Fiesta for Brandon

Our friends the Wrights had the funnest party for Brandon's 30th birthday party. Rachel did such a good job planning it. There was a big spread of Mexican food, a pinata, and even a donkey that we could ride! I was excited for an excuse for the girls to wear their cute little Mexican dresses we got them last January. Such a fun party. We are grateful for such good friends. 

Summer Days

Some how we lucked out with parking the Jackson's boat on our drive way for most of the summer. It was so fun to take a few friends out on the boat several times during the summer. The girls love to just ride in the boat, Olivia is warming up to the idea of a tube ride, and we're hoping we can convince her to try the free board one of these days!

We also love meeting dad for lunch. It's nice to break up our summer days. These girls are so funny, and it's fun to see them become better friends and laugh and giggle with one another. 

Our little Baby Pen, just hasn't seemed like a baby anymore! She is just a growing little toddler, I just love her sweet little face. 

We enjoyed yet another parade! It was the American Fork Steel Days, with lots of candy and horses and entertaining floats. Grateful the Poulsen's saved us a seat and even with some shade!

We also love going to the farm at Thanksgiving Point. This was a big day, because Penny rode the pony by herself for the first time! She was so cute, with the biggest smile on her face. Such a big girl!

Freedom Festival

By far the best time of year in Utah. Provo always rocks the 4th of July. One of our favorite things to do are to get up early and see the balloons all set off. The girls love getting close and see them go way up high above them. 

This year it was fun to have some cousins in town to celebrate this fun holiday with. We were so excited to take the boat out for the first time, but there was a problem with it being the first time...it was winterized, but was never de-winterized. So as soon as we got in, we had to get out. So swimming at Grammy and Grandpas was a pretty good back up. 

You could say we wore the girls out, but managed to save some energy for the actual 4th of July. Another favorite tradition is running the Freedom Run. Even though I was 9 weeks pregnant, I was excited to run the 5K and push these hooligans. It wasn't the fastest race I've ever ran, but one of the best. I loved my cute little supporters. 

After the race we met Mimi and Grandpa on the grand stands in front of the Provo Library to watch the parade. As you can tell by Penny's pink little cheeks it was quite warm! But we had some little fans and cool snacks that helped. Penny loved the horses and wanted to wave at them all. 

That night we did some fireworks with the neighbor kids. It was Penny's first time seeing fireworks since we put her to bed early the year before. And she loved them. She's a piro like her mama.

 One of the best and happiest and funnest 4th of July Holidays I can remember.

Lehi Days

Cute Olivia really wanted to take a cheerleading class. So she went every Monday for 30 minutes to the cutest little cheer class. She learned different cheers, and a few dances, and most of all just had fun. Part of it was that she got to walk through the Lehi Parade and cheer her little heart out. I was such a proud mommy watching her march on through. I didn't think she was going to survive the full 2 mile route, but she did with hardly a complaint. She was so happy and had such a good time. We were all so hot afterward that we went to get ice cream. Goooooo Livy!

Summer Sun

Coming home from a big vacation without kids I always have major mom guilt for leaving them for so long. So I tried to do something fun every single day with them the whole next week. We had such beautiful weather, and took advantage being outside in our backyard playing on the trampoline and swings. One morning we drove up the canyon and I put them in the stroller while we went up the trail to Bridal Veil falls, Livy loved being out in "nature".  Another day we went to the Lehi outdoor pool and swam around for hours. It was nice just putting them in the floaties and splash around and took turns getting out and jumping to me in the pool. We even went down the slide a few times. Such happy girls. 

These girls bring us so much joy and laughter. I love all of the pink, and the princesses and happy times we have together. 

Alaskan Cruise

For Sue's 60th birthday she wanted to go on a vacation with all of her kids and their spouses, and now grandkids. She liked the idea of doing a cruise, but didn't want a Caribbean cruise, and didn't want to fly all the way to Europe, and wasn't thrilled about the idea of Mexico, so we found ourselves going to beautiful Alaska! It was great, because it's not a vacation that I would have planned for myself, but we loved it and had such a fabulous time. 

I was a little anxious on the flight up to Seattle, because the night before we left I took a positive pregnancy test! Baby #3 was coming! We were so excited, but I was nervous I would be really sick and nauseous, since the last cruise we had been on when I was 9 weeks pregnant with Penny I felt awful. But I wore some C-bands, and took some occasional medicine, and was fine!

We first flew into Seattle and had the afternoon to walk around the Public Market and eat lunch, buy some delicious peaches and some flowers to have in our tiny room on the ship all week. 

Our first day out was a day at sea, we got in a good nap and some good card games with the family. It was fun to cruise past some of the tiny little towns, with the beautiful mountainous scenery. Our first stop was in Juneau. We walked around down town, got some yummy crepes and went back to catch our shuttle to Mendenhall glacier.

It is a massive glacier, that has slowly been receding the last 100 years, but it was still beautiful and incredible. 

We then went to get on a small dinner cruise boat, where they had a nice finger-food buffet for us as we went out to sea. We saw the most incredible show of hump-back whales. There were so many!  We actually saw them do what is called bubble feeding. Where they circle under water around their prey creating a neat with their bubbles and then they shoot up through the middle to feed on their prey. We saw this a couple of times, and it was so awesome. In combination of sunny weather the tour guide kept telling us just how lucky we were. It was awesome. 

Our next stop was Skagway. We had all day there, so Sue arranged to have a tour guide drive us up the mountain and see some of the most beautiful Yukon mountains and lakes. Once again we had some pretty great weather with the most beautiful scenery. We got out to skip some rocks at a lake, and I could have stayed there for hours it was so beautiful. 

We stopped for lunch at a tiny little town, then went to see a training camp for some sled-dogs. There was a little wax museum of animals, and then all the dogs out anxious to pull the sleds. Then there were some sweet little puppies that we got to hold and play with. 

One of the highlights of the day was this beautiful Emerald Lake. It was so clear, and the most beautiful color. We then just walked around town, looked at all the tourist shops, which all sold pretty much the same stuff, we even made a stop at the grocery store to buy some candy and treats that they didn't have on the ship. We went to dinner at a yummy Fish n' Chips restaurant, and it was soooo yummy! 

We had another day at sea which we cruised past Sawyer glacier. I thought this one was even more incredible because we were able to get pretty close. The colors were a deep blue, you could tell it was just one huge piece of ice. It really was beautiful. 

Our next stop was in Ketchikan. The men were able to go deep sea fishing for some salmon. The fisherman said that no one had really been catching anything, but Ryan, James and Rob all caught a nice big wild salmon! We paid them to fillet the fish and ship it to us so we could eat Ryan's very own fish. It was pretty awesome, they had a great time. The girls relaxed on the boat for awhile, then we walked around town for a while. We were trying to meet the boys at a quick diner for dinner, ordered our food and then Bob and Sue called to tell us that they were getting ready to leave the dock, so we had to leave some cash for the food we never got, and had to sprint to the ship. We barley made it and I'm not sure what we would have done if it left us! But I'm sure glad we didn't have to worry about that. 

Our last stop was in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. We didn't have much time there, but we were able to rent some bikes and have a tour guide to ride around the city. It was such a fun way to tour the city, especially after being on a boat all week. Once again, we lucked out with the most beautiful weather. We stopped to get some ice cream at a little house boat called Jackson's, and then some more fish n' chips before we got on the boat to head back to Seattle. It was such a fun vacation, and a lot of good time with family.