9th Anniversary!

I have been blessed with a wonderful man to call my husband!  He is thoughtful, caring and I’m pretty sure the only thing he wants in life is for me to be happy.  How did I get so lucky?!  This year we celebrated our 9th anniversary.  Our dear friends watched the boys while we went to a fancy restaurant.  It was called 131 Main and it was really good!  Ammon and I can never finish a whole entrée by ourselves so we split an appetizer and an entrée.  I love saving money!

Ammon and I were taking selfies in front of this sign to document the moment, but were not having much luck.  A perfectly nice stranger saw us struggling and asked if we wanted him to take our picture.  Thanks, Mr. Stranger-man!

Ammon bought me a bouquet of 9 balloons.  He picked each balloon out for me and I loved them so much!  A few hours after he brought them home, the boys noticed papers in each of the balloons.  If you know me well, you know that I’m super curious and I don’t deal well with anticipation.  I was having an internal struggle with these balloons.  Do I pop them now to see what the papers are all about?  Or do I enjoy my balloons until they die and then find out what was on the papers?  As I was contemplating this, Ammon spoke up and said that I couldn’t pop them until they lost enough helium to touch the ground.  He knows me so well…  By the next morning, they were all touching the ground (pretty lousy helium, eh?) and I popped them all!  Each one had a small piece of folded paper with something he loves about me written on it.  So sweet!

Griffin loved my balloons too!  He kept asking me to take pictures of him, which is so surprising.  He hates having his picture taken.  And if I can get him to agree to a picture, I never get a real Griffin smile.  Usually, no smile at all.  I’m so grateful for this picture of him!!  He’s so amazing!

Let’s try this again, shall we?

Well… It’s been almost a year since my last post.  ‘Bout time to post something new, I guess.  I’ve gone to this blog several times over the past few months, hoping that somehow new posts would show up.  Hoping that someone had taken the time to blog about my super cool life.  (because really, it’s awesome!)  But without fail, every time I get to this page…. boom.

“Laundry day!”

So, since this is MY blog and I can see that no one else is going to do it for me, I’ll blog.  At least until I stop again.  :)

Laundry day!

I love my new house!  I feel incredibly blessed to be able to live here and raise my family here.  While doing laundry today, I came across the perfect way to dry things without using the dryer.  The balcony!  It’s close to the laundry room, it gets afternoon sun, and I can use the balcony rails as drying racks.

It’s the little things…

:)

Griffin is 5!!

I can’t believe that baby of mine turned 5!  The weekend before Griffin’s birthday, Gigi and Pap stayed with us in our home.  It was a lot of fun having them here with us.  On Saturday, we went to the Speedpark to celebrate!  The boys played miniature golf and then, Griffin and Ammon went for a ride in the go-karts.

Noah was nervous and didn’t want to ride, so he stayed with Gigi to watch.

Griffin had so much fun on the go-kart and after a couple times around the track…

he let go of the steering wheel long enough to wave to me for a second.

He’s lucky to have such a fun dad!

After the go-karts, Griffin requested ice cream from Cold Stone.  He got dark chocolate ice cream with… peanut butter mixed in, I think.

Saturday evening, I started working on his cake.  He really wanted a cake that looked like Link’s shield from The Legend of Zelda.  I’ve never played the game and I know nothing about Link.  Gigi brought some supplies that I would need and I headed off into the unknown world of cake decorating.

I guess that’s not entirely true.  Gigi and I have made several cakes and cupcakes together.  This is the first one I did all by myself.

Griffin loved it!

Then it was time to open presents!

He was so excited when he opened this one!  He know exactly what it was.

A twilight turtle!  It projects actual constellations onto his walls and ceiling.  It has 3 different color options and he’s been wanting one ever since his cousin, Tate got something similar for his birthday.

Griffin is my artistic child.  His favorite thing to do is write letters, draw pictures, color, paint and create things.  Gigi and Pap got him several art supplies and the kid could not have been happier!

Remember spirographs?  It’s been so fun playing with one of those again.

That was the end of birthday celebrations 1 and 2.  3 days later it was his actual birthday.  We went to Cold Stone again.  That kid can eat some dark chocolate ice cream!  We also had some presents from Ammon and I.  We gave him a real sword (for display purposes), a stack of really cool books that he LOVES, a new board game and a coupon good for $20 to spend at the Renaissance Festival.  After presents and his favorite dinner, cheese pizza lunchable, we went to karate and then to Ammon’s soccer game.

I know I’ve said it several times before, but watching Ammon play soccer is one of my favorite things to do.  He doesn’t love playing goalie, but he’s so good at it!  Here he is making one of many saves for his team.  GO AMMON!

It was unseasonably cool that evening and the boys really enjoyed playing between the fields.

They kicked a ball around.

Did cartwheels.

And handstands.

And then they wrestled for a LONG time.  They are so good with each other.  They wrestle well, but are not too rough.  Their goal is to play nicely, not to hurt one another.  I really lucked out having 2 boys that are best friends.

We had a wonderful day celebrating our beautiful baby boy.  It’s hard for me to describe Griffin in words.  His personality is so complex.  He is loving, kind, and thoughtful.  He is a great sharer and will give away anything of his if he thinks it will make someone else happy.  He is strong willed and when he channels that energy in a positive way, he is unbelievably good.  He loves with his whole body.  He very much enjoys physical touch and uses touch as a way to express his love.  He is an amazing little boy and although he exhausts me, I am grateful everyday for my Griffin.

I love to see the (orlando) temple

On our way home from our cruise, we decided to stop by the Orlando temple.  Neither of us had been before.  This temple was stunningly gorgeous!  The pictures come nowhere close to depicting the beauty of this building.  It was simple, but elegant at the same time.  We were not dressed to go inside, but were able to spend quite some time walking the grounds.  Next time we’re in Orlando we’ll be going in for sure!

Our 8th Anniversary

On the day of our anniversary, July 16th, we woke up on a cruise ship!  I was surprised that I didn’t get motion sick.  This was the first time I had taken Bonine and it worked well!  I could feel the motion, but it didn’t make me sick.  I’ve found that there’s not much sleeping on a cruise ship.  On the second night I was so exhausted and I felt a bit more nauseous but was able to overcome.

Anyway.  We disembarked the ship to spend the day on Grand Bahama Island.  Our plan for the morning was to go to a resort and listen to another timeshare presentation.  If we did this, we could gain full access to the resort and its amenities including a private stretch of beach.  We also got free breakfast and lunch, free drinks from the bar (virgin for us), tshirts and free transportation.  It seemed like a no brainer.

While we were at the resort, the skies opened up a few times and dumped a lot of rain.  We didn’t let that ruin our time there and headed out to the beach anyway. 

This place was gorgeous!  The water was so beautiful and the sand was incredibly soft.  Walking in the sand felt like some sort of expensive spa treatment.  We spent as much time on the beach before the storm (pictured above) rolled in.

The locals told us that normally there are no waves and that the ocean is a lot brighter than it was this day.  I’d love to go back sometime when the weather cooperates.

After lunch and drinks, we headed to our snorkel excursion which was at the marketplace.  When we got there, we were told that the weather was too bad and that no boats were going out… :(  That’s what we had feared all day.  Oh well.  We made the best of the situation and spent the rest of the day walking around all the vendors at the marketplace.  It was fun to haggle a bit and pick out a few souvenirs for people we love.  Mostly though, it was fun being with Ammon.  I definitely don’t think our trip was ruined by the weather.  We had a blast together.

Here’s a picture of our ship I took before we boarded again.

While we were waiting for everyone to get back to the ship so we could leave, we happened upon some sort of contest.  I don’t remember the end goal, but during part of it, a few men had to do 3 different muscle poses.  Ammon won that contest, hands down!

I’ve always wanted to have a towel folded into something awesome.  This little buddy was waiting for us when we got back from our day of fun.  :)

Ammon planned for us to go to one of the “fancy” restaurants on board for our special day.  Here we are all dressed up for dinner.

The place we went to was called, “The Rock”.  You order your meat and they bring it to you raw.  They also bring you an 800 degree stone to cook it on.  It was fun!

After dinner, they brought out a small cake for our anniversary.  It was so thoughtful!

After dinner we went back to the stage to watch more shows.  This guy did some pretty amazing things.

Then there was a scavenger hunt where people had to do all sorts of crazy things.  One time the women  had to put on lipstick.  Then they asked for a bald man to come on stage.

Enter Ammon.

Next, the women were told to kiss the bald head.  I love Ammon’s face in this picture.

Then, they asked the same of the men!  Lipstick and then the kiss.  Oh, it was funny.

I had such a wonderful time with that man I chose to marry 8 1/2 years ago.  He always plans fun and romantic ways to celebrate our love.  I’m grateful for the man he is and for the love he shows me every single day.

I wonder how we’ll top this next year!