UTAH

I love being able to spend time with my family and this month Brad, Ella and myself got to spend three weeks with them!!  I've only been home a week and I already miss all the good home-cooked meals and the mountains for sure!  We had so much fun hanging out with all the crazy kids and I took TONS of pictures.  We celebrated the 4th of July, went up to the mountain, went swimming, and played, played, played.  We had a blast!    

Our vacation kicked of with my sister bringing her kids over to my parents house.  We were all so excited to see each other.  The kids decided they needed to dog-pile on uncle Erik! 

Everyday Ella helped Grandma Jan water the plants outside.  I think she was fascinated by how the water came out of the hose.  And when she learned that she could take a drink out of the hose, she really thought it was great!

 

My family has this tradition that every year on the 4th of July morning we make waffles and have a contest of who can make the best flag out of their waffle.  I get so excited and take my flag making very seriously!  We use fresh strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream!  They are delicious to eat and not too bad looking if I do say so myself.  Here is Ella and I with our flag we made!

What's a 4th of July without fireworks?  Ours are never very spectacular, but the kids love it and the boys have fun trying to blow things up.  Here is just a picture of some of the fam doing some sparklers.  

Ella and Dad lighting her first sparkler!

I just had to throw this picture in.  I thought it was a cute picture of Ella in her 4th of July dress.  She was very interested in the flag and liked to watch it blow in the breeze.

Next up on the family vacation was the big mountain trip up to the Carter cabin.  None of us are super big on camping so it's always interesting to see how it will go.  This year we decided to stop by Navajo Lake and have a picnic.  It was so nice to see so much water in the lake this year.  It has been so low in the past.  We also decided to see if we could rent a boat to take out on the water.  It ended up being a lot of fun and hopefully we will be able to do it again

Ella liked riding around in the boat at first.  We saw ducks and some fish jumping.  She thought it was pretty cool.  But then....

she got splashed by the water and this is how she sat for the rest of the boat ride!

Since only 4 people could go on the boat at a time the rest of us hung out on the shore.  The kids found this frog.  Uncle Erik showed it to Ella.  She might look like she is going to grab this frog, but really she never dared touch it.  

Whitney (my oldest niece) thought it would be funny to put it on Grandpa's head while he was relaxing.  I thought it was pretty funny too!

 

When we made it up to the cabin Erik decided he would take Ella and I for a 4-wheel ride.  She had never been on one before, but she loved it.

In fact, she never wanted to get off and kept wanting to go for more and more rides.  Thanks Erik for taking her!

Ella and Uncle Erik giving each other "knuckles" after all the rides.  Erik is leaving to go on his mission to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for two years.  We sure will miss you!

You can't camp without making s'mores so I am so glad that the fire danger level wasn't too high and we could build a fire.  This is Ella and I getting ready to roast some mallows! 

My mom roasted the most perfect mallows I have ever seen so I had to snap a picture!  Aren't they lovely :)

These are all of my nephews getting their sticks ready for roasting.  Starting from the left: Trevor, Cooper, Kaden, Carter.

I was laughing so hard when I saw the stick Cooper was using to roast his mallow.  It literally was a tree branch and was equipped for some heavy duty roasting!  Such a funny kid... 

Earlier in our vacation Ella went to the swimming pool with some of her cousins.  She has always liked the water, but this time she had an absolute blast.  I think having all her fun cousins around rather than just her boring Mom and Dad made it even better.

She loved to just hang out on this little ramp that went into the water.  It was perfect for her to walk up and down.  She felt like such a big girl playing in the swimming pool by herself!

Ella and her cousin Lauren spent almost as much time on these bleachers as they did in the pool.  Ella would just laugh and squeal while watching all the kids splash in the pool.  Too Cute!

Ella and I getting ready to pack up after a fun day at the pool.  

These next pictures are just random, but I still wanted to post them.

One day I couldn't find Ella so I started searching around.  I heard some rustling in the bathroom so I went to see what was going on.  I pulled back the shower curtain and I found her splashing around in the water that was dripping from the shower head.  She can be so sneaky sometimes!  

This is Ella and Aunt Lyndsie.  What a cute picture!

Super-Date Night :)

It has been such a long time since Brad and I have gone out together on a date and so while Brad's mom Sharon was in town visiting, we thought we would take some time to go out for an evening, just the two of us.  Since we knew it would probably be a while until we had another chance to get away we decided to pack as much into one night as we possibly could!  

Ella and I had to get one more cuddle in before Brad and I headed out the door.  I had so much anxiety about leaving Ella it was pathetic.  I know she was thinking, "Ok Mom.  Get out of here so Grandma and I can play and eat goodies!"

Brad and I right outside our front door about to set off for a fun and crazy night! 

To start off we caught a movie at the theatre just up the road from our apartment.  We saw Get Smart.  It was pretty funny.  It would probably be even more funny the 2nd time too.  My favorite part was when Steve Carrel danced with the 300 lb woman.  So funny!  (P.S. Thanks stranger for taking our picture in front of the movie theatre)

After the movie we went to Chili's to get some grub.  I had a gift certificate that my siblings gave me for my birthday back in February, but hadn't used it yet.  I kept saying that I wanted to save it for a special occasion and our date night ended up being the perfect time to use it!

   Brad got ribs...

And I got a Cheeseburger.  And then we switched halfway through....Ok,  I ended up getting full because I drank 3 Cokes before the meal got there so Brad finished my burger for me.  Anyway, thank you Jodi, Kim, Jami, Lyndsie, and Erik for paying for our meal.  It was delicious!

Next we set off for the Matt Costa concert that we have had tickets for.  We had been waiting almost two months for this concert and were really excited that the night had finally arrived.  I don't have any pictures of Matt Costa himself because I saw a sign that said no taking pictures.  I think I was the only one that obeyed because Everyone had their cameras.  I was sad that I didn't get any shots, I will just have to rely on my memory (with me you never know how long it will last!)

All in all it was a fantastic night.  I was so exhausted by the end of it though that I don't think we will need another night out for a while!

FireFlies

Since we get quite a bit of rain here in KY, there are many days spent stuck inside with nothing to do.  Last week we had one of those days.  It had been raining all day and by the end of the day I was dying to get outside!  We decided that we would take a walk to go and get the mail.  On our way home we ran into the Missionaries (from the LDS church) who live in the building across from us and started to chat.  During our visit I noticed a light flicker by some bushes.  I was so excited when I realized that it was a firefly!  We decided that we would go home and get a jar and catch as many fireflies as we possibly could!  It was so refreshing to be outside together as a family enjoying the beautiful evening.

Brad, Ella and I setting off for our firefly adventure!

An action shot of me catching a firefly

Ella even joined in the search.  She was so excited to be able to run around outside on her own.  She looks so tiny in this big empty parking lot!

This is our jar that we used.  Aren't these little bugs funny looking?  You would never guess that their behinds light up!

It was so cute to see how excited Ella got when we would catch a bug!

This picture just cracks me up.  This is Brad and his mom Sharon having a very serious discussion about the scientific components of a firefly and what really makes them light up

Ok, so I was just trying to get a picture of Ella and I together during our adventure.  I didn't realize that Brad was being sneaky and trying to make it into our picture.  But what's really funny is that all night I had been trying to get a picture of a firefly lit up.  I had no idea how difficult it would turn out to be!!  Needless to say, I never got a picture.  Or at least I thought I never got a picture.  When I put all the pictures that I had taken onto our computer I was so excited when I saw this one.  If you look to the left of Brad's head you will notice one little speck of light.  It's a firefly!  I thought it was a little ironic that I got a picture of a firefly when I wasn't even trying...

Out In The Country!

Earlier this week we were able to go and visit some family, the Evans',  in So. Kentucky.  It was beautiful, fun and so relaxing.  The Evans' live in the country and have cows and chickens and this lovely pond that you can fish in.  Thank you Evans family for letting us come and stay!

Ella just loves dogs, or pup-pups, as she calls them.  This is Roy.  Ella and Roy were the best of friends.  At least that's what Ella thought.  Roy was such a good dog to put up with all of Ella's grabbing and poking!  (Travis, this picture is for you- another shot of Brad's legs!)

Brad spent most of his time at the pond trying to catch fish with no luck!  He had many bites, but no catches.  The highlight of his fishing experience was when "big granddaddy" (an old, big fish they weren't sure was still alive)  took a nibble.  He said it sounded like a teenager had jumped in the pond and splashed around.  Sounds like a fish-tale to me!  (Aren't the clouds in this picture awesome!  So pretty :)

While exploring, we found the cutest frog I have ever seen!  It was so tiny, I don't know how Brad spotted it!.  Ella liked to look at it, but was a little unsure about holding it!  It's really hard to see in this picture, but it is in the palm of Brad's hand!

Here's a close up.  How cute is that!

This is Ella about ready to squish our new little friend.  She doesn't realize her own strength yet! Don't worry, we saved him from his death!

Swimming & Popsicles!

I have been recently reminded about my lack of blogging so I decided that I needed to hop to it and get to posting.  These are just a few pictures I took a couple weeks ago.  Our apartment pool finally opened and so we set off for some fun in the sun.  The water was lovely!  I am really wimpy when it comes to cold water, but this was just the perfect temperature.  It took Ella a little while to warm up to the idea of floating in the water, but she ended up having a great time!

!WARNING!  Sunglasses may need to be worn due to extreme whiteness.  Please use caution!

As you can see Ella needed some getting use to the water.  She didn't want to put her feet in just quite yet!  (Please excuse the random legs floating in the background!)

Now she's getting the hang of it.... kind of

Ella didn't like that I was taking her picture!

After swimming we ate popsicles on our porch.  This was Ella's first time eating a popsicle so of course, I needed to document it!  I think she liked it :)

She's such a little sweetheart!  Isn't her swimsuit cute?  All we need is a beach now so she can go surfing!  Brad brought home her little hat that she is wearing.  She only keeps it on for a little while, but we thought she looked pretty cute in it!

-Catch-Up Cont-

The zoo has a little water park inside of it for the kiddos to cool off in.  Last summer Ella was too small to enjoy the water, but this year we decided to check it out and see if she liked it.  When we first got there she was pretty excited.  In fact she screamed with excitement for like the first 5 minutes.  She thought the water spraying everywhere was fabulous.  Brad ran around with her and got all wet.  They had a pretty good time together and I got to sit back and catch some rays and take pictures.  Everyone had a good time!

Checking out the new surroundings...

Taking the steps to the slide...

Going down the slide with Dad...

Ready to do it over again!

Playing Catch-Up!

Boy have I been slacking on the blogging.  I don't have any great excuse, in fact I should be blogging more now than I have in the past since both Brad and I are done with school for the summer.  Anyway, since most of our friends and neighbors moved away (Dental School graduation) we decided that we needed to move also and we love our new apartment!  It is much more spacious (now we have room to hold all of our junk), very quiet, has a work-out place, two pools, racquetball court, and tennis court and best of all, NO BOB (former apartment manager)!    As soon as I get more decor hung I will post pictures. 

Ok, so Ella is turning into such a funny little girl.  She has soo much personality, we love it.  Lately she has been noticing lots of things and we catch her mimicking our actions.  This is just an example of what she does.

 

She has also decided that she loves to wear sunglasses now...All The Time.  We could never get her to wear them before, but one day she found an old pair of mine and wanted me to put them on her, so we got her a pair of her own and we think it's pretty adorable!

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures.  I don't know why I enjoy it so much, I guess it is just because I think it shows Ella's quirks!  We always check on her before we go to bed and one night this is what we found.  She was sprawled out, wrapped in her blankets and sleeping very soundly--with her feet between the bars.  

Before we moved, Ella went over to our neighbor's house...Britany and Angel... to play dress-up.  These two looked so cute in their princess dresses and jewelry.  Ella loved to put on all of the necklaces.  They both looked beautiful and had lots of fun!

Next, we have more pictures from the Zoo.  Yes, more zoo pictures.  When we first moved to Louisville we invested in a season pass and we have definitely gotten good use out of it.  We seriously go there at least 4-5 times a month.  Ella really loves seeing all the animals and it is something that we enjoy doing as a family.  

I always try to get a picture of Ella in the flowers and it usually ends up with her frantically trying to get away from them.  

Ella made a new friend at the zoo.  She was actually her size too!

This is a picture of Ella telling that gorilla exactly what she thought of him.  At least that's what I think she was doing.  She kept shaking her finger at him.