Collin

Collin is always on the move. I took this video of him at Brett's baby blessing. I tried to email Robin with it but it was too large, so we are trying it this way. Hoping she can copy it to her blog.

Off to Salt Lake

Madison and I took off for Salt Lake two days after my birthday. We flew out in the evening and arrived around 11pm (it was the cheapest flight). We picked up our rental car and snuck into George and Melanee's without even waking them. Here is Madison on the flight working on her math book (She says she doesn't like math. I can't figure out how that happened in our family. She is actually pretty good at catching on to the concepts, but it just isn't that interesting to her)

Then, of course, we have to show off her beautiful painted nails.

We spent a day with George and Melanee playing with their adorable children. Sam got up and the minute she saw that Madison was wearing a cinderella nightgown, she insisted on putting on her beautiful play dress. Here are some cute shots of all of them.

Watching 101 Dalmations

All these are just purely adorable!

Sam carries her baby doll around with her all day. It is so adorable.

Turning 40 ...

Well, it has happened. The end of June, I turned 40. I know that is really surprising to most of you. :) I actually felt really good about it. When I was in my late 20's, early 30's it was weird having birthdays and I went through this almost grieving period feeling like I was getting old. At this point, I just feel like life passes by quickly so I should enjoy every piece of it along the journey. The day of my birthday was marathon day for our ward. We started with a baptism at 12:00, then had a ward temple session at 4pm with a mingle afterward and a ward activity at 7:oopm. At first, I thought it would be a strange way to spend my birthday, but then after thinking about it, I realized I have always thought the best birthday celebration was to spend the day doing things you love to do, so spending time with my ward sounded like a great idea. Robin and Madison came the night before, which really added to my favorite things list and I got to spend the morning school clothes shopping for Madison, starting at 7am. I skipped the ward activity in the evening so I could spend more time with them. It was a great day.

Living the LDS lifestyle that we all do, we tend to not age quite as quickly as other people, so I have felt that I still have a lot of youth left in me and people tend to guess my age younger so I was feeling pretty good and not worrying about being old. That changed when Robin, Madison and I were all in Kohl's shopping. Robin had been trying on clothes and accidently put her shirt back on inside out. When we were at the check out, a lady pulled me aside and said, "Excuse me, maam, your daughter has her shirt on inside out." I thanked her for reminding me it was my 40th birthday, because that daughter with my granddaughter is really my sister with my neice. :) Not really, but I thought it was the perfect classic thing to happen on your 40th birthday. Here is a picture of me with the girl who got baptized that day. Her name is Cora.



PS I have been gone for a month, so expect to see more posts here soon to catch you all up on my fun trips.

Art walk

A couple of us went to an art walk this weekend. A friend of ours was displaying some abstract art in downtown Phx. I picked out the one I felt had the most going on so we could shoot a picture in front of it. They all have titles. I make up my own name for them. I called this one the grand canyon joins the ocean. Enjoy this, I don't plan to put many pics of myself here.

The art was displayed in a church that was built in 1920. It was really beautiful. There were so many stained glass windows that were amazing. It was difficult to capture them on film.

My friend Thad was reading the prayer books. He is so faithful. :)

I tried to get an upclose shot, because it was amazing the way the windows were made. It was large chunks of glass with clay in between. They varied in thickness and cut. It was really cool. Plus I was trying my hand at abstract photography. I think this would look cool printed.

This was a cool bowl at the front of the church. It had water in it. I am not sure what they do with it. We got to hear an organ concert in the church as well. The guy was around my age I would guess, fit and nice looking. He said he works for ASU during the week and on the weekend plays the organ to keep his fingers limber. I wanted to ask him for his phone number after hearing his performance.

Home projects

Every summer I try to do something to upgrade my home in some way. Last year I got new furniture for my living room. Recently, I got vinyl lettering for my walls. It was crazy trying to figure out what I wanted up, then designing the lettering and finally hanging it. I am really pleased how it turned out. I looked for awhile for a quote that I felt worthy of permanently (semi permanently) fixing to my wall. When I found this one, I knew it was the right one. I just got asked to speak in church on this topic. Kind of ironic.

I made the name Parker, then made an overlay in black. With semi-gloss paint and texture on the wall, I broke a sweat putting it up.

Upclose and the whole room view.

This is my entertainment center I found last year on craigslist.

Sedona

After I dropped Hannah and Levi off in Payson, I went on to Sedona with a friend. We went for hiking and fun. Here are a few shots of our evening hike. It was so beautiful.

More adventures

Ok, I hope you all enjoy my new format. I spent entirely too much time on it, but I am really liking it. Do you like the title bar? I designed it myself with Melanee's help. Ok, so more fun pictures from my 4 day adventure with the kid-o's.

This is one of my favorites of all of them.

Out for pizza ....

I am never very good about sending b-day cards, so I decided we will always celebrate their b-days when they come to visit in the summer. So this was the beginning of the b-day party. I wish I had pictures of the best part. We went to Target. I gave them 10 minutes to shop for each other. Each one was assigned another one to buy for. They had their little red baskets and did an amazing job shopping without letting anyone see what they got. It's amazing what you can get in the dollar section of Target. Then they came home and wrapped them theirselves.

Here's Hannah's finished cake.

Adorable ...

The unwrapping was classic. They were so sincerely EXCITED! They gave each other hugs and oo'd and aah'd like crazy. They really did have some great things.

Well, off to FHE. Stay tuned ...