New York {Part I}

Last month Seth and I went with his siblings (plus one spouse & boyfriend) to visit his parents on their mission in Rochester, New York. It something we had talked about, saved for and planned for nearly 8 months! New York is somewhere I've dreamed of going my whole life and honestly in nearly everyway it didn't disappoint! We left our two boys home with family and took off for 8 days! Best and hardest thing I've ever done. So cool to have all the time with just my hubby, so hard to be away from my boys longer than I ever had. By day four Mason and I were on the phone crying to each other! i missed them so so so much! I knew they were in good hands though. Cookie and my sister Chelsea were so good to them! I can't thank them enough for taking care of my boys as I would have! THANK YOU! 

The first part of our trip was to Rochester, NY.  I fell in love with Rochester more than I thought I would. I have never seen such beautiful country. Ever! Spending time with my in-laws was exactly as expected... amazing and not long enough!  There was 13 of us in a two bedroom house! Yes it was crammed... but it was so fun! Because not everyone was hitched we had a boy room and a girl room. I forgot how much fun sleepovers were:)  I got so lucky with my in laws. They are truly a second family to me!

While in Rochester we:

Visited the Sacred Grove & other church sites (that deserves a whole post by it's self, so that's coming up next:)

Saw the Hill Cumorah Pagent, as well as visit The Hill Cumorah

Got ice cream at the Chill & Grill (most amazing ice cream i've ever had. period. good thing it was not closer but I would have gained 10 lbs)

Had way too much fun messing around at the Good Will

Em's fruit pizza (literally cleared two cookie sheets...no, not by myself. however given the chance i might have)

Went to the "Berry Patch" and got fresh homemade Strawberry & Raspberries shortcake! (AMAZING!)

Went to the sacred grove at dark and watched the fire fly's (incredible, i've never seen them before and I was in aw. coolest things ever. they were everywhere!)  while singing hymns in a circle in the middle of the grove (one of my favorites experiences of the whole trip!)

Did some work at the Palmyra Temple

Ate at my most favorite place from my days in Cali PANERA BREAD, Mmmmm! (please come to UT)

Had late night talks with the girls

And saw the most stunning country I've ever seen!

While in New York I took 1,206 pictures

It was the trip of a lifetime and it's taken me weeks to edited

however I just finished....

don't worry I only edited a little over 300 of them

....unfortunately those can't all make it to the blog

but my favorites will

....SO STAYED TUNED

Until then

Enjoy this lovely view

...what's our week been like?

4th of July

{I know, I'm so late... i'm still playing catch up!}

For the 4th we went and spend the day in Lehi at all of there festivities with my sister and her family. My mom, grandma & aunts even joined us. The Lehi parade is one the best one's we saw this year, if not our favorite! We also took Mason to his first rodeo that night! He looked cute in all his cowboy get-up! We decided since it didn't start til 8 and it was pretty dirty that Aid would stay home with Aunt Em! We missed him but we had so much fun seeing Mason watch the animals and well have the night he played at our feet in the dirt and couldn't care less about the rodeo...oh well:)

{26} & {31}

I turned 26 last month and then five days later Hubby had his 31st birthday (he's such an old man:) For some reason we didn't take any pictures on his birthday maybe it's cause it was on Sunday and we just relaxed and spoiled him all day:) For my birthday we took the kids over to Trafalga, then had lunch at einstein bagels... I love their tasty turkey sandwich!  Then we came home and just hung out with the kids. Seth BBQ'd my favorite menu that I request every year on my birthday:)  Hubby made my day amazing! Seth and Mason even made me a cake.. i wish i had gotten a picture of it:(

FaMiLy

ah. once again i'm behind in blogging but we just got home from NEW YORK  and  there's so many pictures from that trip to come so I'm going hurry and try and post what I've missed before I get to working on those...

anyway...

we needed some recent family shots for our adoption stuff so we went in the backyard and quickly took these with my tripod and remote... it went fairly well. not too much complaining from any of the boys except aid was hiliarous because he just didn't understand where to look because there was no one behind the camera. so if he looks confused thats why:)

...still SO weird seeing my hair all gone!

 

ZOO

{i'm getting soooo behind in blogging so these picture's aren't edited... i didn't have the time I'm just trying to get them up here}

When I flew home from texas Cookie met me at the airport with my boys and we decided to take them to the zoo... And yes it was their first time ever. I'll be very honest. I don't like the zoo, I never have, even as a kid. It's alot like theme parks for me which I'm also not a huge fan of: HOT, loads of people, dirty, etc.... Except on top of the theme park the zoo has caged up animals... I know the zoo's are normal things I just have never been able to enjoy an elephant in this little man made dwelling that is suppose to be made into a natural habitat?!  So I just don't go often.  Mason is SO into animals right now, all he does is watch animal shows, play with animals, make animals sounds, etc... I had a bad feeling he would LOVE it.  I was so right. It was like his world coming alive! I have never seen him so enthrawled (sp?) in something!  He was like a little girl at disneyland meeting princesses (does that make sense?) Seeing that these animals were real and life size were almost too much for him. He was SO excited!  My view of zoo shifted...slighty!  he kept saying "what's next? what's next" Every animal we came to he would full blown act them out: sounds, movement, everything. I think the family next to us almost peed their pants watching him see the elephants!  I made comment that I can't even remember, something about feeling bad for those animals and cookie who could not be more of a animal advocate said "me too, but look at what it does for all these kids. it opens their minds to the world that exists in a way they would never be able to experience"  Then, I sort of got it! I looked at mason and realized how much bigger his world had just gotten!  ... and has since that day, he can't stop talking about it. Someone says zoo and it's like a trigger, he goes into all the animals he saw and the sounds they make! haha. I don't think that we be our last time going! 

 His monkey dance:)

TeXaS

A few weekends ago me and my mom snuck away without any of my kiddos and headed off to Texas for the weekend to go to my niece's softball tournment! I had never been to Texas so I was pretty excited but I was even more excited to see my brother and his family!  I miss the cute little faces of my niece and nephews!  We couldn't wait to get there... once we did... the over heating begin! Now I've lived in the desert of southern Utah and the humidity of southern cali BUT I have NEVER felt HEAT texas style. I thought my sister in law Melly was going to die laughing at me! Holy COW! It was so flippin hot. I hardly took ANY pictures because well I didn't move if I didn't have too! haha. The weekend was so fun and I fell in LOVE with their store called HEB Plus. I think we went there like twice a day! It's like a glorified Costco. i loved it! We spend most of the weekend watching Faith play which was so cool. She's is built like an althelete and is going to be able to choose her sport! I loved being with all of them and already miss them!!!! Thanks for having us brother:)

 We went shopping at some really cool outlets... well was cool until we lost Jax & Kyler! .... before that happened I took them into a store and let them get whatever sunglasses they wanted! It was so cute! They all chose something the reflects the personality PERFECTLY!

He probably just finished doing something nerdy in the first picture we took... i can't get him to take a serious picture for the life of me! ;)