Yummy Summer Tomatoes

This summer we had a small raised box garden. It was so fun to be able to head out to the backyard when I needed produce! Our tomato plant was huge and produced tons of fruit. Little Miss especially loved going out and picking fresh tomatoes and eating them right from the plant. One day Michelle came to hang out and shared a huge red tomato with E and laughed as Miss E gagged through a few hard green ones. This makes me so happy because I really don't like tomatoes. I love them in stuff, but not alone, so I love that Michelle can share this love with her!

August

We had such a fun, whirlwind summer, we knew that it had to go out with a bang. We decided to take one last trip of the summer and headed to Washington again.

While we were there Steve's parents volunteered to watch the monkey overnight so we could go celebrate our 5th anniversary. We headed to a cute little bed and breakfast in La Conner, WA. This town was so cute! We ate a delicious dinner at a fish restaurant right on the water. After dinner we went out for a drive over Deception Pass. This picture doesn't show very well how high up this old bridge is from the water! It was so beautiful and a much needed getaway!

 One of our favorite traditions when visiting Steve's home is to go to the C Shop, a candy store right on the harbor. Miss E was lucky enough to get her very own treat: a chocolate covered marshmallow cone. It was such a mess but she loved it!

 I love the beauty of that area! A family friend was back in town the same time we were so several families met down by the bay (...where the watermelons grow...) to have a barbeque and to catch up. It was so fun! I only wished we could have stayed longer but our sweet child was extremely tired and GROUCHY so we had to head home.

 We also happened to be there the same week Steve's sister graduated from Western Washington University with her Masters Degree. It was so fun to cheer her on!

 Julie also was playing the community theater's production of Arsenic and Old Lace. She played one of the crazy old aunts. The play was hilarious and Julie did an awesome job!

 On our way back home we were able to stay with my family overnight and for most of the next day. We were pretty excited that my aunt and uncle and their family also were visiting at the same time so we celebrated by going to the pool. After a summer of hating big pools, Miss E had a fabulous time.

 This whole trip was such a wonderful way to end our summer of fun. Although I know Steve doesn't ever look at the blog, I had to take a (Seriously So Blessed) moment and say how lucky and blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband. He is so perfect for me and is such a compliment to all of my quirks! Happy 5 years and here's to an eternity more!!!

Awww weren't we cute, and young, and naive!

Zoo Boise

After our cross country travels, we decided that we weren't through! Steve wanted some time to vacation as well so we headed up to Boise for week. We relaxed and swam and golfed and had a great time. We went home and then two days later I turned around with Little Miss and headed back to Boise to be with my mom while the rest of the fam was on a pioneer trek. The only pictures I took of that fun week were of the zoo. E loved it!

E's first big girl piggy tails!

Checking out the monkies.

E loves her gwa gwa (grandma).

She was more than likely caught doing something naughty, like chasing the dog or pulling her tail.

Let's Be Friends. Best Friends.

(Sorry, I just love that quote from the Johnny Depp Willy Wonka movie. It always cracks me up!)

Got to love Olive Garden!

During my years as an Elementary Ed student at BYU I was so lucky to be placed in a program with some amazing women. Some of these girls became some of my best friends. More than likely it was because we were experiencing the same form of torture (girls, you know what I am talking about), but even more than that, it was because we just seemed to get each other. I really miss our freezing morning drives up the canyon and long hours in class watching Meredith watch One Tree Hill! Now it is so fun to see them as we've all grown into our roles as teachers, wives, and mothers. I miss them all and wish we lived closer, but I love those summer lunches. We need to figure out a way to get Leslee out here sometime in the future!!!

Fourth of July

The day I got back from TN, we all headed up to Steve's sister's house in Ogden Valley. We love it there! It is gorgeous beyond words! We had so much fun with the fam, eating food, talking, and celebrating our country at the sweet bash put on by the city of Huntsville.

 Cute nephews loving the glow necklaces and plethora of treats!

 Just waiting for the fireworks to start. There was lots of fun music and we all busted a move or two. I was too busy dancing to get any good move busting photos!

 I love this pic of my sweet sister in law Ashley and Miss E!

Surprisingly she LOVED the fireworks! I was so glad (and relieved) since we had been traveling ALL day I thought for sure she would freak out, but instead she laughed and squealed and pointed throughout the whole show.

Such a fun weekend!!! We love having family close by and I hope we never take that blessing for granted!

Ketchup, Catsup, Catch Up...

So...it's been a while. I have put the blog on the back burner the last few months to put other things first. I was getting a little tired of living my life as the next blog post or Facebook update. I wanted to live life. Because I love reading back on old journal entries and blog posts, I think I'm ready to work on catching up! I am doing this now because I think I have worked out how to do it without letting it consume my daily thinking : ). I hope you enjoy the mind purge as much as I do!
-D

Back to School Book Order

Sorry this is last minute notice but I wanted to let you know that I am closing out a book show tonight on my Usborne website. Here is the rundown for the cost of shipping:

If you order online your shipping will be 8% with a $5 minimum. These will be shipped directly to your home. I would recommend this if your 8% of your order (pre tax) will be $5 or if you live far away from me.
If 8% of your order will be LESS than $5 you can contact me with your order and I will put it through on my system. The tax there will just be 8% regardless of the amount ordered.

Hopefully this cleared up any confusion! Check these books out, though...they are awesome! You can order from this book show until midnight tonight!

Advice Please

This sweet little child has been a bit of a challenge for me lately. I know I post a lot of cheerfulness on this blog, but she is 19 months so you all know it can't be peachy all the time right?! She started nursery last month and hated it from day 1. I thought as each week passed it would get better, but instead, each week has gotten worse. She screams NON stop the whole time, often leading the nice ladies to bring her back to me or Steve. We have tried sneaking out, leaving slowly, bribing her with treats, everything we could think of but to no avail. She HATES nursery. Any ideas?
But wait...the story gets better. Yesterday as the nice nursery lady was bringing a screaming Miss E back to me, our sweet child BIT her on the neck. Nice, huh? Yep, biting is her new favorite defense. Any ideas for that one?
Thanks in advance to all of you smart, wonderful women/mothers that I am privileged enough to call friends. You are all great examples to me and I need your knowledge now!

Tennessee!

The day after I got back from NYC, Little Miss and I packed up and flew to Tennessee to visit our good friends, the Reids. These are some of our very best friends: Steve grew up with Parker and I was lucky enough that he married Jessie, since we were going to be spending a lot of time together, like it or not!!! They have two cute little girls that aren't that much older than Miss E, so we knew they needed to spend a little quality time together. 

We started the week off right by going to this orchard that had a yummy restaurant and farmer's market. Our favorite feature, however, was the candy store! We stopped there one more time later in the week. Yum!

The girls had fun playing together! Miss E jumped in that pool fully clothed and "shoed." Good thing it was plenty warm so she dried off quickly.

After a long day of shopping the girls were SO tired!

This was a fun splash park that the girls loved. Jessie and I made sure to put the girls in matching swimsuits. So cute!

On our last day, Parker's mom, Jill, came to visit. We drove to the Smoky Mountains and hiked Clingmans Dome. It is not a very long hike, but it is really steep, as shown by the next picture...

Parker was "helping" Jessie and Jill up the mountain. :) Still doesn't do the steep incline justice.

This is the cool lookout tower that is Clingmans Dome. It overlooks both North Carolina (?) and Tennessee. It was very cool!

Beautiful view!

All in all it was a very fun trip. The Reids were so nice to us...Jessie even let me take a long nap while she played with E! It was just what we needed after being away from our friends for WAY too long! Next time Steve needs to come too!!!

Just for the Record

I just need to record this for personal sake, but I thought you'd enjoy. When I tell Little Miss to say "Mom" she says, "Cool." When I tell her to say "love," she says, "Mommy." Best day ever!

I totally LOVE the "blog" Seriously So Blessed. If you haven't read it, check it out. It is hilarious. Steve doesn't get it but as a Mormon woman/wife/mother it is so nice to be able to poke fun at myself and the culture sometimes. Here is an interview of the creator of SSB. Please do not be offended by SSB, find and embrace your inner TAMN! (PS I know that I totally sound like her sometimes and I am fine with that! I just hope it's not all the time!)

New York, New York

I am pretty sure I have said this about every single vacation I have ever taken, but I am pretty sure I left my heart in New York (along with San Fransisco, Boston, the Oregon Coast, Orlando, and on and on...). This summer my mom (complements of dad) took my sisters and I on an awesome girls trip to New York City. This was the first time that my youngest sister, Kelsi, has come on a trip with us, and it was so fun! We left on Michelle's birthday, Wednesday June 23rd and got home the following Monday.

Our first day we started out by riding the PATH train over to Hoboken, NJ to visit Carlos' Bakery, home of The Cake Boss. There was a line to get inside and it was probably 100* and VERY humid. We were so glad to get inside and eat yummy treats before lunch.

We didn't see Buddy, but we did get to see his sisters. I'm sure she would be super happy to know pictures like this are out there...

Walking around Times Square.

Our first night we had tickets to Wicked. We were running kind of late and couldn't get a cab so these "nice" bike trolley guys offered us a ride. It wasn't too long before we realized that they were WAY out of our price range. After controlling our laughter we had to tell them to drop us off only a couple of blocks from where we started. I had to go to an ATM to get more cash to pay them. Stupid tourists!

Once we got to the show, we found that our seats were really good, thanks to our super nice dad who bought them for us!!!

After the show we had to hit another tourist trap, Ellen's Stardust Diner. I will recommend this 100%! It was pricey and busy, but so amazing. The waiters and waitresses all work there while they are in the process of trying to get on Broadway. They sing and dance while they are serving. They are all amazing. If they can't make it onto Broadway, I would NEVER in a million years have a chance!

Our delicious dinner...keeping in mind that we ate at Carlos' bakery that afternoon, we ate a huge sundae and fries for dessert. We were most definitely on vacation!

View of Central Park from the top of Rockefeller Center.

Classic tourist pose :).

We had to stop at American Girl Place. This place was out of control. Little girls were everywhere spending ridiculous amounts of their parents' money. I hope that one day Little Miss will want an American Girl doll. I am totally willing to save pennies to get one for her. They are adorable!

Most of the rest of the pictures are thanks in part to the tour bus we ended up taking the rest of the weekend. This picture shows people standing in line to get day of tickets for Broadway shows. This would have been fun if we would have had a little more time.

This was on Mom's birthday. We took the ferry down the Hudson river to see the Statue of Liberty and the NYC skyline. You would never know it, but Mom was super sick that day. Doesn't she look beautiful anyway!!!

So amazing and touching to be so near the place that many have started their American dreams.

Something I didn't expect to see was all of the classic architecture around the city.

Lessley, this is for you. Target New York, New York.
Sadly we never made it inside...

It was hard to forget that we were in the middle of the city that lost so many lives on 9/11/01. This was one of a few memorials we saw in the city.

I don't have pictures of Sunday morning, but we were able to go to church in the same building as the temple. It was an interesting experience for sure. I love knowing that the Gospel is the same no matter where you go, even if the whisperings of the spirit are intermingled with the mumblings of the homeless guy sitting behind you in sacrament meeting.

We ended the trip by visiting Serendipity 3. Yes, another tourist trap. I just had to experience the Frozen Hot Chocolate and I was not disappointed.
Look at how huge that thing was:

This was the view from our hotel window:

This was an amazing trip and I can't wait for my next chance to go to NYC. I am working on convincing Steve that he needs to do his masters or PhD there! :)

I am so lucky to have a husband that was willing to stay with our little monkey while I was gone. Thanks again mom and dad for such a fun trip!!!

Until next time...