Our Weekend Guests

I know it's not the weekend yet, but our good friends Tim, Jenny, and Tori are coming from the San Francisco area to visit us this weekend! We haven't seen them for almost 2 years!!!

The Lorz family were our neighbors in Provo during our last year at BYU. I know it wasn't by chance that we ended up as neighbors. Jenny might not even know this, but she helped me through some very difficult times that year after my dad died. And it was so fun that our girls were only 6 weeks apart. We helped each other develop mommying skills, and we blamed everything on teething! :) Tim and Shaun were in the same Master's program, but a year apart. If I had to pick my neighbors for that last year, I don't think I could have picked a more perfect family!

Now do you see why I'm so excited to see them? I seriously am having a hard time waiting 2 more days!

BFF's

Tim is from Germany, and took us on our very first trip to IKEA!!! We're still waiting for our very first trip to Germany!

We graduated and moved away. :( We saw them just 4 months later when we took Shaun's brother to the MTC, but that was August 2008.

And we haven't seen them since.

Come on Friday!!! Please come fast!

When Daddy's in charge. . .

. . . This is what my family eats for dinner! Disgusting!

Texting while driving!

I've expressed my opinion several times about the cell phone ban in Oregon. I hate that it's a primary offense. I hate that it's even a law to begin with! I can think of so many other things that can be more distracting than talking on your cell phone -- kids, dvd players, i pods, eating, etc. I loved being on our vacation because in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, I didn't have to worry about a cop seeing me talk or text while I was driving!

Well, today, I caught a glimpse of why texting while driving can be a dangerous thing!

I was at Safeway, driving one of these. . .. . . and texting my aunt at the same time! I crashed right into a shelf thing in the bakery and knocked off several clam shells filled with cookies. Most of them opened, with cookies falling on to the floor. And for the packages that didn't open, more than half of the cookies were broken. :( It was highly embarrassing. The bakery ladies were really nice about it though.

I guess I didn't learn the first time, because a few weeks ago I was also driving one of the aforementioned carts, at the aforementioned store and was trying to maneuver the dang thing through the floral section while talking to my mom on the phone. I hit a big bucket of flowers and it tipped over, spilling all of the water inside! And not to mention the flowers. They had to close down the area and call a guy to come a clean it up!

I am now banning myself from texting/talking on my cell phone while driving these stupid shopping carts!!!

(But not my real car!)

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Post Script: Apparently in Utah and Colorado, it IS against the law (oops!) to text while driving, but you can still talk! :) http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html

Thanks for the clarification!

Flattering. . .

*Maisey told me last night: "Mommy, you're the best singer ever!" (if only it was true)

*Shaun forwarded me a message that he got on facebook. Exact quote: "Hi Shaun! how are you doing? Just wanted to tell you your wife does a great job with the family blog. She should definitely write a book :)"

To Marcie,
That was very nice of you to say! Brightened a day full of monotony.
From Emily

*I had my "annual" exam yesterday and I've lost 30 pounds since I was in there last. . . 6 weeks after I had Gage! Peggy, the LPN, was impressed! Shoot. . . I was impressed after how I ate on our vaca!

We're Home!

We made it home from our vacation this week. . . and Daddy had a surprise waiting for us!

When she came around the corner of the marionberry bushes, she saw it!

"My very own park!" She screamed! She was so excited! They played out there all evening while I unpacked!

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Grimmett for the swing set! To say the kids love it would be an extreme understatement! They've played on it multiple times a day everyday since we've been back!

I've been working hard on catching up with all of the pictures and everything from our trip! Some of it is lengthy and there are TONS of pics but that's because I get my blog printed into a book at the end of every year and then my photo journal is done! :)

So enjoy our Summer Vaca posts! There are 6 of them! Oh and there is a great story on the very last post titled Summer Vaca 6/6: St. George without Dad

Summer Vaca 1/6: Rexburg is the new Spokane

Shaun's fam moved to Rexburg on Friday, June 25. We arrived on Saturday, June 26. We spent most of our time taking stuff to the dump/storage, playing card games, eating out at some of our favorite places (like Cafe Rio for the first time in 2 years!), and making sure Maisey and Gage didn't attack Madison, the dog. We also went on a few adventures!

The first one was Yellowstone's Bear World!

We let the kids sit on our laps instead of in their car seats! They thought that was pretty cool. They were able to see so much more!

That's Shaun's family's van in front of us! That bear was so close to them!

Roooooaaaaaaar"

She was really creeped out to put that hat on! It didn't stay on for very long!

Maisey liked watching the bear cubs play fight!

Gage loved the petting zoo. . . Maisey not so much! She was terrified and trying to climb up Daddy's back. She was afraid of all of the chickens running around!

They also had some free rides at Bear World, so we let the kids ride them! They thought it was great!

Also during the week we went to the BYU-I campus to see Papa's new office!

Maisey left some artwork on his board for him!

One of the mornings, Shaun, his parents, and his grandparents went to do a session at the temple. I stayed back with the kids and decided to take them on a walk. We walked from the house to the temple, then to campus, then home. I got very lost around campus and I ended up walking for 7 miles, pushing the kids in the stroller, up BIG hills, in really hot weather! When we got home, I was really dehydrated and my calves were sore for like 3 days!

But we did get some really neat pictures at the Rexburg Temple.

Look at my cuties!

Just by looking at the way Maisey is looking at Gage you can tell he was up to no good! Soon after this picture he face planted it off the bench on to the ground! We caused quite a scene!

Although we are sad that we won't see our Spokane friends as often, we are happy for the Grimmett's new change in their lives. Richard is starting a new and exciting phase of his life, and Shaun and I are so happy for him! It will take them all a little while to get adjusted, but they we be calling Rexburg there "home" in no time!

And Maisey is excited to go to "Papa's new house" again!

Summer Vaca 2/6: Utah

We left Rexburg at 7:00 am to head down to Utah! We went to Lagoon all day Thursday 7/1. That night we stayed with Kate and Blair in Provo. Boy was it roasting! It reminded us of the good old days in Provo! On Friday, we took the kids to BYU campus, to Winger's, swimming, and to ice cream! We tried to cram as much in as we could!

"I wear my sunglasses at . . . 5 AM!!!" This girl woke up at 3 am and came running over to our bed and whispered, "Mommy, is it wake up time?" As I lifted her into bed with us I told her, "No, go back to sleep!" And then at 5 am she sat up, woke Daddy up and said, "Daddy get up! It's time to go to ride the rides!" So we got up and started getting ready! She was so excited and she let everyone know!

The kids LOVED the rides! They rode almost all of them by themselves because you can't ride the kiddie rides if you're over 4 feet. I was a little surprised that they didn't cry on any of them! I didn't care that we didn't really ride anything. I had more fun watching my kids have fun! It was SUPER hot so we made sure to stay hydrated with lots of water!

Their first ride!
Driving the car!
The fam!
This ride went faster than I thought it did and Maisey kept saying "whoa, whoa, whoa" over and over again! I kinda felt bad, but they were both really brave!

We cooled down with some nice ICEE's!!!

The next day we took the kids to BYU campus. We went to the Bean Museum, the Bell Tower, visited Uncle Blair at work, went to the Bookstore, and at lunch at the Cougar Eat.
Maisey was scared to turn her back to all of the animals! The kids had a great time looking at everything there, but had a hard time not touching!

We waited for a few minutes at the bell tower so Maisey could listen to the bells that rang at noon! She LOVED them!

I know this is out of order, but we also stopped in Provo at Kate and Blair's on our way back home! Blair's parents were there and we had a nice dinner and the kids ate chocolate pudding for dessert. This may have been both of their favorite parts of the whole trip!

Now that is a pure, genuine smile!

Gage kept going back and forth between me and Blair's mom Carleen for a bite. He sure loved his dessert. . .

. . . Maybe a little too much!

Summer Vaca 3/6: 24 hours in Colorado

This was the shortest segment of our whole trip, and I felt bad because Maisey was really looking forward to playing with her cousins! Between family pics, lunch, naps, a family dinner, and swimming, Maisey and Shayla only got to play together for like 45 minutes. :( And she cried the next morning when we were leaving. It was sad. . . but maybe next summer they can play more together!

We left for CO at 5:30 AM and were got there a little before 10. We let the kids play for a few minutes at Christina's until it was time to check in to our hotel. Right after that we headed to the park for some family pics!

Our fam!

The whole fam!

(We're a big group!)

Cute Cousins!

Grammy and her grandkids!

Christina's fam!

(I can't believe she has 3 kids!)

Kate and Blair

Kels and Brian

The boys!

My boys!

The girls!

After pics we headed back to Christina's for some pizza!

I'm sure Maisey is bossing Derick around or something in this pic!

After lunch, Daddy took the kids to the hotel for naps and I stayed at Christina's to help get stuff ready for our dinner that night!

Maisey couldn't get enough of Baby Luke!

Maisey tried out Shayla's roller skates! She thought they were pretty neat!

After dinner we went to the Community Rec center to swim. They had a huge kiddie pool with a whale slide in the middle. Maisey faced her fear of slides and decided to go on it! She LOVED it!

At the pool they also had these big foam mats. Maisey and Gage both loved riding on them and Maisey pretended she was Jasmine and the mat was her majic carpet and she kept insisting that daddy (aka Aladin) pull her around the pool! What a funny girl!

After the pool we headed back to Christina's for a fireworks show! (yes, I know it's July 3rd!) They have really bad mosquitos by their house so the kids all watched from the front window while the boys and Kelsey were all outside! They loved the fireworks and there were lots of "ooooooo's and awwwww's"

Kate gladly held Baby Luke during all of the commotion!

These girlies are sure a lot of fun!


Baby Luke was blessed on Sunday, July 4th. That was the whole reason we drove all that way! His daddy gave him a beautiful blessing and he looked adorable in his little white suit!

Our time in Colorado was short but sweet!