Memorial Weekend

Friday we headed up to the Cemetery to see the graves being decorated and to decorate a couple of our own. My Dad's, and a Friend, Ron.

I was watching Jensen's that night and decided to take them with me on their first Cemetery outing. They told me later that they loved it....except Oliver and the picture taking.

We walked around the entire place being careful not to step on other peoples headstones and picking up the tipped over flowers on other's graves. We walked into the forest and took pictures with the {fake} animals.

We visited the field on Honor where 40 of Utah's hero's were remembered. The girls and I walked around and read off every name. They loved it.

Bottom left: This was the memorial site of a fellow classmate of mine from West High. Thank you Adam.

Bottom right: As we were walking down each row reading the names, Oakley excitingly told me that this guy was famous and that he was in a movie that she had seen before. She wanted me to take a picture.

*

*

*

Monday, we went to a Memorial Day service at our church in the morning. We had the yearly flag raising ceremony, a fellow ward veteran spoke to us and following the service we had a breakfast that was put on by the relief society. It was a great way to start the day.

When we got home we didn't have a single thing to do, so we packed up a few items and headed up to Huntsville to a frog pond that Luke had visited back in his day. We got there and crossed the freezing river to the hidden pond and sadly there were no frogs, but we still enjoyed being up there. We also went to a hidden cave and played at the river for a little while. Oliver loved finding big sticks and then trhowing them in the river.

On our way back, we saw a sign that read Texas Barbecue. It sounded delicious so we gave it a try and guess what? It WAS delicious! The pulled pork sandwich was the best one I had ever had. We can't wait to have an excuse to go back to Huntsville so we can eat there again.

Oliver was too entertained to eat. He found this tiny little caterpillar and could not stop playing with it. When it was time to go he got a little sad that he had to say goodbye to his new friend. He put him on a plant and waved goodbye to him. Sweet boy.

Later that night we had our friends come over for some dogs and s'mores. It was delish and the perfect way to end our awesome day.

He had a Birthday shout Hooray!

Luke turned 30!

This is a big deal, but Luke doesn't seem to think so. After asking and asking Luke what he wanted to do he said that he just wanted to hang out with us and maybe go try something new for dinner. That wasn't going to fly with me. Turning 30 is totally a big deal and just going to dinner wasn't going to cut it.

For weeks I thought of what magical event I could do for him, but again, he didn't want that....so I had to settle on this... 

Thirty gifts for my thirty year old.

Luke was pretty surprised when he walked in and saw is table of gifts. He didn't know what to do or say, so he got on the table and posed. Haha.

And one by one he opened each gift.

I loved watching him open each gift because he was so excited. His favorites among all of them were his hat and his backpacking stove.

Later that night we headed up to Ruth's Diner. Luke had heard great things about their Mac and Cheese and we had never been there before so we thought "why not".

We didn't love it and thought it was way over priced (people tell us to go there for Breakfast, but who knows if we will ever go back), but we still had fun.

Later that weekend we had birthday cake. Oreo Ice cream cake that Luke made himself because I am such an awesome wife like that. We didn't sing him Happy Birthday or have any candles for him to blow out OR get to stuff his face in his cake which Oliver was sad about, but I think he had a pretty great birthday anyway.

We sure love Luke. Happy Birthday!

The Karen & Lindsay Experience

I absolutely love my job. Love it. Seriously, it is awesome.

One of the reasons is because of these two...

That's Karen and Lindsay.
Just a couple of the most beautiful, funniest people I know.

This weekend we got to hang out down in Sunny St. George for a few days of much needed R&R

This is what we did...

We ate a lot. Snacks and all and it was delish!
For the first time I tried Benjas and Smash burger which I will eat at again. So good.

Top to bottom: Mad Pita gyro with their amazing seasoned fries and fry sauce, Vegas roll from Benjas, Smash Burger with sweet potato fries and regular fries, Vanilla yogurt with green apples walnuts and some honey, and Benjas Mango Rice dessert.

Eating out in the lovely weather

Benjas

For the majority of the time, we were outside laying out. And sometimes when it got unbearably hot, we'd take a dunk in the pool. Laying out though, was my fave.

Linds and I went running. She ran 8 miles and I was only scheduled to run 4.5 and man, it was hot, but we felt pretty good....tired afterwards, but good.

In the end, the trip was awesome! Just what I wanted. We also did some shopping while we were down there because really, what is a trip without shopping. We just didn't get any pictures.

Next up, The Karen & Lindsay experience in Vegas...

Draw Something

You all know of this game right?

Sometimes at night after Oliver is in bed and Luke and I are up watching some late night TV, we will pass the ipad back and forth playing this game.

Here's an idea of what our drawings looked like.

@

@
@
@
@
@

Can you guess who drew what?

Hint:

 Luke's drawing aren't as detailed as mine and he had me in stitches every time.

Mothers Day

This Mothers Day we spent it away with the Jensen's. It was perfect. We went up to their family cabin and just enjoyed relaxing and hanging out.

In this particular picture, I was playing Mother Goose reading about Fear Factor to all the Jensen kids....Aiden and Andrew were laughing at my alleged bald spot. Crap.

 We made s'mores in the fire. The fire was nice just not the mess.

 We tried to take a family picture....as you can see we are not very good at it.

So we did this cheesy heart-in-the-sun pose...that didn't work out too well either.

The next day, Amy and I wanted some nap time so Luke and Trent entertained the kids while we relaxed. Hallelujah and Happy Mothers Day to us! It was so nice. Above, they are standing in front of the fort  they made with Luke.

And us, the moms of the trip.

I am so so grateful that I have been able to join this club better known as Motherhood. It is an amazing thing to be a mother and makes me feel more value and worth than I have ever known. I am grateful for all the moms out there, my own mom and mother in law, sisters, and my friends who are amazing examples of great moms. 
Hope all you lovely ladies had a wonderful Mothers Day.

Mother/Daughter Activity Days Night....???

I love my calling in our ward.

I am currently an Activity Days Leader and I get to hang out with the pre-teens of the ward. It's pretty fun.

 We had our Mother/Daughter night right before Mothers Day. It was so fun to see those Mother/Daughter relationships.

The girls all played how well do you know your Mother/Daughter. They all did surprisingly well.

Then we learned how to make bread sticks that turned out pretty good.

They all made cute little herb gardens together which I did not get any pictures of but they did turn out so cute.

And we had a wonderful speaker talk to us about the importance of Mother/Daughter relationships. I loved it. I loved that she talked about how in the pre-existence we were all sisters and that at times we need to remember that our moms are our sisters too. That we should have fun with our sister and learn and love each other. Although I was the only one there that didn't have a daughter, I was very impressed with the insight that it gave me that we need to love each other as sisters.

*Chris didn't have her daughter with me and I didn't have my Mom so we helped each other fill in the void.

2 Dollar Date.

I love Amy.

She is my person...think Greys Anatomy. She is the person that I list as my emergency contact, She is the second mother to Oliver, She is one of my besties AND she is so dang funny.

We needed an out the other night.

We shop pretty well together and so we decided to do just that. Shop.

We hit up City Creek and looked around for about an hour and even hit up TJMaxx afterwards.

Guess how much money we spent? $0. In all our shopping excursions, hat has never happened to us.

Before heading home we went to Orange Leaf where we only had to spend less than 2 dollars because I had a voucher. The frozen yogurt was exceptional that night too.

Pretty awesome, right?

Thanks for the night out...and for making my laugh with your Amy-isms.

Blah!

Cinco De Mayo Fiesta

How perfect that May 5th fell on a Saturday this year. So why not party!

Luke and I gathered as many people as we could and threw together this fiesta.

Everyone was so nice to bring a dish to share with everyone. There was SO much food. Enough to fit on 2 large tables. It was all amazing!

                                                       What would a fiesta be without a pinata?

With about 30 kids and 2 pinatas, we made sure everyone had a turn. Even a couple adults joined in on the fun.

Luke was the final hitter which broke apart the pinata and released loads of candy and confetti. 

Love Cinco de Mayo mainly because it gives us all a fun  reason to throw a party with some good Mexican food.

The fiesta was great thanks to everyone that came.

Hi 29.

I am now 29. It was more of a low key birthday this year and it was nice. For starters...

I treated myself to a massage the day before where I was surprised by this beautiful cake that the Dr. I work for got me. Seriously, how pretty is that.

                   These wonderful ladies treated me to some amazing lunch at The Blue Lemon. Love!

And I love them. I mean who could not love those pretty faces ;)

Following lunch, I stopped by Luke's work to say hello and he came out with a gift wrapped in his blue prints wrapping paper that I absolutely love. Luke's gifts are the best.

 He got me this vintage scale I've been eyeing.

Later that night it was Movie time. Luke has been talking about going to see the Avengers for my birthday from the day he found out that is was releasing on my birthday. He was completly giddy with excitement.

We first went to 5 guys for dinner and it was go-ood. We forgot to take a picture so Amy and I took one on our way to the movie.

I loved the movie....just not the annoying over-enthused nerds that surrounded us....then again, it was those exact nerds that thought we were pretty cool (because of our shirts) and we were asked a couple times where we got them. Ha!

Look at our lovely group. Love these guys.

On Sunday I had my family over to finish off the the leftovers from our Cinco De Mayo Party (more of that to come). Wendy made me a rainbow chip cake, my favorite, and I got the Notorious Baker version of Happy Birthday sung to me with chants of "take a bite" following. Luke cut me a piece of cake and put it on a plate so that I could take a bite.

And this is what they did to me...

But I got them back...

I was spoiled again this year receiving very generous gifts and certainly feeling the love. Thank you to all those that made bringing in my 29th year of life so sweet.

Hide or Seek

Yep. That's Oliver playing hide and seek. If you can't tell, he's the one hiding.

You know it's an intese game when socks go missing...

Hello, May.

So happy May is here. Good things tend to happen this month.

This is what I plan on doing in May...

The hubs is taking me to see this on my birthday. It's fun to see him get so excited for this.

I decided to get all nerded out and bought these to wear on the big day.

For my birthday I wanted to throw a party. I'm not okay throwing my own birthday party, but I am okay with throwing a Cinco De Mayo party.

Mothers day is right around the corner. So lucky to have 2 amazing moms in my life.

And of course get to celebrate being this kids mom...

I get to enjoy some perfect sunbathing weather in St. G. with these 2 whom I absolutely love working with.

Start training for this half Marathon.

Celebrating this guys big 30th Birthday.

And getting that much closer to summer break

Doesn't May look lovely? AND I plan on filling it up much much more.

Happy May to all of you.