Reception, Vegas, and Laying Hardwood Floors

So I started this post and never posted it and then life being more hectic than I can believe never posted it so here are a couple belated blogs to get us all blogged up.


Katie and Andrew had there reception on what should have been a beautiful day in mid August. Instead, I drove from Salt Lake to the beautiful Provo Canyon in the pouring rain with Katie's bridesmaid Carrie who'd flown in the night before. We set up in the rain, I mostly told JJ and Josh what to do and helped orchestrate whatever Katie needed with Marika's help so Katie and Andrew could get some good pictures when the rain decided to take a small break and let a few slits of sun shine through.
The day was not looking good and I was feeling horrible that all this work had gone into what should have been a picture perfect day. Miraculously about 15 minutes after the reception was scheduled to begin the God Apollo (that's the sun god right? Savannah would know) smiled upon us and gave us a beautiful bright sunny day. It even warmed up eventually and the umbrellas and picnic blankets ended up being the conversational genius Katie had intended them to be.

It was really nice to meet so many people I'd never met from Josh's family and see some people I have only seen once at Lexi's baby blessing almost 3 years ago.
Everything turned out beautifully, as you can see in the pictures.


Congrats Katie and Andrew!





















With the reception over and cleaned up it was off for a weekend in Vegas. Andrew's mom Paula came along with Marika, JJ, Carrie, and Katie's friend Sarah and her husband. We stayed at the gold nugget, hit up the pool, went to the Wynn buffet, had some Prime Rib at Binnion's, hit the strip, went to the outlets, and watched Josh and Andrew dance it up at Carnivale.


Josh's cousin and her friends came up from St George one night and a few of Josh's friends came as well it was nice to unwind. I'm not a huge Vegas fan but I do love the pool.










































On Our way home we stopped at Josh's grandparents' home in St George and spent the rest of our week with them. Josh put in some new hardwood floors with a little help from Andrew, and Pa and a lot of help from his little brother Darin. It was fun to get to spend so much time with Josh's family and it's always a great feeling helping out family right?

We also got to spend a little time with Kenn and meet his girlfriend Holly. We went to the pool in a Senior community you usually get the pool all to yourself. We also played Marco Polo... I'm as bad at that game as my 6 year old niece. Holly can't swim, shocking I know! I can't whistle though. Shh don't tell.


We also brought the Jersey kids to In and Out Burger.

Headaches, and Campfires, and Fish, OH MY!

We hopped on a plane in the SEA-TAC airport. I had a horrible headache and head cold. Once we were up in the air my nose started to run like a sieve. Before that it had been stuffy, not running, so I had no tissues with me. Josh stole me some cocktail napkins from the flight attendants. By the time we landed in Salt Lake my head felt ready to explode. I literally have never had such a headache. It felt like a migraine coupled with sinus pain and a cold, not good. We got home and got all our bags inside and Josh started loading things to Jeep. I whined on the bed and wished I was dead. Josh asked if I wanted to stay home and skip the camping trip but I'd already taken time off for work so I decided I'd tough it out.
We packed everything up, stopped by the store for the rest of the groceries, and headed to Rob and Lisa's to pick up the trailer and Darin. I originally wanted to bring Darin up early with us to give Josh some one on one time with him. Darin wins my happy helper award. He helped Josh and I so much. Setting up camp, making meals, doing the dishes afterward. Josh also brought his paintballing stuff with him. It was Darin't first time paintballing. They all had a lot of fun. Josh and Rob kind of ganged up on Darin and were just trying to shoot him instead of each other. Josh's paintballing 101 lesson was hilarious too. There were voices, "Don't turn the safety off until I say, 'Game On!'" The game on was shouted unlike the rest of the sentence as if they were all spread apart already and had to shout to be heard. The face masks were, "not to be taken off to itch your face or anything at all. You don't take them off, at all got that? Also, it hurts to get hit in the throat so don't look up at the clouds and be all, 'Wow, how pretty," and BAM you get hit in the throat." Katie and I had a good time just watching Darin get his pep talk.
Rob and Lisa didn't bring any toys for the girls to play with. Katie and I looked for things in our cars that might work as toys. Katie found a Pier 1 catalog for Lexi to use as a book, an empty water bottle to fill with rocks you would use in a vase as a maraca, and Lexi found a car that was missing a wheel. The maraca was a hit but Lexi got bored and kept gravitating to the dirt. Lisa washed her in the stream a few times because she would end up so dirty.
The next day Josh brought everyone fishing. Darin and Josh went out first and brought back two good sized fish. Then Josh brought Katie, Lisa, and Lexi and brought back one fish. Lexi caught the biggest fish of the day. On our way back to camp Josh brought Darin, Lisa, and I off roading in the Jeep. I screamed more than Lisa, I'll admit it. We got to a point in the trail where a tree had fallen onto the road Josh found a different rockier road to take to get to the same spot. When he went to go scope out the road ahead Josh tapped the hood and nodded. Lisa thought this meant he agreed it looked too dangerous and we'd turn around. I told her I thought he was reassuring the Jeep they could do this and I thought he'd go for it. We did but we didn't get stuck. She and Darin loved driving through the river so Josh drove us through a couple times.
All in all it was a lot of fun. Poor Josh got my headcold the last day and I think made me look really tough with all his whining I hadn't done the first two days I'd had the headache.

Next Stop, Seattle, Washington

Next Stop on our busy summer was Seattle Washington. We drove up with my parents. Josh loved the 15 hour drive. Look how enthusiastic he looks.

We had so much fun we stayed with my cousin Ted and his wife Jessica. We spent a lot of time with family. There was a big party for Ted's 40th Birthday. We went to Pike's Place market with the biggest group I've ever been anywhere with.

We spent a lot of time with Ted and Jessica's little girl Annika. She's one of the many adorable kids in my family. I adore her. I miss her so much already. Josh could not believe how good she was. He kept telling me how she was the easiest baby to take care of that he'd ever seen.

This is my nephew Chase feeding himself, or his skin. He really concentrates on his food while he eats. Maybe he needs to concentrate more on his mouth. I can't believe he's going to be a year old on September 5th. Time really flies. We've been really lucky to be able to see Savannah and the kids a lot this year.

My Aunt Dody made us waffles the day we left. She happens to make the best waffles in the entire world. She bought sausage at Pike's the day before, it was amazingly good. We got home and I had turkey sausage in the freezer. Josh informed me I need to learn how to buy groceries from my Aunt Dody. If he thinks I'm going to be up to her level of cooking he's going to be waiting on it a while.

When Ted brought us all SeaDooing we got Aunt Marion to go out. When Ted brought her you could hear her yelling even when y

ou couldn't see them. It was my favorite time to date just because of that. We brought Josh to Dick's for the first time. He loved it so much he went back for seconds and bought a Tshirt. He kept saying how much he loved Dick's. He cracks me up. I wish we could have stayed longer, I always say that, but I mean it.