Scout Camp

Raymond is the scoutmaster and with this calling he is required to attend scout camp.  That means 6 days and 5 nights away from home.  This is the longest we have ever been apart in our entire marriage.  I sure do miss him, and it is only day 2, day 3 if you consider it is 2:30 am.  When Raymond was set apart the Bishop included in his blessing that I would be able "to assist with this calling as it is as much yours as it is Raymonds".  I listened but didn't understand just how true it is.  I spent alot of time helping with menus, groceries, packing & cleaning.  It is also quite the sacrifice to go without a paycheck from missed work.  But the biggest sacrifice is to go without my amazing husband.  He is my everything and he makes my everyday better than I could have imagined.  The scouts are very lucky to have him.  I hope he is having the very best time possible! I however have gotten the stomach flu, probably from our weekend at the cabin, and have spent my time being miserable and missing Raymond even more than I thought (hate how sickness does that to you!).  When Raymond gets home we will be heading to Lake Powell, so I will have him for an entire week!  I can't wait!

Willard Bay

We went out to the bay to test out my dad's boat while he is in Mexico, it was super windy with white caps when we got out there but it ended up being a pretty nice night!

Winn BBQ

We were able to go to a BBQ the Winn family had, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures except for these cute girls playing.  My aunt Danella was in from Alabama so it was really fun to be able to hang out with her and her boys!  These girls were fun to watch, they sure do have active imaginations!  Part of their nights doings included "going on a mission to save the world!" while Madi thrusted her arms into the air!  It was so funny!

Up At The Cabin...

We went up to the cabin at Causey with Dani and Michelle for the night.  We had a great time, besides Kenley throwing up on the way and in the night! The best was Dani & Michelle on the way up!  They pulled over and both immediately went to the back doors, reached in, then we saw Michelle turn outside the car and toss a handful of chunks then shake off her hands with goop dripping from them! Raymond was dry heaving, especially when he learned just what it was she was tossing!  It was funny!  We went for a 4-wheeler ride and  shooting the next morning and boy I am pretty good!  Just look at that target!  I shot the 9mm, 22 and muzzle loader and did pretty good with the first 2 and who knows on the muzzle loader, none of us did so well! The water at Causey is looking so much better than it did just a month earlier and it is no longer over flowing the spill way but it looks like it could if you did a cannon ball!

Lunch with the Moyes

I went to lunch with these cool people to one of my favorite places.  Thanks much for the invite and the good company!

**Is anyone else frustrated that Bajio got bought out by Costa Vida? Bajio is my #1 and Costa Vida is, well,  not near #1.  I sure hope they don't ruin it for me!

Lunch with the Gals

I was able to go to lunch with these fun girls.  This was our attempt of getting them to both smile at the camera.  They sure are fun girls!  Lexi has more spunk than I thought possible in such a little person and Briele is just the happiest girl!  I also joined my mom and Jess, they were very fun too!  They even helped me eat my Snickers Caramel Apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!  Thanks for letting me join you for lunch!

Tucanos

I love this place.  I love that I am part of their birthday club.  I love that each birthday I get a post card with a coupon for a buy one get one free meal.  I love that the coupon saves us nearly $20.  I love that by saving $20, we justify getting separate desserts.  I love their Creme Brulee.  Ray loves their Death by Chocolate Cake. I love their salad festival (aka huge salad bar!). I love that my husband is willing to drive to Salt Lake for dinner just so I can eat here.  I love that my dad was willing to tag along.  I love that we saw a guy smoking a doobie while walking down the street.  I love the CD I bought from a street performer.  I love that we got Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Apples to take home.  Truly, go here and you will feel the love! 

Stapel Reunion 2011

We had the chance to go to Crystal Hot Springs for the Stapel family (my mothers family) reunion.  It was oddly the funnest place to camp!  We got to have our whole camping set up without any problems plus we were just a short walk to swimming and water slides!  We had so much fun!  My family is a bit crazy but it just makes life fun!

We spent lots of time playing with the little gals and going down the water slide.  Sadly I got few pictures of the water play but others did so I will have to steal some!  Madison even went down the water slide which was pretty big for her! 

The little gals love posing for pictures, Kip however does not, Uncle Ray had a great time playing with the little ones.

The boys played hacky sack...honestly I don't think I have seen anyone play this in years!!  When we went over to the pool we let the little girls ride across the campground & parking lot in the back of the truck, they were a little nervous at first but then they thought they were pretty cool!

Like I said, I have some pretty funny family!

We had lots of fire time, thanks to Steve & Ray we had HUGE fires!

My family. Yes, I am proud to call him my husband!

My grandma and all of my mom's siblings but one were able to come, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of John & Paulianna but I was able to get everyone else!

We had a great time, my mom did an amazing job planning it all and making sure we were all fed well.  I don't get to see this family nearly often enough but it was so fun to spend an extended weekend with them!  I love you guys!

This was right next to our camp site, it was so pretty!

**Side note, I have severe headaches/migraines most of the day every day which is apparently related to Cervical Disks (in my neck) popping out of place.  Thankfully my uncle is a chiropractor and fixed me TWICE over the weekend and I feel so much better after he does. Now if only I could move to Springville so I could get adjusted every day!

Drive-In

We went to the drive in movies with Spencer & Tiffany, it was a gorgeous night although the weather didn't exactly cooperate! It was raining on and off so we were in the truck but it was still wonderful! I love nights at the drive-in with my amazing man and some delicious Bajio!!!  Man, I love my husband!

Briele Kate...

I got to hang out with this cute girl and guess what...she learned a new trick!  I left her in the sun room playing with toys while I went into the kitchen to make her a bottle, I came around the kitchen to find little miss B almost up to the dining room!  She is still doing the army crawl, not an actual crawl, but she can now climb stairs!  My house is about to get much more terrorized!  But isn't she so cute!

Hyrum Dam 2011

Hyrum Dam this year was just as fun as any!  We had a great time camping, hanging out with the family, boating, swimming, eating, playing, watching fireworks, and singing round the campfire!  A big highlight of this year was Raymond's cousins, the Harrison's from Alabama came to hang out with us!  We were able to meet them when we were in Texas in December so it was awesome that they flew out to spend the weekend!

We spent lots of time playing on the beach, swimming and kayaking!

We of course went to the Logan fireworks show and had a great time!

 We spent time boating, Caroline & Ross had a great time on the tube with Raymond.  Briele even had her first ride on the tube!

Raymond surprised me with a cake for my birthday!  He even ordered in advance and everything, so sweet of him!

Rodger & Camille's favorite thing to do is sing around the campfire with everyone and we did plenty of that!

And of course, the annual family photo!  We are getting pretty big!

Transformers 3

We went and saw Transformers.  I was pretty hesitant to see it because I was not sure about replacing Megan Fox.  I don't care about how she is to work with or any of that jazz I just really like story lines to be consistent, especially with leading actors!  But, it was amazing!  I loved it and Ray loved it and just with the 2 Transformers movies before we were not disappointed!  We are huge Transformers fans and I would totally recommend it to anyone!!

On a side note, I am now 25!  Wow, I thought it would be a long ways out before I reached 25.  I don't feel old enough to be 25, and I don't feel like I have lived enough to be 25.  Do you ever feel like life is passing too quickly?  Well, here is to the next years to come and praying that I can enjoy life as it comes!

St. George

I am spoiled.  Before I even start I will say I am very aware of it!  Every year my birthday is during Raymond's family camping trip.  Although most of you would think, yay I get to spend my birthday camping every year but truth be told...I have always shared my birthday with our countries Independence Day and have never had my "own" celebration.  I really feel bad for those Christmas Babies!  This year Raymond indulged me and I got a "Birthday Weekend" the weekend before my actual birthday! 

We drove down to St. George Friday morning and checked into this beauty at the Wingate by Wyndham.  We could have lived in this place, it was beautiful and I would recommend them to anyone!  They have a complimentary breakfast that is AMAZING!  Bacon, Eggs, Fresh Waffles, Cereal, Fruit, Muffins, Toast, Yogurt and Juice.  I was in heaven, and now I really want a waffle mix dispenser in my house!

 

 After we got checked in we thought we would go to the Outlet stores, we didn't however find any of the stores interesting enough to even stop the car so we instead went to the DI.  Yeah, we are that weird.  We even found some good treasures...and yes Raymond did push me for a bit in a wheelchair while I pushed a lawn fertilizer with a wine rack in the top.  White trash, we know.  We did go to Old Navy and Raymond got a whole slew of new clothes and I got a wicked new Fedora.  We got some yummy ice cream at Cold Stone. In case you didn't know, it is BLASTED HOT in St. George.  So hot that we grabbed some dinner at Pizza Factory and then thought going to the movies was the best option for entertainment, while we were there we saw Mater.  

 Saturday we slept in til nine!  Yay!!  We then devoured our complimentary breakfast and headed to the farmer's market at Tuacahn.  It wasn't nearly as big as we had thought it would be but it was still fun.  I got the cutest little Barbie Princess dresses that a lady makes!  Best part, they were 5 for $20 and my nieces will love playing with them (and probably me)! We wandered around St. George for a bit and then went and got our 1st Massages ever!  Raymond loved his, I was in intense pain!  It felt good...at times...but it also HURT like CRAZY and I was SORE for a couple days after!  Then since it was mid-day and incredibly HOT we went to another movie!  We really like movies so it was great to be able to see 2 this weekend!  We had Dickey's BBQ and it was amazing!! Especially for the fact that we got it through the drive-through!  It was seriously as good as those in Texas!!

 We hung out in the pool at the hotel for a bit which was so nice.  Then we went to the Japanese Steakhouse for some Hibachi style dining which was delicious and then headed out to Tuacahn for Grease Lightning.  IT WAS INCREDIBLE! The stage is set up right in front of the cliffs and arranged so that cars, trucks and motorcycles were driving on & off the stage, at one point it was raining and they dropped lots of water all over the stage, they had a live band and they even had fireworks at the end! Thankfully it started at 9 pm so it was actually pretty cool outside!  

Sunday we took it easy.  Slept as late as we could, then had some breakfast before check out.  We went and visited Raymond's uncle and picked up a trailer for Ray's dad (the true purpose of this trip), and hit up Red Lobster for lunch before hitting the road.  It was a great weekend, I am very spoiled by my amazing husband. He even gave me my birthday present early, a Kindle.  I love it! 

**Side Note:  We both got new carry-on's recently and got to use them this weekend.  Aren't they super cute!! Mine is from Bags 'N' More!! His is from Costco!!

Girl Time & the Ball Games

Me, Mom, Jess & Briele all went and got pedicures and manicures...it was so much fun!  I love the massaging chairs and the foot/leg rub and the warm soak and someone else painting my toenails!  It was just all around great! Briele got here nails painted for the first time, which took three holders and a camera happy aunt to manipulate enough time for Briele to hold still to successfully paint and dry!  Thanks for going with me gals, it was great!!

 After nail time I headed to Tremonton with mom to watch Cody play some ball and hang out with sweet Lexi.  We had some good 'ol Taco Time, which was a family favorite growing up!  We had a great time, the weather was perfect and who can beat a blue & green swirled ring pop!!

Father's Day & Sky Diving

I got to hang out with this cute girl.  As you can see she is getting into EVERYTHING!!  She is still doing an army crawl but before an actual crawl or walking she is taking on stairs and she is actually doing pretty good with them!  She also got herself onto the base of my coffee table and pushed all the books off!  Oh she is so fun!!

 Later in the day my Dad & Steve went skydiving so we went to watch!  It was my dad's second jump but Steve's first.  They both loved it and Steve wasn't even scared!  Poor Halli was a bit confused, she kept asking Steve how he would get back to her after getting in the plane!  Afterward, Madi went running out to her dad very much happy that he made it back to her!  We then went to dinner at Sanora Grill to celebrate Father's Day!  It was very yummy!  We got each of the boys in our family a gift card for a zip line & go-kart round at Miller Sports.  We are excited to get to use them hopefully soon!  Happy Father's day to all the men in my life, I am grateful to each of you and the amazing example & help you have been in my life.  Thank you to Raymond who is my everything, I know someday you will be an amazing father!  You are already a far better husband than I could have asked for!!