Memorial Day Weekend

We headed up to Justin's parent's home for the weekend and the annual Pendleton Memorial Golf Tournament. This is one occasion where the entire family shows up! We arrived on Thursday, late afternoon, and enjoyed a weekend with more rain and even some snow. I'm not sure if we are from SLC or Seattle at this point?? Anyway...Molly and grandma enjoyed some cuddly time!

The girls enjoyed a four wheeler ride with daddy. They just had to have a blanket to stay warm.

I couldn't get a good picture with all of them looking, so this one is the best I had!

The girls did a bit of crafts (this is Brooke). We didn't quite plan ahead for another amazing craft like last year's yarn wreaths. But we made a bunch of fabric rosettes.

Baby Reese. She was such an angel! What a good baby. It took about 3 days before we heard her really cry! She smiled any time someone looked at her!

I have given my mom a lot of grief for making me and my younger sister Emily match in our outfits. But now I get it!! It just looks cute, doesn't it?! I am in love with these little capris. These outfits were on clearance at Carter's and I think I paid $3 for each piece. Not too shabby!

Alison and her cousin Mckenna. I wish I had my camera when the triplets first came to the house. Ali went over and just started saying all kinds of gibberish to them and they were staring at her like she was crazy! It was hilarious.

The triplets were loving throwing their sweaters, crawling with people's shoes on their feet and climbing up and down the stairs. Ali did learn to go "down" the stairs and I can't tell you how happy I am about that! Last time we were there she would climb up and cry until we came up for her!

How cute is this headband Brooke made for Reese? Darling! And she says she isn't crafty...Brooke!!

We tried something new...roasted pineapple! We made a rub of some sugar, cloves and cinnamon and slathered it on the pineapple. Then we put it on this skewer and grilled it! Then we put it over ice cream.

Here's Justin and his brother Brad dishing up. It was yummy! I am not a huge fan of ice cream with pineapple, so it wasn't the greatest combo for me, but the caramel sauce my MIL made was DELICIOUS!

Of course the girls got in on the ice cream too.

The final product! We also played a whole bunch of games, ate even more yummy food, and put together a puzzle that took about 4 hours! And heard some great news! Justin's brother Mark and his wife Ashley are expecting come January! Hooray! Congrats you guys! We are all hoping for a boy...7 granddaughters so far! Although we would take either of course!

Tri time

 Whew!! We did it!! Yeah! It turned out to be a really fun experience, even if it was a bit exhausting!
It definitely helped having my sisters there with me. Thanks Nat and Em!

 It turned out to be such a beautiful day! You would have never known that it rained ALL week leading up to Saturday.

 Here we all are getting ready to swim.

 One leg down, two to go!

 Justin reported that I had the worst bike out there! Ha. It's probably close to true (it's a lovely Schwinn mountain bike but I did have some road tires put on!). I could definitely tell that I was working MUCH harder than those riding road bikes. Maybe one day I'll have a nicer one? One girl that passed me on the bike told me I looked like a super hero with my jacket on!! ha ha. I had it unzipped, so I'm sure it looked like a cape ;)

 One more lap! I tossed my jacket and asked the bystanders to put it on the grass. Luckily it was right there after I was done!

 Transition to the run. This was definitely the hardest part. Jello legs for sure!! Wow.

 Almost there!

 Yay! They had a big red inflatable arch for the finish!

 My fans!! Justin was so great to take care of both girls during the race. It was fun to see them while I transitioned and hear Justin and Molly cheer me on!

All done! It really felt great to accomplish something like this. I completed just under an hour and a half, which is what I was aiming for. I wanted all of my training to show and I was pleased with the end result, so I have no regrets at all! Everyone wants to know if I'd do another...probably. Natalie keeps finding more races for us, and there's a mini sprint in July which sounds enticing!

Thanks to Natalie and Emily for doing it with me! You are both amazing!

First Recital

Last night we attended Molly's first singing/dancing recital! It was so cute. I don't think Molly totally understood what a "recital" meant, but she did quite well, although she was shy! Here she is with her darling teacher, Miss Tricia!

 The theme was "Oh, What a Year!" Each song/dance was a month of the year.

Here is Molly singing her solo. "This is the way we sneak around, sneak around, sneak around..." She was really quiet, but she sang it!

Another dance was the baby bumble bee song. She is squishing up her baby bumble bee here :)

Ali was mainly trying to get to the stage the whole time until I found these stairs in the back corner! She had a great time going up and down these stairs while playing with my necklace.

Here are all the girls doing a little cheer at the end.

Molly was so excited about getting her picture taken after :)

Molly and her friend Carly.

What do you think?

Just out of curiosity, what do you use in the shower? Bar soap or body wash? I am totally a bar soap person. I don't know why, but in my mind I think that it's cleaner than body wash! Ha, I know, silly. Anyway, I'm curious what you use. I know body wash has a million yummy scents but I just can't get myself to go that route.

Moving on. When you sleep, do you like the blankets in a big heap or you do you like them nice and straight? I'm quite particular about them being flat, straight, and perfect!! I had no idea I was so crazy about this until I got married and Justin is totally the opposite! He didn't even like sheets and I had to convince him that was THE ONLY WAY TO GO! So what do you prefer? Or are you somewhere in the middle? (Have I already talked about this? Sorry if I have!)

Last question. Do I have a seriously sensitive head? I cannot wear ANY kind of headband for longer than about an hour, max, unless it's fabric only. Is that weird? I wish that wasn't the case because I think there are so many cute headbands and I do own several, but I can only use them when I'm washing my face for a couple minutes! Grrr. I just wondered if I'm the only one!

Six years ago on another Friday the 13th of May, we tied the knot! Happy Anniversary Justin! Here's hoping for many more happy years together. I love you!

Scottsdale, AZ

We left Thursday for Scottsdale, AZ sans kids for our 6th anniversary, which is next week.  We had a blast!!  We stayed at the Hyatt Regency and enjoyed some warm weather, shopping, golfing, eating out, laying out and peaceful sleep!!

These two came with us (Justin's parents).  When we told them we were heading to Arizona, they were totally on board.  And who can blame them?  They still had snow when we left last week!  Plus, Shelley is from Mesa, so she was the navigator (actually she was the driver!) the whole time.  And boy, it was nice having her drive.  I was totally lost!  I would never have been able to find all the places we went on my own!

We ate at an Italian restaurant at our hotel one night.  The food was really yummy!

This was dessert.  It's a little gondola boat that's dipped in chocolate.  The oar is also chocolate and the bottom is creme brulee!

Thirty seconds later....

And who doesn't love a strawberry daiquiri?  (virgin of course!)  Delish!

More eating pics! For Mother's Day we had brunch at the hotel and boy, do they go ALL out!  Wow!  They had breakfast foods, a salad bar, quesadillas and mexican food, italian pastas, prime rib, ham, breads and dessert!  I don't know if you can see the plate I'm holding, but yes, I tasted all of those!  And they were so yummy.  They also gave all the moms a rose. So sweet.

The guys enjoyed the dessert too (bananas foster anyone?!).

I learned that these are date trees, not palm trees!  Who knew?  My MIL did!  They were gorgeous and all around the resort.

We enjoyed weather in the high 90s, which sounds hot, but there was a breeze so we thought it felt GREAT.  It was really depressing to come home to rain!  Really.  It was sooooo nice laying out by the pool, soaking up the sun, reading my kindle!  I highly recommend it!

One of the most fun things we did was go on a gondola boat ride.  If you eat at the italian restaurant there, they give you complimentary tickets to go for a ride there at the resort.  They have a lake behind the pool where they do the boat rides.  It was so fun!  It was quiet and calm and the guy sang us an italian love song and it was beautiful!  The guy was really talented.  (He told us he got his master's degree in vocal performance...very impressive!)

It really was perfect!  I may have also bought several new things for my wardrobe (we pretty much hit every Marshall's in the valley!  Yep, we are sick!!  And we found Nordstrom's clearance store, Last Chance!)  Of course we wish we would've had one more day, but we were pretty excited to come home and see our girls.  A big, big thanks to my sister Natalie and my mom for watching our girls for us!  We got home last night and I'll tell you, it was hard facing reality.  Our girls got up several times last night (boo!).  It was clear the vacation was OVER!!  Anyway, if it has been a while since you and your hubby have gone for a few days on your own, it's definitely worth it!

Breaking News!

Alison walks!! Today she is 16 months on the day (May 10th) and she made it a milestone by finally walking! She has been close for a couple weeks now and we are so glad she waited for us to come home (next post is our fun trip!) to walk on her own. 

So pleased with herself! Great job Ali Bug!