We also took a trip to the Nashville Zoo. The best part of the zoo was the awesome playground. They had a big padded area for babies to crawl around in and a huge wood playground with tunnels and rope courses and all kinds of fun stuff! We spent some time on base at Fort Campbell, we saw some army aircraft they had on display and a neat museum with history of the base. The 101st Airborne Div. was started there and they had the actual city sign from Bastogne that they took when it was captured! Pretty awesome if you are a Band of Brothers fan! A water park called Nashville Shores was our last big event. It is on the shores of a big lake and they have water slides, pools, etc, but you can also swim in the lake, ride water skis and banana boats and all kinds of fun stuff. Of course we spent the majority of the time at the 1ft deep kiddie pool! I didn’t get too many pictures, it seemed like with all those kids to watch over I never had time to pull out the camera, but I got a few. Thanks Teressa for letting us crash in on your life for 2 weeks! And thanks to James for giving me the opportunity to spend time with my other best friend!

After nearly three years of courtship my brother Charles and his wonderful girlfriend, Trisha, are getting married! The wedding will be in June and I can’t wait to share this special day with them. They are great together and I am so happy to have Trish as my new sister! Congratulations!

Last year for Easter I got Savanna a cheap plastic bat that looks like a carrot. James came up with the clever idea of hitting the plastic Easter eggs with the bat, smashing them open and sending candy everywhere. He and Savanna had so much fun doing it that we decided it would become an Easter tradition to bash the eggs with the carrot bat. Among this wonderful pastime we also had baskets for the kids, an egg hunt and a lovely dinner with family. What a wonderful day!

Today was Brendan’s first birthday!  This morning I took him to Target to get his picture taken and he was such a doll.  He had a new outfit from Grandma that had a little golf hat.  He would rip that hat off as fast as I could get it on.  But, the photographer amazingly snapped a few really cute photos before he ripped it off a few times.  I will post those pictures when I get them.  But, for Brendan’s dinner, Adam bought finger food.  We had cheese sticks, chicken nuggets, tater tots and cheetos.  I know… anyway, for desert we had tiny ice cream balls, and a cupcake.  Brendan had a really good time eating at the table with all of us.  We stripped him down to his diaper for the cupcake with his initial on it.  The look on his face when Jonathan handed it to him was priceless.  Strange, we did this exact same thing with Jonathan…and now he’s the one handing Brendan the cupcake.  Needless to say, after he finished, we had to put Brendan straight into the bath and clean the kitchen!