Summer Sing-Along

Holly's piano teacher and a friend put together a cute little singing group this month and last Friday was their performance.

It was called "Life's a Happy Song" and they sang "happy" songs like "Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah"

Holly was on the older side for the group, but it was perfect for Sadie. They both performed very well and Holly realized she really likes that kind of thing I think :) Fun to see them try new things!

It's Raining, It's Pouring!

Saturday we went to Costco. We had just stepped inside when the sky opened up and it started pouring. While we were shopping I thought I could hear it on the roof but when we were leaving (or trying to leave) we were blown away. Literally. It was like a hurricane! There was a huge crowd at the exit- all of us trying to figure out what to do. Dana went and got the car for us but just running a few feet to it, I was drenched. Dana may as well have jumped in a pool.
Monsoons are just crazy!
This is the drain in the parking lot trying to keep up. It looked like a sinkhole.

We saw way too many trees broken or uprooted.

Streets were flooded everywhere. Not a good time to drive a low rider.

When we got the home the kids saw our playground fields and immediately started begging to go play in them.

I gave the mom sigh and said ok. Then, of course, I was glad I did because they had so much fun:)

Thank you Monsoon for the free, super fun Saturday! And for giving us temps in the 70's in July!

These are the types of memories that kids never forget.

Eating

It's never been such a big deal to me as it is now. I used to dream about food when I was pregnant and couldn't hold anything down. Like eating a big hamburger. My body wanted it, but during the day just the smell of meat sent me running to the bathroom more than a few times. Once even a Burger King commercial caused me to throw up.

Now, here I am, dreaming about food again. This time it's that I start eating some yummy candy, then realize what I'm doing, then think "Oh no! I just ruined my diet!" Then I'm relieved when I wake up. I guess it's pretty pathetic to be so paranoid, but I really want all my hard work to make a difference. So far it's going great and I feel hopeful.

 Here are my updates on my food journey. On the way to beach camping my Naturopath gave me my food allergy results. On a 1-6 scale dairy and eggs were both in the 5 range. Ironically, wheat was only at a 2, which is not considered bad enough to take out of your diet. She said though that since I haven't eaten it for a year, my body may have regained a tolerance for it again. Two surprises were cranberries and pineapple were both 4's! All my meats were "no reaction" as well as all nuts. So happily, I've been able to incorporate some things back into my diet. There are things that are considered inflammatory foods- like sugar and potatoes which I have no allergy to, but I'm keeping them out of my diet until I get my body where I want it to be. Right now my body's feeling great. Dana and I went to the gym together last night (one of my favorite things) (going with him, unfortunately not just going to the gym) and have made a goal to go 3 times per week. So my day-to-day diet now is:

• Steel-cut oats every morning with rice milk and fruit (sooo good- I look forward to it every morning).
•  A big salad at lunch with as many veggies as I can squeeze in. 
• A variety of things for dinner. Examples are- roast, fish, chicken, rice, tacos, quinoa. Last night I had some regular pasta (after making sure there weren't eggs in it) with a really yummy marinara sauce I made. (If you'd like to try it just Google "World's best marinara sauce" and it's at the top. That's my little trick that seems to work well- typing "world's best" before a recipe I want).

Anyway, I may eat whole wheat once in awhile and I have added tomatoes even though they were a "2". Not a lot, but as it turns out, I'm a bigger salsa fan than I thought. And with either eggs or dairy being in SO many sauces, this way I can add a little flavor to things.

Mind blowing excitement in my life right? :)

Happy 15 years to me and Dana tomorrow :) Now to plan some type of celebration...

More Fun For the 4TH

Does it get any better than going to Utah for the 4th? I think it'd be hard to find a better place to celebrate. We were all SUPER excited.

We'd heard about the fires but were surprised to see the evidence of them right off the 15 on our way up! How'd you like to be this homeowner? Pretty scary...

And then we drove past an actual fire! The kids were glued to the windows.

We had so much fun in Utah this year. I think it was my favorite year so far.

We went to an area that someone they know owns and there was alot of fun things to do there.
First we climbed down to a little pond that has a little waterfall going to it (so the water wasn't gross stagnant water). Right when we got to it Eli was begging me to let him swim in it. Nevermind that it's from the melted snow and freezing cold!
But really, how could I refuse?

Then once the girls watched Eli do it, they wanted to too. I made them strip down so they'd have dry clothes to put on afterward.

It was really pretty and the kids had a great time.

Next we had a little lunch.

Then we headed over to a big swing.

Holly was really nervous, but I think it might had been her favorite thing of all, in the end.

I love this one!

Sadie on the other hand was happy playing with a butterfly net.

And hanging out with her cousins :)

There was also a zip-line that all the older kids had a great time on.

That night we hit the drive-in and saw "Madagascar 3". I laughed several times but had a hard time following the plot. The part where King Julian was in love with a bear was creepy. Plus, drive-in's can be very distracting.

The boys played hackey-sack before it started and past the time they actually had enough light to see the hackey-sack.

Holly was so cute about making games up and playing with the little girls so much of the time we were up there.

On the 4th- Dana and Emma and a bunch of others got up early and did the "Turkey Trot". This is a confusing name for a run in July but we go with the flow. There are many turkeys there apparently.

Next we were off to the parade.

And I took family pictures...Someone else took ours :)

Here's the whole group:

Then of course we went to the always-better-than-expected fireworks show that night. The 5th we drove home the whole day. We were happy to see Utah getting some needed rain as we left :)

At home, we found a welcome party of a dog, cat, and fish that all seemed happy to see us. In varying degrees:)
 Happy Birthday America!

50 Years

In addition to our usual 4th of July celebration with Dana's family this year, we also celebrated his parents 50th anniversary. There are not many things that last 50 years in this life, especially marriages. Whether it's due to divorce, or to the death of a spouse, it's a special occasion for sure. Dana is the youngest but became the organizer of the festivities. Everything went wonderfully and he really gets most of the credit for that. He assigned different things to everyone.

I ended up making a couple keepsakes for them. The first is something my mother-in-law saw that her sister-in-law had and really LOVED and REALLY wanted one of her own. It was a decent amount of work but we liked the way it turned out:

I also made a Shutterfly book. I had each of their kids send in a paragraph to their parents and some pictures of their family with their mom and dad to put with it. My favorite part was at the end we had each grandkid finish the sentence "My favorite thing about grandma and grandpa is..." It was cute hear the variety of sweet memories the kids have.

Everyone contributed time and money and it couldn't have turned out better :) Dale was in charge of the decorations. He hung all of the records from the ceiling:

We definitely got the reaction we hoped for :)

Kristy made a family cookbook and did "The Newlywed Game" which was probably my favorite part of the night.

Oh and she brought the cake :)
No, they did not smash- even after I tried to plant the idea in their minds.

Dean provided the venue and they were in charge of the food which was from a yummy local Mexican place. Their daughter Kodi was also working hard on a video for them that we got to sneak-peak while we were there. Oh and we were entertained by a local band. They were really good :)

We danced to some of their songs and one of Emma's step-cousins asked her to dance, which I tried to get a picture of, but she hid behind some other couples. She knows her mom well.

 At the beginning of the week they paid for everyone to stay at a "Residence Inn" in Salt Lake. That place was super fun! The kids had a great time swimming with their cousins.
Sadie with Keena :)

I know everyone looks like zombies thanks to the iphone flash, but it's so cute with all the grandkids in there.

I actually got a little teary-eyed watching how sweet the older grandkids were to our kids. I know it meant so much to them to have their "big" cousins playing with them. :)

In Salt Lake we took a tour of the Joseph Smith Memorial building where Dana's grandparents both worked way back when it was the "Hotel Utah". Dana's grandpa fell down the elevator shaft while he was working on it and lived to tell about it :)
Did you know that before that it was the Deseret News building?

This article is written by someone opposed to the Deseret News being torn down to build the Hotel Utah.

Did you also know that the government was going to tear down the Hotel Utah awhile back unless it was retrofitted. At that point the church bought it, made the necessary changes, and renamed it the JS Memorial Bldg. Sorry, I love tours. I'm kind of a nerd that way.

They also treated us to dinner in the "Garden Room"at the top.

The 100-year old couch.

Statue of Joseph Smith reading James 1:5 (and being swarmed by kids).

Our tour group

We went to "The Spoken Word" on Sunday morning. I was politely asked, as we were going in, to take my non-8 year old to the noisey kid room :)

I love walking around temple square. It's just so beautiful!

It was a super fun time. I still have a whole separate 4th of July post too!

Happy, Happy 50th to 2 of the lucky ones! They are amazingly still happy and in love. Such great examples to everyone.

Only 35 more years to go Dana. We can do it!