Daniel's Birthday

I don't know how Daniel managed to turn 2; I don't ever remember him turning 1! This boy is the sweetest and funnest boy. He's very playful and active, but he's still so sweet and cuddly. He loves to laugh and give kisses, is very good at saying sorry (in response to every single "ouch"). He'll stop in the middle of playing and randomly run over and give me a hug and then go play again. He is pure love and pure joy and he is such a gift! He loves to help: if we are getting ready to go outside, he'll bring us our shoes; if we are getting dressed he'll hand us our clothes; if we are unloading the dishwasher, he's there. A,d. he cries if he hurts anyone.

For his birthday, we shopped at DI. He picked out this car and loves it.

Posing:

He took a nap and then woke up sick, it wasn't cool. So he wouldn't eat dinner. In some of the pictures you can tell he's not feeling very great.

Opening presents!

A book:

Curious George DVD

 and Pajamas from Grandma:

Homemade angel food cake. It was delicious! He knew how to blow out his candles without help.

Listening to Grandma and Papa sing "Happy Birthday", in his new PJs

This is how Joey fell asleep last night. This glider is right next to his bed:

for the sake of journaling

I've nothing interesting to say and no pictures ...

Last Sunday, the 12th, our Stake was split and our wards were moved around. We lost two streets worth of some of the awesomest people and gained two streets of another ward, including the bishop and elders quorum president, so Nate's call as Elder's quorum 2nd counselor lasted for about a month. Now Joey is 1 of 3 active sunbeams instead of 1 of 4. Church today seemed lame, I'll have to give it another chance, of course, but so far, the new people aren't very exciting. In fact, the ones I talked to today were really weird, and I'm being totally serious. It's like they all came from 20 generations of BYU graduates (if you get what I mean, and not to offend anyone). Oh well ... Oh, and Mr. Bean is in our ward now, no joke.

I had a birthday! So exciting. I'm now a rotten old 26 (I know, I know). We had an activity days activity (at the pool at my apts) and then my awesome friend Jenny decided we should go to dinner. Rachelle and Sheena came too. The rest of the day, I was really bored and anxious because we were supposed to be hearing back about something in the following paragraph that day, and we never heard anything till Friday.

We made an offer on a Townhouse that is in short sale. We can live in it for less than rent even after taxes, insurance, and the HOA (which includes trash, water, and sewer). It'll easily sell for more in years from now and would make a great rental if needed. The sellers were MIA for a week, but finally returned their realtor's phone call and accepted the offer, but now the bank has to accept it and supposedly that will take no less than 6-8 weeks. They have till Sep 9 to respond and I just don't think I can putts around for that long. So, we are looking at other things too, if they come up, but nothing's felt better than this one so far. We can pull out up until the bank accepts the offer. We are praying for a faster than usual sale, so if anyone needs something extra to pray for, we'd love if you prayed for that too.

Nate said today was his best father's day ever. We had fried rice, orange chicken, and rolls (all homemade). dessert turned out lame :(. We bought laptops for our birthdays, etc, so he got two DI ties and some tape and highlighters for work (we're on a tight grocery budget, because we're trying to save as much as possible). Surprisingly, tape is kind of pricey, I thought. But he loved it! He's doing really good at work, rocking the financial world. I don't think I ever blogged that he got a job as a financial adviser with Cambridge Financial. It's an awesome company and they have access to most insurance and investment options out there. The hiring process was hard core and lasted a few months, but he made it! Now, he's learning how to be proactive, hard working, and persistent, not to mention positive!

Pajama Cowboys

Daniel's favorite thing to say right now is, "No! I do it!". Joey's favorite thing to say is, "Why?" He's asked me that about 500 times since Thursday.

Daniel wouldn't stop dancing while I was trying to take pictures ...

Memorial Day

Well, to start, a couples weeks ago Joey got really sick and was croupy for three nights in a row and then Daniel got it for onw night, but he got it really bad. Here he is being sick and Joey cuddling with him.

On memorial day we took the kids to a water park in St. George. They love it there. We took pictures and then the camera promptly died. So nothing else of the day. But we went camping and fishing. It was lots of fun. Joey was so excited to have his own new sleeping bag and a tent to sleep in. We didn't catch any fish. Daniel was supposed to be better, but had a sick relapse and we really feeling yucky while we were camping, it wasn't too fun for him, but we still had fun and he was feeling better in the morning.

A few days away

After Nate's graduation, my fabulous mother stayed for a week and Nate and I spent 3 days in Las Vegas while my mom stayed with the boys. This was my graduation gift to Nate. We started by going to a par 3 Golf course. I'm not too good at golf a prefer Par 3 course for now. Well, this one was kind of a joke. The grass was awful, even a good golfer would have a hard time with the putting green. Next we went to this:

We advise you don't go see this before you eat, or too soon after you eat. Luckily, we had eaten an hour or so earlier. It was pretty amazing, really interesting, and very stomach wrenching for both of us. We went to the M&M store where we saw a silly 3-D movie and then got the boys these:

Joey often tells me that he "so love[s his] M&M shirt", but he was very ornery about putting these on a taking a picture.


We had dinner at the Cheesecake factory, mostly filling up on cheesecake. We had these Mexican egg rolls that were really yummy and then I had pineapple upside down cheesecake and Nate had dutch apple, I guess we were in a fruity mood ... too much time on the strip can make you feel that way. We got pizza too, but only ate a slice and then took it home but the next day it was already gross ...

Then we saw this show by Cirque de Soleil:

 

 Pretty crazy stuff. Our favorite part was this ....

 

The next day we went to the Ethel M  Chocolate Factory and cactus gardens. We spent a lot of money on really yummy chocolate and peanut brittle and loved every bit of it.

We had lunch at Whole Foods. I have to highlight this because I love eating at whole foods! We drove by it at lunch time and I was thrilled. We also really liked doing some things that were not on the strip. We then went to the adventure dome and went on some rides, but our favorite thing there was the bumper cars. For some reason we both had a blast driving bumper cars. The funny thing, too, is that we went three times and every  time all the cars were filled with adults. We went on a roller coaster that was crappy and bumpy and my head banged around, Nate could barely fit into it. We played laser tag, too. We just acted like little kids again, which was nice to do after a few years of having to act older than I feel I should be. 

Then we went around the Circus Circus hotel and while waiting for a circus act to start we did some (gambling) booths, like the ones at state fairs (we really didn't gamble, I promise). I won a giraffe shooting what you might call a gun:

 

Nate won a monkey throwing ping pong balls into little cups floating on water (it was actually hard, way harder than it sounds or looked):

The boys think that they belong to them:

We then watched this crazy girl do crazy things with her body:

Next, we spent an arm and a leg for dinner at the Mesa Grill (actually, more like three arms and four legs) which was pretty good, but I wouldn't go back. My brother would go back though so I guess it depends on who you are; I should probably ask Nate if he would go back. (I asked and Nate said it was really yummy (I was shocked that when I ordered goat chesse "fundido" that Nate ate it and liked it more than I did, and I really liked it ... Nate ate, and enjoyed, goat cheese). He says he would "hmmmm, maybe" go back.)

Then we saw this:

It was freakin', and I mean freakin', fantastic! I think this was our favorite part or the trip.

The next morning we went here:

And, oh, what a difference! Such an Oasis in such a busy, crazy traffic, lots of crap town. Next we met up with Nate's buddies and went to Lake Mead.

This was kind of the point of the trip in the first place. His friend lives in Vegas but they are moving soon and Nate wanted to see him before he moved further away. Nate did some Wake boarding, while I just sat on the boat and enjoyed some sweating.

 

 I think that's all folks, if you even made it this far. Thanks mom for watching our cutie pies!

He done it

Nate's done it! He graduated. It was a fun weekend, with a high lack of pictures. My parents, grandparents, and brother's family all came. On Friday, Nate, my Dad, and Brad went golfing. Katie and I took the kids swimming at Cedar City's fairly new indoor pool. We went out for dinner that night and skipped the long graduation. Saturday morning was the ceremony where Nate walked. After the graduation we had a BBQ, and crashed for the rest of the day.

I got Nate a basket of SUU paraphernalia. That's supposed to a Thunderbird.