On Vacation again

We are now back from our 11 day vacation up to grandma and grandpas and then off to the family reunion up at Pine View Reservoir. It feels so good to be home again. But we had a wonderful trip. The kids were amazing good, Noah was a great traveler, and we had so much fun. We spent a week up at grandmas before heading up to the reunion and so that's where I want to start. The first thing that we did was visit Liberty Park. They have a wonderful place for the kids to play in the water. They built some waterfalls/streams that lead down to a big pond area and the kids just love it. We used to visit every summer but haven't made it until now. Here are some pictures.

I had packed us a picnic lunch to eat and Maddie wouldn't eat her sandwich. I told her she couldn't go play until she ate her sandwich all gone, took a little while ! Silly girl.

There were lots of hot tub visits. Just about twice a day !!

Maddie and I visited one of my old friends from my college days on her lunch break. She works downtown and so I took Maddie along on the trax train. She loved it and we had a great time. On the way there I let her play Angry Birds on my phone to pass the time. 

 

We visited Temple Square - which is always beautiful. They have fountains, flowers, water, and more. 

This is my friend Kim. Hi Kim !! She was nice enough to come let us join her for lunch. It was great to see her and catch up. I had Maddie take the photo and it turned out so dark so I fixed it the best I could and had to turn it black and white.

 Here is Maddie in front of the Salt Lake Temple

Self timer shot.

The train ride back. 

This is all the "DEAD" stuff found in grandpas backyard !! 

So now we are moving onto the family reunion. The whole drive up to the lake it pored rain.  All through the night and into the next day it rained. The rain didn't let up until Monday afternoon. I was so thankful to be at the Condo. About half of the 100 family members were roughing it in tents. So the first day we hung out in the Condo. This place was so nice, I was ready to move in for good. It had a huge deck of the back overlooking the water and all the boaters, ect. See below photo.

We had a group campsite with a whole bunch of covered tables and then a grassy area. After the grassy area was the trail that led down to the lake. See above picture. This was the view from our campsite.

Splashing on the dock.

Katelyn is my fish, always has been. She doesn't know how to swim yet, that is coming next summer, but she loves to get on her lifejacket and go "FLOATING" as she calls it. She spent hours "FLOATING" during our trip to the lake.

The girls loved to go "CANOEING". They were always trying to talk someone into taking them out !! 

Here is Katelyn, Maddie, and I on the waverunner. 

One night Noah went around the green field next to the tables and kept finding these dandelions. He kept shouting "MORE, MORE." Which is his favorite word ! So cute. 

Some misc. 

One night we all played minute to win it games. See below : 

The next night we danced the virginia real The kids loved that one. 

And the last picture is of some of my closest cousins and all of our kids. 

It really was a great trip. I came back purely happy. The most at peace that I have been in a long time. So I am truly grateful for family and friends that I got to meet over my trip. 

P.S. So I was going to start my week in the life tomorrow but yesterday my camera started misbehaving. It makes this horrible noise when I turn it on and off, and it won't focus right. I am literally in tears and hope it can be repaired. I don't have the best camera in the world by any means it is very important to me and I joke that it is kind of like my fourth child. So off I go to see if I can find a local place that does repairs. So I guess my WITL will have to wait until I get my camera fixed. 

Enjoy the rest of your summer for school starts in two weeks.

My Three Cuties

So we've been staying busy this week. Having two photo shoots with the kids. The first one was with my main photographer from Studio Lush. We went out on location and it went ok. Noah didn't want anything to do with having his picture taken that night. I was really surprised, usually he loves to be outside, and they some really old trucks that you could sit in. Nothing was working. He scowled almost the whole time that we were there. He didn't even want to sit in the truck !! I'll share those when I get them back.

The other photo shoot was this morning. I had won a free photo session  a while back with a local company called fotofly. They have a studio near my moms house and so I called them up when I got here and off we went. Let me just say that they were amazing !! The guy got Noah to smile, giggle, everything. He was amazing and I totally recommend them. Check them out. And you even get your pictures the same day !!

I am so excited to share some of the great shots that he got of my cute kiddos. They are absolutely adorable, although I am their mother, so I have to think that !! Ha Ha !! But seriously. Check them out.

Oh my goodness is all I can say!! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE me some good photo shoot pictures. And these are so darling if I do say so myself. Thanks for looking. We are off to the lake tomorrow for our family reunion. I'll be back late next week !!

A beachy kind of day

Hello everyone. Me and the kids are still at Grandmas and Grandpas house. Enjoying lots of adventures and can't wait for our family reunion to start on Sunday. After the reunion we will be on our way back home again. 

I thought that I would share some pictures from our beach day during the past 4th of July weekend. We drove down in the afternoon, drove around forever finding a place to park, finally settling on a payed parking lot, braved the crazy crowds, built sand castles, jumped the waves, relaxed, and soaked in some sun. I love the beach and was thrilled to move a lot closer. It's about a two hour drive, instead of a twelve hour drive !! So here are some images from our beach day !!

Noah was afraid of the waves at first. Not sure what to think about the water.

Katelyn and Patrick wave jumping. She loved it !!

Playing with the waves.

Me and the girls playing a game of who can outrun the waves

lounging on the beach. Patrick made a comfy lounge chair out of sand.

Building sandcastles

 

 Patrick playing in the water

It really was a relaxing, rejuvenating, wonderful afternoon. After we left the beach we stopped for dinner and then made the long drive home, not really wanting to leave. I wish we could make the trip to the beach every weekend. Oh well. That's it for now. Now I'm off to do some much needed relaxing.

Project Life Week 15

This is going to be a quick post because I am supposed to be on the road already. But I thought I would quickly put up another week that I just did.

Here is the Side one :

This week was mostly about the weekend move, packing, loading up the truck. There is a picture of Maddie and her preschool teacher Miss Stacy. Another small picture of Maddie moving and then two journaling cards. One was a fold out one that I needed more room to write about moving away from home, leaving the familiar, ect.  The last picture is of Katelyn and Maddie sitting on top of the Sinclair dinosaur, every time we pass that particular gas station Katelyn always wants to go sit on the dinosaur. I know, big shock. So we happened to stop in Las Vegas at the Sinclair. She was so excited.

Here is a closer look at the first picture : The moving van that was parked in the driveway for four days while we slowly loaded it up and then wheeled it on out of there.

Here is a closer look at the journaling card :

Here is a closer look at the picture of all of us and my father : We said goodbye to him, taking grandma with us for support and help.

Here is the first extra page I added in : It is a picture of Maddie's preschool class on her last day.

 Here is the extra page #2 : This is the last day of school for Katelyn. Her and Jake have been best friends all year. Weekly playdates together and so they were both really sad when we moved. There were even tears.

Here is side 2 : Unpacking, playing in the water, and fred.

Here is a closer look at the first picture of Noah. He LOVED the moving truck. So he was overjoyed to be siting in the moving truck with daddy.

Here is a closer look at one of the journaling cards :

Here is a closer look at Fred, our house guest :

Here is a closer look at the journaling card : I got this card from a website that I follow and it is wildblueberryink.com. She created it and has the free download on her website. She used it in her book and I loved the idea but I don't twitter. I do facebook alot and just used photoshop to take the word twitter out and put facebook in its place. I love it and plan on using it from time to time. Thanks for the free download.

Here is closer look at two of the journaling cards :  I made a top ten list about the good things about moving to the rental house. And the other one was about our drive/move.

That concludes this post and it feels good to get another week done. I will have more time when I get back to get caught up on my Project Life book. No more traveling for a while and school will be starting before I know it.  Take care.