Fourth of July

Fourth of July is always one of my favorite holidays!

The day started as it always does...stagecoach park, pancakes, and a bike parade! Lucy was old enough to join!




And Papa was still young enough to join! Gotta love good old Uncle Sam. My Dad is such an exciting person! I love it!

I didn't even plan the opposite stripes and hats on purpose, so I had to take a picture of this cute coincidence!

Levi is 9 and 1/2 months here. Crawling fast, climbing everything, took his first two steps yesterday, July 3 (of course I set him all up and he wasn't that balanced, but those legs moved on their own)...so cute!

Having fun with Papa at the next party!

Here is Levi showing off his mad standing skills! He has been pulling himself to standing for a while, but today he figured out how to get to standing without holding anything. It won't be long before he is just running around!
Finished the afternoon at the beach! What else would you do on the fourth?


Lucy and Aunt Lani, never a dull moment! Lucy is having entirely too much fun with her being home for the summer!

They are so cute!
Over to the snows for another pool party and watched multiple firework shows from their backyard. I love to be up close, but this was fun and probably better with the baby anyway.

Ode to October: Post 4

October 3 - After Conference Birthday Dinner.

We went to the Mayan.

My Dad wanted to stay at the Family History Center in Salt Lake, because he doesn't get the opportunity to research there as often as he likes. I said that was fine, but later I was sad he wasn't coming to dinner with us.

We decided he really should come and devised a plan to get him to come with us. Me and my Mom secretly found him in the bottom floor of the library and snuck behind some nearby desks. We started whispering, as if he was hearing voices:

"We need you..."

"Come with us..."

"We need you..."

Progressively getting louder.

He kept looking around, wondering what was going on, until he caught me crawling closer under the desk.

We didn't really have him fooled. He thought it was one of the other patrons talking to themselves. He got quite a laugh out of it and decided he would reward our hard work by coming. He still had a little more work to do, but he did manage to pull himself away and share the evening with us.

I had such a great Birthday dinner, and loved being sang to with my rocket volcano sundae.

The shows were awesome and much improved from the last time I had been. Usually they just have normal divers doing tricks off the cliffs, into the water (No wonder I love this restaurant, huh?) Now they are dressed like natives, and make more of a show out of it, plus they have a fire dancer. Lucy loved it too. She kept saying "More show" I guess every 15 minutes wasn't enough for her. Dave and I call this the "Grown Up Chucky Cheese."

After Dinner, Dave and I went in the Haunted House the were doing upstairs. I was really scared and screamed a lot. I just hate when you are in closed spaces and being chased and don't know which way to go to get away from creepy people. I don't really mind the creepiness, but I hate being startled. It was definitely exciting. Dave really enjoyed it because I was scared. Oh boys! They just live for scaring girls and it doesn't change as they get older!

We concluded the night with a photo shoot inside the creepy (I think that is the word of this post) snake mouth. What a very fun night and Birthday! Definitely one of the best I can ever remember!




Fire Dancer
I didn't get any good shots of the divers. It was too dark inside the restaurant.


Yummy Dessert

Snake Photo Shoot:


I think I just have one more post to go about my Birthday weekend. And then just a few more October Posts to get done in the next 2 days (Let's be honest I cannot post about October in December!) Wish me Luck!

Ode to October: Post 3

October 3

My Mom, Dad and I went to the Saturday afternoon session of conference. My Dad had never been to conference before, so it was a treat to bring him!

Dave watched Lucy outside the conference center. He said an Ensign Photographer took lots of pictures of them. I just checked the November Ensign and they didn't appear to have made. That's okay, someday we will be in the Ensign.

I did a little SLC Temple Photo Shoot and shared posted a few of the many pictures I shot. I love pretending I am a professional photographer. I can hardly wait 'til I have a state of the art camera and actually know how to use it! Anyway, if you want to praise my photography skills in the comments section, I will be your best friend! (Flashback to elementary school!)

After conference we went out to dinner in honor of my birthday, at The Mayan (my favorite restaurant in Utah). I think I will post the pictures and a little blurb in a separate post, since this one is already getting long. I had to work hard to get my Dad to come, it's a funny story, so stay tuned!

Here's the goods!



Lucy and Momo. I think they both have the same cute cheeks.

Yay for Conference!

Ode to October: Post 1

So many wonderful things happened this October, but I neglected to post anything. I would say it was because we were moving and such, but let's be honest, I always have an excuse. Hey, I always get to the good stuff.

Anyway shoot back to October 2.

My parents came to town so that my Dad could go to his mission reunion and attend conference which he has never done before. It just happened to be the same weekend as my Birthday, so they completely spoiled me!

The weekend was so jam packed that I will only tell you about Friday morning in this post!

Me and my mom took Lucy bowling. This was actually her second time, her first time being the week before with David, but this was my first time watching her.

I never thought it would be so much fun to take a two year old bowling, but it was really really cute. Lucy was so excited about rolling her ball and cheered whenever she knocked pins over (which was pretty common since we had bumpers up) Check out the joy!





"Heaby Mommy Heaby. Help" I kept making her carry the bowling ball just because I love the way she says "Heavy!" Is that mean? It was only six pounds.



What a fun way to start an amazing Birthday Weekend. I truly think this was my best birthday ever and this was only the beginning of 3 days worth of fun! Okay not as cool as the time my Dad took me on a biplane ( I was turning ten, I think and my whole goal in life was to fly.)

Nana & Sleeping Beauty

September 5

I never finished blogging about Lucy after her Birthday party, so here it is! After Lucy woke up from her much needed nap, we went to go see the movie "Up," but it was sold out, so we went to a nearby park and played until dark (as you can see in the pictures!) Lucy had a ball playing with Nana.


One game we played was "Wake the Princess" where Lucy pretends she is sleeping beauty and then we wake her up with a kiss. Since that sounds like such an exciting game, I will brake it down into action shots for you!

The Sleep



The Kiss



The Awakening



Pretty Amazing how that works, huh? Okay, okay, but you gotta admit, it's cute!

The next day after church we had an adorable little photo shoot, since I don't have nearly enough pictures of these two!


Let's get them a little closer together...perfect!


They are both so beautiful and look so much a like (of course everyone at church was surprised when I said she was Dave's Mom and not mine)


Oh, I love when kids do sweet cheeks!


And the sweetest little kisses!



Lucy on her new bike! (That is not very new now, but was only one day new when we took this picture, even though it was second hand to begin with!)


Alas, Nana couldn't stay with us forever and this is such a sweet goodbye picture at the airport I had to close with it!

Thank you so much for coming Lisa! We had so much fun with you and miss you a lot!

Summer Biking

July 3rd

We biked around Cour d' Alene Lake. One word: Breathtaking!

Lucy calls the bike carrier: Lucy's Bike! She is set to go here, books, water, snacks. She loved it!



Trying out Daddy's Bike


The whole bike riding crew (Lucy, Wendy, Lisa, Mark, Dave)


I love this picture because it captured the motion and you can almost feel how fast she is running. She is definitely a runner, and she didn't get it from me, but she is trying her hardest to convert me. ("Mama run! Mama Run fast" is a common household Lucy phrase)

A much better attempt to take a summery family picture for the blog.


Me, being artistic. See what I mean about Breathtaking!

Me, trying to take artistic pictures of my daughter, while she says cheese with snacks in her mouth and bats her wings like a chicken!


Another silly attempt at artistry.
This was the best i could do. I like the attitude hand on hip, although it was not really the specific emotion I was going for, it's cute! I was trying to do a non posed thing, but she just kept running off unless I told her to come smile for the camera.


Okay, I finally fulfilled my artistic craving. A feet picture will have to do.


I fell in love with bike riding this day, and have been going as much as possible since. We have even been bike riding to church most weeks. I'm excited to go for longer rides as the weather cools in Fall. We have been keeping it short, so as not to bake our baby! What a fun adventure! Thank you Nana and Papa for all the good times in Spokane! We miss you!