Pool Party!!

This is the perfect picture to show how we spend our summer days. This is where you will find us every sunny day May - September. And pretty much all the other girls in the neighborhood are the same way so every day is a pool party - I LOVE IT!

Utah

We just got back from another WONDERFUL 2 1/2 week trip to Utah! As usual it only made us miss our families even more but we made some really fun memories while we were there!

Me and Beck flew a few days before Dane so that I could spend a little extra time with my family, then the weekend that Dane got there we all headed to St. George and Shelby and Trevor were able to come up from California to meet us there.

We did our yearly trip to the Tuacahn and saw Tarzan - the Tuacahn never lets us down, it was awesome!!

Here's Trevor doing Beck's hair for church - what a cute uncle huh and Beck looked dang good

I can't decide if my favorite part of this picture is Dane rockin the goggles or my dad backfloating behind him with the tube necklace.

In St. Georege we played Farkle and Ticket To Ride. The girls did some shopping while the boys went golfing and played basketball in the 110 degree weather. And we spent a lot of time in the sweet pools. The highlight of the entire trip was the chicken fights - me and Dane vs my mom and dad - take a wild guess who won! Unfortunately my mom banned me from posting pictures. But it was good times!!

When we got back we were able to spend time with Grandma Myrna and Papa Doug. Beck loved riding the go-cart at their house and playing in the water table that Grandma bought

We went golfing one morning while we were there - it was pretty scary on my part, I think I've only been 2 other times and I think I would need to go a couple hundred more just to be able to hit the ball on my first swing but I did have a lot of fun. My father-in-law Rob taught me a few tricks for next time - I just need to remember "It's all in the hips" I think that if I can get that down Dane will be in big trouble playing against me next time.

We spent a night with Myrna in Doug in Park City we stayed at a place that had some sweet pools that we totally enjoyed and then we played dominos and ate junk food until all hours of the night. Then the next morning we all went down the Alpine Slide except for Beck was too young to go so Grandma made it up to him with a Merry-Go-Round ride

Shelby and Trevor - miss you guys!!

Me and "little" Dayne who now taller than "big" Dane - isn't he cute!

The night after Park City we all went back to SF for the big rodeo!! Summer would not feel complete without going to the rodeo - I love it!

Beck loved riding around the neighborhood standing up on the scooter

Summer would also not be summer without the "Fiesta Days" parade

Whenever Beck came up missing I knew he would be in one of these 2 places - the piano or playing with the bathtub tap

Beck and GG love eachother - she is the only one that can rock him to sleep in her arms. We went and watched fireworks together and he just layed in her arms the whole time - that is very rare for Beck

When we got to Utah Beck could only say maybe 10 words but while we were there he started talking up a storm our favorite was one night my cousin Lauren was showing him pictures of anmials on her camera and he started saying "Oh my gosh!" at first we weren't sure if that's what he was really saying but then we showed him the moon and he said it again and it was clear as day. It was really cute - he puts a lot of expression into it

Anyways, I can't say it enough - we love our family and we miss them so much. Thanks for all the fun!!

4th of July

This was our first 4th of July away from home, it was wierd not going to BYU to watch the fireworks from Stadium of Fire with our family. But Virginia definitely knows how to celebrate the 4th!

Saturday we went to Virginia Beach and spent the day with our good friends Ken and Lindsay. We all went to the beach and then went to Lindsay's parents house and swam in their pool and had a bbq and that night they ordered the UFC fights - FUN DAY!!

Sunday night we went to Yorktown to watch fireworks. But right before they started I was shocked that Dane decided we should all pack up our blankets and watch them from the parking lot so that we wouldn't be stuck in traffic for 3 hours....Dane of all people not wanting a front row seat for the fireworks?!?!? I don't know what came over him he's usually die hard about fireworks.

I love Yorktown it was the perfect place to celebrate the 4th, it's just a super cute little town with fun houses and restaurants and a nice little beach and they've restored most of it to look like it did during the revolutionary war. They had a little parade where boys dressed up like soldiers from that period marched around and played in a band. I loved it, it was so cute!

Boston - New York City

This summer has already been one of the most fun summers of my life! For the first time since we've been married (and probably the only time until retirement) me and Dane are both free from work and school at the same time so aside from a little bit of research that Dane's doing we've been spend all day every day together...it's been so wierd but so fun!! So last week we decided we better take advantage of this time and take a little vacation (one of the only vacations we've ever taken that didn't include Disneyland haha)

First we drove up to Boston to with our good friends Kimball and Briana who live in a super cute apartment downtown. Aside from the fact that Beck woke us all up at 6 am everyday and was determined to break anything they owned worth over $100 it was awesome! The first day we went to Boston Commons (the first public park in America) and walked the Freedom Trail, which is a walking tour of several American Landmarks (including the cemetery where Paul Revere and John Hancock are buried).

The next day we drove to Salem where all the Salem Witch Trials took place and took a fun little trolley tour around the town and found some crazy little shops, I wish we had gotten pictures of everything we saw that day but we didn't.

Friday we got up early (thanks to Beckett) and drove to NYC!! When we got there we had a list of places that we heard were good to eat but we were too hungry and ended up eating at Subway!

We took the train into town which took us right next to ground zero. Then we walked down Broadway and Wall Street to Battery Park to see the Statue Of Liberty

If you look REALLY close you can see the Statue of Liberty behind us in these pics

Saturday we took the train downtown to Times Square we could have spent all day in all of the fun stores they had there!

I know this is wierd but one my favorite places we went was the Toys R Us in Times Square, mostly because of the giant indoor ferris wheel, it was SWEET!! I wanted to ride in the barbie car, it would have been a childhood dream come true, but we had so much we wanted to see that we didn't want to wait an hour to get on

Check out these giant gummy bears! If they weren't $45 dollars I would have bought a couple for myself and one for all my sugar lovin girl friends back in Virginia

The highlight of the trip for Beck was probably hangin with his new girlfriend Briana, he made her hold his hand for like an hour in the car on the drive from Boston to New York

The piano from the Tom Hanks movie "Big", it was so fun, they let the kids play on it for awhile and then the some of the workers at the toy store came and played the song that Tom Hanks played on Big

I'm telling you these toy stores were sweet!

Another huge highlight that I had planned on going to was this awesome candy shop called Dylans Candy Bar that is 3 levels of candy!! Aside from the fact that I couldn't bring myself to spend $13 for a candy bar I was in HEAVEN!!

We went to serendipity but didn't want to wait for 2 hours to eat there, it was nothing like I pictured but I'm sure I would have loved the food!

We had the best time in Boston and NYC and LOVED hanging out with Kimball and Briana. They are such a fun couple and we had a blast staying with them exploring NYC together. This trip we made some good good memories!