Blessings

Aren't these boys so handsome! I can't believe that Seth is going to be 8 in a little over a week. How time flies. I remember waiting and waiting for him to be born and here we are almost 8 years later. What a wonderful blessing he has been in our lives.

Maybe your wondering what these things have in common--Diet Coke and pressure cookers, (yes, yes I drink Diet Coke and boy I sure like it :). Anyways, i just wanted to publicly thank my Heavenly Father for such wonderful blessings lately. I have been looking at garage sales for a while for a pressure cooker and the other day my friend called me and told me that she had 3 presents for me and when I had time to come over. So later we went to their house and she gave me 2 packs of diet coke (she is pregnant and doesn't drink caffeine during her pregnancy-
by the way congrats Erika) and she said that she had had this pressure cooker for almost two years now and had never used it and that I could have it. I was so excited. Then a couple days later, another friend, emailed Sam and said that they had a video camera they were getting rid of because they found a new one for a great deal and was wondering if we wanted it. We have been wanting one for ages and I felt so blessed that Heavenly Father was really watching out for us. It's pretty simple things but I know He cares about us.

Go Sam!!

Sam with 11 of his family members and friends ran the Ragnar Relay in Utah. It's 180.4 miles from Logan to Park City. They each run 3 legs and it ends of being about 19-20 miles a piece. Sam said it wasn't too bad except that you really don't get any sleep through the night. Sam got about an hour. We watched them come in at the finish line and of course I forgot my camera so I will have to post those pictures when I get them from his cousin. Anyways, we just wanted to say congrats honey/dad for finishing. We love you :)

Updates

Can you believe that it's already the middle of June? I can't! Luke turns 16 months old tomorrow and it just blows me away. We have been doing our normal summer things lately, riding bikes, going to the swimming pool, eating lunch with friends at the school everyday, riding bikes, having friends over, trying to stay cool, and riding bikes some more. We finally got Seth's "big" bike fixed so he can ride it and Sam took Sarah's training wheels off last night and she taught herself how to ride her bike this morning. She rides so much better with them off that we can actually go on longer rides. I will have to post some pictures later of her on her bike.
Sam and I rode our bikes to our softball game last night. I was quite proud of myself that I could ride all the way there (abt a 30 min. ride-going quite quickly I might add), play a game of softball (I do have to admit that the game ended up being a blowout-the other team was so horrible I felt terrible for them. I ended walking to base almost the whole time which meant that it wasn't terribly strenuous) and then we rode all the way back home. It was fun, plus it was like a mini date night since we left the kids with a babysitter.
Anyways, we are off to Utah this weekend for Sam to run a relay race with his family from Logan to Park City (glad it's not me :). Go honey, run awesome!!

Our New Acquisitionsand Other Random Stuff

Okay so we have 2 new things at our house. One I absolutely love and the other one is tolerated by me and loved by everyone else. Can you tell what the first one is from the picture below?

No it's not the tire that is our sandbox, but the fence in the background. Our yard was never fenced from the house to the fences on the sides. After I caught Luke in the road twice, with me even being with him outside and a car having to stop for him once, we decided it was about time. I absolutely love it. It has a gate on one side, is vinyl so I never have to stain it and keeps the kids all locked in the backyard.

And the second acquisition is Ozzie. He is our new dog. He is a friend's dog from the ward. She is very allergic to dogs and needed to get rid of him so guess who got him. US! Like I said, I am so not thrilled about it, but the kids love him and so does Sam. He came with 2 conditions, he will never come in my house and I will NEVER, NEVER pick up his poop (I don't think that's too unreasonable :). So far the conditions have been met (all 4 days of it).

I just had to put in a picture of my garden. I love working out there and so far it is doing well. We have had terrible winds the past couple days, so hopefully it's not too wind-burned when the storm passes. On the far right is two rows of potatoes, then cabbage, beets, lettuce, carrots, dill, zuchinni, peppers and tomatoes. The cucumbers, gourds and pumpkins are in a different part of the yard.

Luke loves to help me cook and I though this picture was so cute. He actually warmed up to my mom last weekend and would let her hold him (which he hasn't done in a long time) all because she was making something in the Bosch and he wanted to help. Now he lets her hold him all the time, just because she let him help her with what she was cooking. What a funny boy!

10 Year Class Reunion

So last night I had my 10 year class reunion. I was actually quite curious to go and see people from high school, especially because I don't keep in contact with really any of them (I don't know, maybe that's a good thing). I think Sam was more nervous than I was, but we had a really good time. We hung out mostly with Tim John and his wife Annie. We had a great time laughing and trying to talk to each other over the very loud music. They hired a DJ for the party and it was totally like a stake dance, atleast for the first couple hours. Everyone hung out against the walls and hardly anyone danced. Sam and I were brave and danced a couple slow songs, which got a few people out there. By ten o'clock we thought we better stay off the dance floor, because they started playing fifty cent and other dirty songs I can't think of right now, and lots of people had gotten enough booze in them that they were having quite a good time out there. We did win a prize though, so that was fun. They had different 1998 trivia questions that you could win prizes if you answered them correctly. Here were some of them:
1. What was the average price of gas on June 6, 1998?
2. What was the highest grossing movie in 1998?
3. What was the most popular TV show in 1998? (this was the one we won)
Any guesses out there?
Hey Jessica we had the most kids, yeah for us!!

Girls Weekend

My mom took all my sisters and I to Salt Lake for the weekend for a girls trip and here are some pictures from our fabulous weekend :) Below is my mom, Jenny and Emily at the Red Iguana (what an amazing mexican restuarant. thanks doug for recommending it, it was absolutely fabulous. all of us loved our food!)

Emily on our hike at the timpanogas caves.

mom and natalie on the same hike. it was so pretty and just beautiful.

jenny, emily and I on the heber creeper ride. it was so fun to just sit and talk. we laughed our heads off almost the entire time.

being very silly at a park that we stopped at to rest. do we look alike?

in front of the train that we rode on.

sunday we spent the day at music and the spoken word and at temple square. i have never been on the roof of the conference center so that was fun to see.

terrible picture of me, but jessica, natalie and i at the red iguana.

THANKS mom for such a wonderful trip. i had tons of fun. good luck jessica and hope you are enjoying college :)