Mary & Christian March 2014

The big event in March was the trip to California to see my little baby sister Mary get married.  She married her childhood sweetheart just a few months after he returned home from his mission.  Their engagement was a pretty sure thing so Mary spent the 2 years he was gone planning every aspect of their wedding perfectly and it that's what it turned out to be...absolutely perfect.  Those two are the cutest couple ever.  Congrats to you two.

Mary & Christian are engaged!

Headed back to Cali for another Wedding!

Hanging out at my Dads house.  Its always a good time. 

A quick visit to Knott's Berry Farm

Wedding Day~March 13, 2014

Since the wedding and reception were on different days, we snuck in some time to visit the beach for a little bit.  It was chilly but that didn't stop them from getting sand in every crevice.

I just love this picture of Paige helping her little brother in the swimming pool.

Reception Day~ March 14, 2014

Hidden Oaks

Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Mary spared no detail at this reception.  She (and Pinterest) did an amazing job planning this out and making it all happen.  It was so beautiful and the weather was perfect that night. 

The highlight of the evening was probably the awesome dance floor.  The kids were little dance party animals that night.  I was quite impressed by the moves on the dance floor that night.

Do you even need to ask?  I just love this mans face.

March 2013...are we there yet?

I am perpetually 6 months behind on this blog thing but I must catch up, I must. 

March was a super busy month for us...actually March, April, May, June and the beginning of July were really crazy months...thus the reason why I cant seem to catch up.

March...here goes.

March 8th was my 10th Anniversary.  Since we first got married I have been blabbering about what we will do to celebrate that grand 10th anniversary...will it be a cruise, a visit to some tropical island, a European getaway?!?!?  No.  We decided to go to Springdale, UT...with the whole family.  Don't get me wrong...it was for a good reason.  Springdale was a little stop on the way to the lovely Kanab where Delaney lives.  Since I had met Delaney only a couple weeks before and then told Braiden about her, he was getting anxious to meet her so we just did it.
It was great! The cruise will have to wait till our 20th. 

Delaney's family was quite gracious once more and let us come hang out with the fam for the day and even spend the night there after staying a bit too late. The kids had a great time meeting their sister for the first time (even though they didn't quite yet understand the concept that she was actually their sister).

These are the first pictures that I have of all my kids together.  Delaney handled all this amazingly well. I cant even imagine what this is all like for her.

The following week in March was the first week of the year where it finally felt like Spring was coming.  We decided to take the kids to downtown SLC and walk the new City Creek Shopping Center and visit Temple Square. That was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time seeing that beautiful place.  This was actually the first time my kids had seen the SLC Tabernacle...for shame.

 

My mom treated us girls to a fun glass blowing class at Thanksgiving Point.  It was really cool...I mean...really hot, but really cool.





And of course, Easter. 

I wanted to give this picture extra special attention since, not only is it a great pic of me and my immediate family, but my brother-in-law insisted on making it so extra special with his little photo bomb.  Happy Easter, Ashton.

And we cant forget March's favorite randoms

January Adventures (Fairy style)

I love this picture.  We don't get this many of us all together terribly frequently.  We are missing Christy, Julie, Bonnie and Ben.  8 out of 12 aint bad! (taken in January 2013 on our trek to California for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon).

We happened to get there on little Sammys birthday!

January 20th was the Tinkerbell Half Marathon.  This race was especially cool for me because Braiden trained and ran it with me...well, he ran with me until about mile 9 where he got bored...and ran ahead. We carpooled to California with Whitney and Ashton as well as some of Ashtons family who also ran the race.  It was really fun hanging out with those guys.

The race started at 5:30am which required us to get up at 3:30am...ugh.  But it always ends up being worth it. Braiden got his first exposure to a Half Marathon at Disneyland with 15,000 other runners.  It was a blast!  Like the socks?

Lets just admit it...I am cheap.  I have no problem snipping online proofs as you can see because I don't want to pay $17 for 1 5x7 print.  You still get the basic idea, right??  Notice Braiden's "AWESOME" socks.

Post-race...LOVE that medal!!!

...and of course who wouldn't spend a couple days visiting the park after the race?

January favorite randoms and selfys

(notice Braidens Brace-less face)

Lagoon

To be quite honest, I hate Lagoon, but we tend go about once a year with friends.  Its a fun summer thing to do here in little Utah, especially when you're an amusement junkie like we are.

Lagoon, August 2012

The rest of June 2012

We had a lot of stuff going on in June.  The months of May and June always feel crazy for us between all the birthdays, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, end of school, beginning of summer, and our mad dash off to some long-awaited/needed vacation.  

As you might have guessed, we ventured west again to our favorite place but this time we went with our good friends, the Webb Family (Chris & Amy).  We love hanging out with those guys, our kids get along, AND they share our love for all things Disney so they just get us and we get them.  Its nice to be understood.

We met up with them in Las Vegas for a couple days where we stayed at the Stratosphere hotel.  They even got me to go up to the top of the tower (which was terrifying, by the way) and we got to watch Amy's brother do some crazy jump off the top of it.  Yikes.

We made a little stop at my Pop's house overnight and hung with my other brothers from another mother.  

 

Even though that rat is obviously fake, isn't that disturbing? Ew.

On to D-land!  

We timed this trip perfectly to coinside with a couple VERY important dates, in chronological order:

#1:  The opening day of Cars Land at California Adventure (June 15th).

#2:  Baby Max's 1st B-day!! (June 17th)

For me, you know, the Disney parades never get old.  Even if I see the same one 3 times in a year, I still just love sitting to watch them and especially watch my kids faces as their favorite Disney characters come dancing and singing by, close enough for them to touch.  Its magical.  How often do they get to experience magic?

Some of the trips best Kodak Moments:

And some more:

This was about all I could get on Camera of the opening day at Cars Land.  As you can imagine, it was packed.  People were fighting shoulder-to-shoulder, to get down the street just for a glimpse of the place and we heard there were people waiting in excess of 6 hours for the new Radiator Springs Racers Ride.  Eh,eh.  I may be a Disney nut but I am not crazy.  

This actually worked very nicely for us because Disneyland was nice and empty!  

(Dont worry, we made our way back to Cars Land in 2012, post to come)

 June 17th was Max's 1st birthday so we celebrated by doing the character breakfast buffet at Paradise Pier PCH Grill.  The food is so yummy and the kids got to see all the characters they cared to.

Max got some special attention from Minnie and Daisy and his very own birthday brownie (that he didn't touch because he was so full).