Family, fireworks, and the 4th!

Happy belated 4th :)

We went to the parade dressed to the hilt. It was hot, but we still had a lot of fun, we even had random people taking pics of the kids, haha. We went with rich's cousins. He was working, so it was really nice to have family to go with. Nate was pretty much the fill in Daddy for the day and took Kai's bucket and filled it with water so he could soak the people on the floats with his squirt gun at the end of the parade, which he completely rocked :) Later that night we had a big 4th of July party with our friends, whom we love so much :) It was such a blast, great food great company, and fireworks!

We went to fireworks with lots of family! Rich's cousins came with us, and Rich's brother was in town as well. Even my sister was there, we had a full house, but it was so much fun to be with everyone. This picture is after I threw a fit, because I hadn't been in a single picture all weekend and was sick of it. Everyone made fun of me and there are now like 30 pictures of me taken randomly by sarah, here is one.... Hahaha thanks sarah ;)Their sunday 4th of July outfits :) If you can't tell, I love to color coordinate :)

My sister and her family stayed with us for about 3 days. We had so much fun together. She made me 2 bathing suits and we went bowling, swiming, and to the strip. We had so much fun watching girly movies and just enjoying eachother. Can't wait to do that again :)Last but not least, here is proof of the newest relationship formed, Congratulations uncle sean, you have finally won her over :)

New Slide Show!!!

Raging Waters and More!!!

We spent the last part of our trip with rich's family at a hotel in slc. We went to the zoo, which was really busy for the baby elephants first birthday. The kids just love animals, so it was a day well spent. Meili was all about seeing the tigers, "go see tiger!" she kept saying. At the hotel we enjoyed lots of cousin time including swimming, feeding ducks at the lake, eating great food, and playing games. Unfortunately Rich caught the 24 hr puking bug, which left him damaged for a good 4 days or so. He was only really out for one day, the day we didn't do much so, we were happy to have him halfway back for our day at raging waters. The kids totally loved all the kiddie areas there, and totally rocked some waterslides myself. Gotta love girl time :) I did the 2 most intense rides there, so I feel pretty accomplished!!! I can't say I wasn't bruised the next day though.... haha. It was so much fun to hang out with family and we can't wait till next time. Now we are home and still have family here with us! We are so blessed :)

Oh and last but not least, here are a few of the women of "sean's smokehouse & bbq" in all our glory, enjoy :)

More family fun :)

We spent the last week at my sister's house and we did tons of fun things. We took the kids to jump on it again, which they absolutely love, swimming at the rec center, slip and sliding, going up the canyon for barbeques and we also helped my sister open their barbeque restaurant. I pretty much worked all week with my fam at the restaurant while rich watched the kids. It was quite the operation. Sad, I don't have a picture to upload yet cause we looked pretty snazzy in our outfits! My sister's and I worked the registers, which was actually kind of fun to hang out and do that together. More play than work I would say :) My grandma was there this week, from Iowa, and It was so good to visit with her. We enjoyed her company so much. Kai and Meili loved her. Meili loved to sit for an hour and apply lotion with her. She's such a girl. They would 'ooo and awe' over how she smelled, and she was so excited about how pretty she smelled. They truly enjoyed eachother's company. They were so sweet together. They sat together on the porch for an hour and talked about one of Meili's hurt fingers and ended up laughing about something. I didn't want to disturb them so I took pictures from inside, but you can still see them laughing at eachother. I just loved it! We miss her already! We had so much fun at aunt shel's and we can't wait to see them again soon.

Vernal Visit

We spent the week in vernal with my parents and the kids loved it, all 3 of them, rich included haha. He loves taking the kids fishing and prairie dog shooting. Kai caught about 5 fish and reeled them in himself. He was so happy, saying "Oh my gosh, I just caught my first fish!" Which of course is not true, he's been fishing so many times, but I guess a first for him on this trip so far. He loved driving the boat and even scared us all when he started it all by himself and pulled the handle! Good thing we weren't close to shore! Meili loved the fish and wanted to touch every single one. She probably would have kissed one. Kai, grandpa, and daddy spent a day shooting, which is another favorite past time of theirs. Rich planned it so we would be in vernal over "prairie dog season", yes there is a season... Sorry the pic of the family moped ride is sideways. We always take the kids for rides when we are there and Meili is a pure thrill seeker. She giggled with delight. We also spent time at the parks, and had plenty popsicles and donuts, curtesy of the donut tree, which blooms when a powdered cheerio is planted ;) That's an old one that I grew up with haha. Don't think I really figured it out till middle school or so :) We had so much fun and Kailer begged us to stay, but alas it was time to move on :)

Family!

We continue to have a rockin' vacay starting earlier last week with my 2 sisters. We had so much fun relaxing and watching chick flicks together. Seriously, we got some serious movie watching in! I love hanging out with my sisters and laughing non stop, we have so much fun together. We took the kids to jump on it and they absolutely loved it. Meili was a crazy lady and has no fear. She kept jumping off the red block in the middle that was as tall if not more than she was. She loves getting a good adrenaline rush. I can totally see her bunji jumping or something when she gets older. Love these pics we took in the canyon with my sister :)

Then with the weekend approaching we headed to price to visit rich's Dad and we got to see some cousins there as well. Kai loved playing with them even though the weather was pretty nasty. They didn't let it stop them, they played in the rain and 50 degree weather anyway! They were freezing and wet, but loved every minute of it, ha, even Meili was out there! Then we spent our last day with cousin Joey. We took the kids golfing 9 holes at Uncle Jordan's course, and even though Kai was very tired he still had fun. He loves to golf and so do we so it worked out great! The course was beautiful and the weather was great. Meili and cousin Ava were just happy to ride the carts. Then we followed golfing with some good ol' fashion crawdaddin'! If you know what that is, then you may be a redneck. Haha, we sat on the docks and threw raw chicken in and after a few minutes pulled it up to find crawdads on it! The kids loved it and we ended up with a whole bucket full. It was quite a day, the kids were so spent, but had so much fun.

In conclusion I would like to leave you with some recent "poop talk"... Enjoy...

"Dad? You know what I think? I think all food is just junk, because it just goes in my belly and comes out as poop and poop is junk. All food is just junk..." :) Hahaha, A bit gross, but intelligent, wouldn't you say???

Dland and Sea world

We had an awesome start to our vacation by heading down to my friends place in California. We went to Dland and Sea World and stopped off at the beach before we left. Disney was a bit crowded for my liking, but the kids still had fun. Kai's favorite part was the Toy story shoot

'em up ride and watching the Jedi training show. Darth Maul was putting his fingers to his eyes and pointing at Kai the whole show saying "I am watching you" It was pretty freaky cause he was a black guy that had his face painted really well and had pretty crazy fake teeth in. It was pretty intense. Darth Vader was huge and Kai was a bit intimidated. Next time he wants to be picked to fight them, but this time he just watched. He got a pic with the army man from toy story and that was definitely another highlight for him, who cares about woody right... he walked right past him and went right to the army dude :) The fireworks were awesome and Kai actually fell asleep on rich's shoulders watching! They were so hammered. Then we went to Sea world and met Kai's little buddy there. The shamu show was a big let down and the kids were super bored because it was so long. The trainers of course weren't allowed to swim with the whales anymore, so it was kind of lame. However, to make up for it the new dolphin show was awesome. The kids were so drawn in, they couldn't get enough, they were in a trance it seemed. The playland there is great and we spent a couple hours running around there. Then our plans to drive to sequoia national park flopped so we just decided to sit at the beach for a while, so that is what we did. We played in the sand, buried eachother, saw seals in the ocean, and caught lots of crabs. It was great fun!