Monday, July 25, 2011

ARIZONA!

So we just got back from spending a whole WEEK in Arizona!!  It was super fun and awesome and great.  And good news!  I took TONS of pictures!  But the thing is, they are basically ALL of our cute cute cuuuuuuuute nieces :) So just warning everyone, this post is basically going to be tons of gushing about how cute they are. 

So we drove down last Saturday and let me just say it is a LONG drive.  But so worth it.  And the views on the drive were incredible!  We stopped for a couple quick scenic shots.


I can't remember what we did exactly on each day of the week while there, but it was basically a lot of relaxing, movie watching, playing with nieces and EATING.  So much eating.  But in a good way.  Jenny and her girls Sierra and Whitney came from California too!  So everyone was there!  It was so great being with everyone and getting to know them all better (for me, Billy already knows them pretty well).

On Monday we went kayaking down the river there (I don't know the name...) and that was SOOO fun.  The weather was pleasant on the water, we got to see wild horses, a beautiful blue heron, some HUGE fish, and a scuba diver!  All on one river. These are the only pictures I have of us from the week:
 Yep, Billy wore his old man sunglasses to extra protect his eyes from the sun.


Now for all the pictures (and videos) of the girls....


Jason apparently likes to wrestle with Sierra sometimes, so I think she was practicing her moves on me.  But I could take her!  She is so so funny.


Whitney learned how to say "cheese!" and smile all cheesy for the camera, so she kept giving me this big cheeseball grin.  Love it!
Here's Sierra saying "take a picture of ME!  I'm a poser!"  Because everyone kept saying what a poser she is.  Haha.
A couple nights Jon and Kara came over and hung out which was so so fun!  Scarlett is so much bigger than the last time we saw her :( She is growing too fast.  She is SO funny!  She grunts a lot and is always moving her arms and legs...it's hilarious.

Playing in the pantry...

Hahahah Maddison in this one kills me.  Her nose pushed up against the glass and a strait face.

Whitney being super cute out by the pool...she just ate an ice cream sandwich as you can see on her face :)



The morning Jenny and Sierra were going to leave Whitney let us hold her and she just melted.  It was the cutest thing ever.

Sierra helping Pop-Pop make goop (smoothie) :)

I had a bunch of videos that I wanted to post of the cutie girls but for some reason it isn't working...so I'll post those once it's working I guess.  Well, that's all I've got.  We drove back yesterday (Sunday) and came home to a quiet house and a dying plant (I don't know why it won't just live...I give it everything it needs.  This is why I know I'm not ready to have a baby yet.  I can't even keep a plant alive).  It was such a fun trip and we are sad to be back in Provo back to boring work.  But we have the Sutherland Family Reunion coming up which will be so fun too!  We are loving getting to see so much family this summer!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Family comes to visit!

So my family just left (actually on Saturday) after a two week visit here in good old Provo.  Cody went to EFY one week and the next he went to a pole vaulting camp the next (pretty cool, huh?).  It was a super fun two weeks!  And I am so sad they are gone.  But me and Billy are heading out to Arizona on Saturday for a while so we are both looking forward to that!  Anyways, here are some pictures from the trip!  (And by some I mean a lot.)

They got here on Saturday night but we didn't do anything cool until Tuesday when we headed up to Idaho for a few days!  WOO!  It was actually way fun being up there checking out the campus and the area where Derek is going to be going to school in the Fall.

We met up with Travis and Cami at Travis' little crepe stand on campus.



Cami showed us the new gym building thing which was super cool and me and Billy were super jealous that they don't have one of those at BYU.

 Jayce enjoyed running around the indoor track up there.  SO COOL.


We then went and checked out where Derek is going to live...aka Travis and Tyler's apartment.  That was way nice and I was super jealous because it was better than any apartment I have ever lived in and way cheaper too.

Jayce made everyone play in the hotel pool with him a ton.



Derek is a Merman...

Me and mom ran up to the temple from our hotel both mornings we were there.  It was a super hard but good run.  The temple in Rexburg is beautiful!  We went and took pictures by it later.


Temple from our hotel...
We got a tour of the campus one day which was pretty cool.  They didn't really show us around very well.  Me and Derek were both very confused as to where we were.  But he will figure it out eventually.


One night mom took us all out for burgers at Big Judd's!  These burgers were monsters.  I didn't think I could even eat a half pound burger if me and Billy split a one pounder like Travis and Cami, and Derek and Tyler did.  So we got baby burgers.  But they got the big ones and they were huge.  Pretty cool though.



I think that was pretty much it for Idaho.

On our way back to Provo we stopped in Ogden and visited Ann Marie and her cutie little girls!!  Oh my goodness they were SO cute!!  I loved playing with them, even though it made me way tired.  They loved to stand up on the table and I catch them once they jump and then swing them around.  After their house we went to the airport to pick up Dad who flew to Provo to spend the 4th with us!




And the boys enjoyed playing ping pong with a ball broken in half that they taped together.  Hahaha



We had a picnic at the park Friday night July 1st and played some badmitton which was way fun.



 Action shot of Jayce...


Saturday the 2nd we went on a hike to Stuart Falls which was fun but much more vigorous than I was expecting.  I mean it wasn't hard I'm not complaining I'm just saying I expected it to be a little light hike but we ended up having to cross a waterfall, risk our lives trying to find the trail under a bunch of snow, etc.  It was way fun though!

 Moose!

Ok crossing this waterfall was seriously so scary.  And freezing cold.  I was so scared Jayce was going to get swept away and die.  But fortunately all of us lived!





Sunday the 3rd Aunt Barbara and Uncle John put together a big family dinner so Andrew, Martha, Kim, Adam and Olivia came over!



Johnny is so cute and calls Olivia "Olivia-yo-yo".  Love it.


On the 4th of July, we did the Freedom run in the morning with just my parents and then watched the parade!  It was so fun!  Later when we were over at Aunt Barbara's, Andrew and Martha came over again and we had a delish BBQ then all worked on a puzzle for basically the whole day.  I kind of hate that puzzle.  We never finished it.  Then did fireworks at night of course!






The stupid puzzle that was basically solid black...





On Tuesday the 5th we went to the Hoopes' house for dinner.  It was so fun to see them!


Then the rest of the week I can't really even remember what we did.  On Thursday me, mom, Aunt Barbara and Hayley all had a girls lunch at Cafe Rio.  That was so fun.  I love girl time with them.  On Friday we had a big Nordstrom shopping fest which was a dream come true.  Except we ran out of time which is kind of sad because we had 4 hours and were still really rushed.  I think Friday night we went to Cabella's to get Derek a warm coat for Idaho.



Both of us love this moose...



Then Saturday morning we watched Cody compete in pole vaulting and then my family left :( so sad.


Well, that's it!  It was super fun and fortunately I get to see my family again in August for the Sutherland Family Reunion in Colorado :)  Can't wait!

Oh and I know you all want to hear some funny things Jayce said.  I only wrote down 3 this time :(  but trust me he said some really funny stuff.

Backgroud: in our house, the word butt is a bad word.  Jayce is learning to spell right now so he asked mom this when he was trying to write a note to Billy during church- "Does the good but have 1 T or 2 T's?"  Mom-"1 T"  I thought that was hilarious.

Mom-"I don't know why there is so much traffic"
Jayce- "maybe because someone got struck by lightning"

Background: Billy let Jayce strum on his guitar and we all reacted showing him we thought he was awesome.  Later mom was saying- "it's too bad we don't have any musical talent in our family"  Jayce-"I do!"

Sorry those are all I wrote down.  He is a funny kid though man oh man.