Happy (long) 4th of July!

We had a great 4th of July this year, mostly because our good friends, the Whitfords, came down from Washington. The day started at 5am when we got up to head over to Provo for the balloon festival, breakfast, and the parade. The balloons were awesome. It is just so amazing to me as they all get blown up so quickly and take off into the blue sky. It was really beautiful. We had breakfast along with half of provo at McDonalds (yum!) and headed over to the parade. Sadly, because of some drama and very rude people, we couldn't take it very long and left. I am always shocked and disappointed in people when they are so rude to other people...especially to strangers! This large family next to us, who happen to be mostly employed at BYU, were so rude to another lady in a wheelchair yelling that she was too fat to stand up when the flags came by, yelling at kids who were in their way, etc. These were adults, and it's a parade, so of course kids will be kids running around and having a good time. It really left a yucky feeling in my stomach all day. So sad that people could be like that. Anyway, the Whitfords came over to the house after and we went to the park, ate some more, then went over to Melissa's grandma's house for a BBQ and fireworks. Her house is right above Lavell Edwards Stadium, where the famous Stadium of Fire happens every year on the 4th, so we could hear the whole Brooks and Dunn concert and went up on the roof for fireworks. They did a tribute to Disney this year with the fireworks so that was fun to have the good Disney songs playing the first half before they did the patriotic ones. Anyway, it was a fun, busy day, and I really feel so blessed to be part of this country and enjoy so many of the freedoms that we do!

Amazing!

The 2nd Flinders/Whitford couple-Tallan and Haley

On the roof...almost time for fireworks!

Day 3...the beach!

We walked around Balboa island, did some shopping, got a tour of the fire department, and spent an afternoon at Corona del Mar beach. The weather was perfect and we had a lot of playing in the waves, and digging in the sand. Tallan kept putting handfuls of sand in his mouth and hated it every time, but he kept doing it. By the end he was just a big, sandy mess! It was hilarious! We got to spend time with our old friends, the Highams, as well as Steve and Dre. What a fun, but quick, trip we had!

Day two...the wedding!

I guess the main reason we went to CA was for my friend, Laura's wedding. Laura and I lived in the dorms together at USU and have been very good friends ever since. It was so fun to see some of our other USU friends like Kristin, and Steve and Dre with their new baby, Lucas. What a cutie! The wedding was at the Newport Beach Temple and it was absolutely beautiful. The reception was so cool too. It was at a park and they had a bounce house for the kids, really good food, and my favorite, a fire pit with a table full of everything to do s'mores! It was a really fun day and Laura looked absolutely beautiful! She had the most gorgeous dress and I honestly can't remember ever seeing her so happy. (I wish I had a picture, but mine didn't turn out)

We had a great family vacation to California where we stayed very busy and had a lot of fun. We arrived Wednesday night in San Diego and I did a vinyl enrichment out there to pay for our trip. We got up the next morning and headed up to Disneyland! Brooklyn was just in awe the whole time. She loved the rides, the parade, the fireworks, and especially the princesses. Here are so pictures from our day!It's a Small World...we had to go on in a few times for Tallan to fall asleep when he got tired.

Waiting for the fireworks to start! Brooklyn loved seeing Tinkerbell fly through the sky!

Exhausted at the end of the day!

Goodbye Stonebrook : (

We locked the door behind us tonight and handed over the keys to our condo to the renters. After 3 VERY long days of moving and cleaning, and a few before that of packing and organizing, we are done. We had the best helpers too and we couldn't have done it without them all. We are really going to miss our condo friends, but can't wait to see what's in store for us in our new neighborhood and our new home. We will close on our house July 2nd so until then, all of our stuff is in storage and we are staying in Tim's parent's basement. Thanks again to all those who helped! We really do have the greatest friends and we are so lucky!

Denver was "Wicked"

The trip I have been looking forward to since March was finally here!!! We took our girls trip (that's right, no husbands or kids) to Denver to see Wicked! There were 8 of us total: my mom, sister Jenn, me, Grandma, Aunt Patty, Aunt Marty, cousin Heather, and my mom-in-law Lynn, flew out to Denver on Thursday and had an amazing time! We did a lot of eating, walking around, eating, shopping, eating, and the best part ever, I finally got to see Wicked!

Eating at the Cheesecake Factory...fish tacos and Adam's peanut butter cheesecake...plus a little of everyone else's cheesecake around the table too!

Matching "Wicked" shirts my aunt Marty made us...slightly embarrassing, but we sure got a lot of attention
The Platt river...apparently it goes all the way through Nebraska


Dinner at La Fondue before the show. It was my first time at a fondue restaurant and we went mostly for the experience. I really liked the cheese fondue, but was kind of grossed out at the plate of raw meat and seafood on our table that we had to cook ourselves. Of course, dessert was the best part...fresh fruit, snickers, cheesecake (again), marshmallows, and pound cake dipped in warm milk chocolate! Yum! It was really fun, but probably won't do that again. Way too expensive for me.

Wicked was absolutely amazing. I'm borderline obsessed with the music (even Brooklyn knows most of the words!) and the production was better than I could have imagined. The voices of Elpheba and Galinda -or Glinda, along with the rest of the cast were just totally amazing. The music was incredible and even the lighting was great. It was fun to have so many questions answered after just listening to the music for so long.

We will definitely make this a tradition and try to go to a new performance and a new city at least every other year!

Colorado City

We went down to my mom's house in Hurricane before our trip to Powell, and we packed a lunch and went on a hike through a canyon in Colorado City...you know, where the Polygamists live. I have to say I was definitely more interested in watching the people of that small town and how they live. It is such an interesting way of life and I just can't figure it out. There are these huge homes everywhere that aren't finished being built. A lot of them don't have windows and the outsides of the home are just unfinished wood. At one house, I saw two toddlers that could barely walk, playing in a chicken coup. There were no adults in sight! At another house I saw 3 little boys on the roof, again, no adults in sight. I was actually very surprised to see a full size basketball court at one of the houses though. I had always thought they weren't supposed to know anything about the "outside world" including sports. On the way back down, we saw one house that had at least 15 parked vans and trucks. Must have been dinner at the community cafeteria or whatever it was. It's just so crazy though! The adults and children are fully clothed from the neck down. No short sleeve shirts and the women all wear dresses down to the floor. Their hair is always braided or pulled back into this weird bun sort of thing. They definitely stand out in hot southern Utah. I wish I took pictures of the town, but unfortunately I didn't. Next time for sure! For now, here are some pictures of the kids on the hike.

yes, Brooklyn did end up falling down that little waterfall and got completely wet!

more Powell

The bubble...
kayaking...
the cutest pirate you'll ever see...
tubing...
hiking...

Brooklyn had the time of her life doing just about everything: kayaking, going in the bubble, swimming, hiking, tubing, being the "flaggit" on the boat, eating, etc. I enjoyed getting some sun, boating, and eating lots of good food (everything tastes better at Powell for some reason). Tim got in some good wakeboarding and attempted the air-chair...again. Tallan wasn't really sure about the whole thing, but did very well. His favorite thing was definitely eating though. I'm pretty sure he gained at least 5 pounds while we were there!

Lake Powell

We just got back from our amazing trip to Lake Powell. We spent 5 days with Tim's mom's side of the family on a houseboat hiking, kayaking, swimming, boating, eating, etc and had a great time. Every time we go I am amazed at how beautiful Lake Powell is. The color of the rocks, and especially the formations are just incredible! These pictures are of some of the hikes we went on and the amazing things we saw!
Beautiful blue water against the steep walls of the red rock!

In David Gulch, there was a huge hole at least 12 feet deep and 3 feet wide full of water. What if you fell in there???

Only the really strong guys could make it the rest of the way on this hike. Tim got pretty beat up though with bad rope burns and rock burns all over him!

The Indian Ruins

Can you imagine people living here?

I love it!

I am so happy with the color of the stucco! The front door will be charcoal eventually.The fireplace with the tile installed
The guest bathroom with the same linoleum that's in the other bathrooms and laundry room
This is standing in the loft...behind the wall where Brooklyn is standing are the stairs and then straight ahead is the little nook area where I get to decorate with fun stuff that will most likely get really dusty!

It seems like so long ago that we picked out all of our colors for our house that I was getting really nervous about it and hoping it would all come together like I remembered in the showroom, but last night we drove up to the house and I was very pleased! The cabinets weren't in yet like we were hoping, but everything is painted, the tile is around the fireplace, and the linoleum was installed in the bathrooms and laundry room. I really do love it! Brooklyn is always talking about her "new house" and is always asking to go see it and sleep in it. As soon as we go in, she walks right up to where her bedroom will be and usually just stays there most of the time. We can't wait to see what everything looks like when we get back from our 10 day vacation!

Tallan's rough day

This past week Tallan had a really rough day when he finally broke through his first tooth. He was completely miserable like most are when they are teething, and was so mad that I was taking his picture while he was screaming too! But, he also started pulling himself up on things so this is how I found him that morning in his crib. He loves to play a copy-cat game with Brooklyn he'll start to blow bubbles when she does, and he'll shake his head "no" after her too. It's so fun to see them interact and play!

Ready to paint!

The stucco is done and ready to paint!

This is what you see when you walk in the front door

Standing in the kitchen looking at the family room with fireplace and media center

walking up the stairs: laundry room straight ahead with bedrooms and bathroom, loft to the left, and master suite to the right

the loft

into the master suite

The banister is in as well as the baseboards, frames, and doors. Painting on the house, both the exterior and interior, should be done by Wednesday of this week and on Thursday the cabinets get installed! We leave on Friday for our week-long trip to Hurricane, Vegas, and then Lake Powell, so we can't wait to see the house when we get back and see all the progress!

Race for the Cure 2007

This was the 3rd year in a row that we have participated in Race for the Cure. This year was by far the best weather and the best turnout with over 16,000 people walking or running. Tim and I decided to run this year since we are training for the half in July. It is just a 5K and even with all the crowds, we finished in about 30 minutes, so it was a good practice for us. Tallan and Brooklyn stayed with Grandma and walked and then Brooklyn got a pink ribbon painted on her cheek.

time to stucco!

I can't believe how fast this is all going. Our house is ready for stucco and the sheetrock is completely done. They got a couple of days behind last week due to inclement weather, but this week they will mud the walls and stucco the outside of the house. I am really excited to see the stucco, because I don't really remember what colors I chose!

Women's Conference 2007

My old roommate, Yamel, came down from Logan last Wednesday, and we went to Women's Conference at BYU all day Thursday and Friday. It was so much fun! Not only did I have 2 days off from kids, but I got to spend good times with an old friend and was very spiritually uplifted. The speakers were great especially the opening and closing sessions each day. The closing on the first day was Brad Wilcox and his daughter Wendee and they spoke on the Atonement. The closing session on the last day was Elder and Sister Holland and they spoke on "Now is the Time". Throughout the whole thing there was very good musical performances too. One of the classes I really liked was from the new General Relief Society Presidency. It was really fun to get to know them! They are just totally hilarious and we were all laughing so hard we had tears coming down our cheeks. I have to say though, that my all time favorite class, was titled, "For With God, Nothing is Impossible-even raising a 3 year old". I got some really good insight on how to find joy in motherhood and I really needed that this past week. It was great! They are going to aire the whole broadcast on KBYU on May 18-20 so I really recommend watching as much as you can. The other cool thing is that they had service rooms set up where you could watch what classes were being held in certain rooms, but you could work on service projects at the same time. Yamel and I really enjoyed this and we learned how to crochet baby blanket edges! (don't mind the picture of us too much. We had just come in from the pouring rain and had been walking for 2 days straight!) Next year, I highly recommend everyone go to it though. It's going to be May 1-2, so plan now!