We Moved! and Summer Stuff

I know it's been forever since I've blogged and I'm hoping to get better but this summer is just going by way too fast!

CAUTION! THIS IS A LONG POST! Feel free to skim!

-We officially moved out of our 1st home on June 20th. I really miss my cute house, wonderful neighborhood, great ward and awesome friends. Boy what a crazy time we've had since then! We had no idea what was in store for us! We stored all of our belongings and were lucky enough to live in my brother's basement in Mapleton. He and his family were in France for a month and a half. We really appreciated his beautiful house. It was tough having our life in Saratoga Springs and traveling back and forth all the time. We did a lot of fun things in the time we lived in Mapleton but unfortunately I packed our camera away and was not able to capture any memories on film. We went to my parents, to the traditional Lehi parade and rodeo and we did a lot of playing, swimming, and barbecuing. We focused on buying a foreclosed home and after what seemed like the longest month (and in some ways the shortest) we finally moved into our new house. It was a long journey and it's true what they say about what a pain it is to buy a bank-owned home. In the end we got a fabulous deal and we are starting to love our new home!

The yard is one of our many projects. I love the view from my backyard and I love the bonus room.

My most favorite part - the kitchen (minus the barstools that just arrived). In all my married life I have never had a bar or an island and now I have a 7 ft. island/bar. I love it!

-Today Kaycee, Luke and I went with Brooke, Tyler, Raleigh and some new friends to the Sweet's Candy Factory for a tour. Those of you who know me well know how much I love sugar so this was perfect! I highly recommend it. My kids loved it and the best part is you get a bunch of free samples. I am telling you there is nothing like fresh candy hot off the belt. It tastes so much better than how you buy it.

Luke, Tyler and Kaycee excited for the tour to start

You can't even tell who's who but here we are

-Luke started playing coach pitch baseball this year and he loves it! He's a good little player and we've had a lot of fun watching him play this summer. His only weakness is playing outfield. He always talks to the players on base and we've seen him discussing such things as teeth, shoes and matching shorts. We can't hear a word he's saying but his actions tell all. He is already looking forward to machine pitch next summer.

Luke running home.

Hitting the ball (yes he's a leftie).

-Luke was also able to attend aquarium camp at the Living Planet Aquarium the last week in July thanks to a birthday present from Grandma B. He learned about Sea Creatures from A to Z. He LOVED it. He was able to pet a shark (I'm sure I've mentioned his intense fascination with sharks) and also the anaconda. They played games and had snacks. Hopefully he'll get to do it next year too. The aquarium is supposed to send out pictures soon so I'll post them when I get them.
-One of our goals was to make it to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house (since we never made it to the Draper Temple open house). Luke has been asking what the inside of a temple looks like for a long time. We barley made it on the third to last day and were so thankful we did. It is to be "our" temple. It is very small but very beautiful. Every detail about it is perfect! We are so used to the white and light colors of Mt. Timpanogos but I love the earth tones of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. The granite was such a wonderful color. The kids loved it and were so glad they got to go. Luke said his favorite part was the whole thing and he asked a lot of good questions. Kaycee said her favorite part was the celestial room and the sealing room. It was a neat experience!

We asked a sweet young woman to take our picture and this is as good as we got -bless her heart. The sun was shining so bright and strong that our eyes had a hard time focusing on the camera.

It was cute because Kaycee wanted to wear her baptism dress. I thought it was quite appropriate. (Luke's eyes are dying from the sun).


I love that the church does cookies and drinks even at a temple open house.

HAPPY VERY LATE 4TH OF JULY!!!!

-We had a wonderful and busy 4th this year. John's parent's were kind enough to lend us their camera for the weekend. It is so fancy that I didn't really know how to use it and a lot of the pictures I took are fuzzy.

July 4th is one of my favorite holidays. I love feeling so patriotic and I am so grateful and proud to be an American.

-Kaycee had the awesome opportunity to dance in the Stadium of Fire this year. The headliners were The Jonas Brothers, SheDaisy, and Glenn Beck. The last practices were long, hot and grueling (literally all day from early morning until late at night) but Kaycee loved every minute of it. On the day of the longest, hottest practice on our way out of the stadium (10:00pm) she said "It's so much fun I just want to stay and dance, I don't want to go home". That's my girl. The biggest disappointment was that the SOF directors kept telling them that they would probably get to meet the Jonas Brothers but they didn't. In fact they kicked the dancers out of the stadium an hour early so that they could practice. I was really bugged. SheDaisy was there practicing when we went and Glenn Beck. Whatever. I will say that the Jonas Brothers put on a good show and the Stadium of Fire was a lot of fun. All of the pictures are from the practice - we didn't want to risk John's parents nice camera being lost or stolen. Don't mind the sweaty heads.

The practice field was turf and it was a least 10 degrees hotter than grass. The poor girls got so hot. We made sure they drank plenty of Gatorade and water.

It was so hot the girls kept pouring water on themselves to cool down.

Cute Kaycee got to dance up on the stage in the front. We could see her perfectly. She did an awesome job!

They did a "fire" dance while actual fire dancers danced on the stage. Sorry for the blur (Kaycee's in the middle front)

The girls were excited to get pictures with some of the actors.

Nice guys.

These were some of the fire dancers. The were so laid back and sweet to the girls.

-Cole, Melody, Hailey and Kate flew into town for the holiday. I feel so bad because we hardly got to see them because of all the SOF practices. My mom and I ran the Freedom 10K and Melody ran the 5k. Afterwards we met up with the family for the parade. The kids had a lot of fun (except for Kaycee who was practicing of course).

Don't you just love Cosmo? I mean who doesn't. I totally have B.Y.U. pride and I didn't even go there. Hailey and Luke got some good high 5's.

My awesome kids on the night of the Stadium of Fire.