July so far...

After getting home from girls weekend, I was pretty dang sick and Billy kind of caught what I had, so we just sat around a lot watching lots of movies :)  I love summertime!  But being sick sucks. 

On the 4th of July we got up early and got ready and headed down to University for the parade!  Lauren and Dan met us there and we had a good time watching that.  Then we got some slurpees and walked down to center street to check out all the booths down there.  It was crazy crowded!  But we got some free ice cream woo woo!  After feeling like we were getting heat stroke, we walked back to our house and got some water and chatted for a bit.  Then we headed to their house for BBQing some hot dogs!  It's not the 4th of July without a BBQ!  We had to go pick up Cody from the airport, who flew in to go to a pole vaulting camp starting Thursday. 

That night we went over to John and Barbara's for another BBQ and fireworks!  Woo!  We love that tradition.  Johnny was being super funny and wanted to play ninjas:

Of course the food was exquisite over at their house.  Once it got dark, we lit off fireworks!  Johnny was being so cute and was so excited to clean up the trash after each firework was done haha.

We attempted to take some pictures, but its tough at night with a phone camera to get good quality shots.  These are the best we got.  I think the first one is super cute, the others...not so much.

The other spectators...

 

We're really attractive

It's been way fun having Cody here!  I went and watched him pole vault one day, which was super coolio. 

Cody is magically so good at pole vaulting.  It's pretty fun.  We've also gone and seen the new spiderman movie, watched lots of movies at home, gone out to eat, went bowling with Hayley, Dan, Geoff and Niki, among other fun activities.  It's been fun.  But tomorrow I go home to San Diego!!  Cody was supposed to come with me, but his coach offered to coach him alone 2 more days for free, so he's staying until Wednesday and I'm flying tomorrow.  Which means I better start packing!  At 11:09 PM!  Sheesh.

Girls Weekend!

Last weekend I got invited to go to girls weekend with all the PQ2 girls down in St. George!  It was a Bachelorette weekend for Alisha and Laura because they are both getting married this summer!  It was so fun. 

Me, Danielle, Katrina, and Laura all carpooled down Friday morning.  We made it to Sharley's house, had lunch, and went and swam/laid by the pool.  Super fun!  Its SO hot in St. George though. 

Then we came back and hung out at the house the rest of the night.  They have an amazing house, and it was stocked with so many yummy treats and drinks!  It was awesome.  Brother Cotter grilled us some steak!  Yumm.  We watched a movie in their theater room that night and hit they hay early since we were planning on hiking the narrows early the next day!

Saturday I woke up feeling awful!  But I pushed through and went hiking anyways.  Oh man it was so worth it!  It was so gorgeous and so so fun!  We were hiking in cold water the whole time, so it never got too hot, and it wasn't too rigorous, so it was just perfect.

This was the deepest it got...Alisha and Katrina lookin gooood

Me and nature

Da crew

Alisha and Danielle went swimming in the deep water...crazy crazy!  It was super cold.

 Woohoo so fun!

After hiking we drove back home and got showered and everything, then went out to eat at Alisha's Aunt's restaurant, Benja's Thai Garden.  It was delish and everyone was having a pretty fun time watching me suffer through the spiciness of the food.  I love these girls!

After we got back, we had a pretty scandalous bachelorette party for the soon to be brides :)  hehe jk it wasn't even that scandalous.  It was super fun.  After the party we watched Bride Wars in their movie room, and tried to watch another movie after that, but mostly everyone fell asleep. 

Sunday we woke up at like 10:15 and shortly after found out that church was not in fact at 1, but was at 11.  Haha so we all hurried and got ready and went to church!  We had to leave to go home after church :(  We dragged our feet a little leaving because we didn't want it to end!  It was an awesome weekend, thanks so much for inviting me girls!  PQ girls fo life!

Arizona!

Going to Arizona was so fun!  Everyone (all the Barnes kids and spouses and kids) were all able to make it out, so we were able to take some current family pictures!  We had tons of fun playing with the nieces, playing in the pool, wake boarding on the lake (I need to get some of those pictures! :) ), eating lots of cookies, bowling, and just relaxing!  I only got a few pictures, so I hope I can steal some from other people!

Right when we got there, Jody handed Ceci to me and she started crying.  I didn't know what to do haha.  But she's so cute, even when she's crying!

Contemplating while sleeping and drooling...

Scarlett trying on my shoes :)

She knows how to work iPads/tablets so well!

 Playing with Sierra and Whitney!

It was such a fun trip!  I loved going out on the lake!  I was able to get up wakeboarding (after like 20 tries), which was so so fun, but I was SO sore the next day!  I couldn't believe it!  It was also really fun going bowling with all the little kiddos on Monday.  Maddison had such a blast, it was so funny to watch!  Scarlett was pretty hilarious too.  She was so full of energy, running around everywhere.  I was chasing her once and these people were walking by and laughing and saying how cute she was like she was my kid.  That was fun.  

I can't really remember a lot of the stuff we did.  All the grown ups watched a movie one night, we went out to dinner at the Farm House Grill one night which is delicious, Jody made some kick-butt homemade pizza one night, me and Jody went running together one morning, which was way fun and I was very proud of myself for making myself go running in that heat!  I'm lucky I got such awesome sister-in-laws.  It's fun to finally have sisters!

All the little girlies were so fun, they each have such unique personalities, it is so funny to watch them interact.  One of my favorite things was whenever anyone would say "give me a hug!" to anyone else, Whitney would run up from wherever she was and say "I'll give you a hug!" and would give the best hug.  It was so cute! 

We had so much fun and were so sad to leave Tuesday morning!  I wish we got to see the Barnes family more often!

Family in Utah

My family stuck around for the rest of the week AND the next week because Cody was supposed to go to a pole vaulting camp that weekend and he had EFY the next week.  The pole vaulting camp got cancelled so basically they were just trying to fill time for the rest of that week.  Thursday I was done with finals and finally got to party!  We went to the Nickel arcade one day.

We played lazer tag.  Guess who I am...that's right, Cyclone!  Boo ya 2nd place! 

 We went out to eat at Brick Oven one night (before Derek left):

We went bowling one day (and had to change Jayce's score so he wouldn't lose because he was throwing a major fit.  Not too fun...)

We took family pictures before Derek left too (sorry these are all out of chronological order).  We all had to wear church clothes because Derek didn't want to break missionary rules and wanted to keep a white shirt and tie on.  Pretty annoying but that's ok they turned out good!

Jayce came over and played with our little bubble thing for a long time...haha (oh and see that box behind Jayce?  We got a Bosch from my parents for graduation!  Woo woo!  We made homemade pizza with it the other day!)

One night we went over to Lauren and Dan's for Dan's birthday party!  They made homemade J-dawgs which were delicious!  And we played Just Dance and went swimming!  It was super fun.  We love hanging out with Lauren and Dan!

Jayce had a football camp he went to the week Cody was at EFY.  He only went to a few days of it because he doesn't know anything about football and they weren't explaining anything to them.  Lame.  He made us stay out and watch him the whole day one day...but he didn't even know we were there! 

We went to the Utah Parade of Homes two days which was so fun!  Some of those homes are seriously amazing.

This house had a garden growing on the wall!  And a bunch of slides in one of the kids rooms.  And the master bathroom was so awesome.  It had so many neat little things in it!

This house was so so cute!  It had the cutest bedrooms and all the details in the kitchen were so cute.  I loved these plates on the wall in the kitchen.  

That's all I can remember that we did haha.  Me and Billy left on Thursday to fly out to Arizona for a few days!  My family was still in Utah until Saturday, so it was weird just leaving them there, but Arizona was so fun!  The flight there was a little stressful because we were on standby, but we got there eventually and that's all that matters!

Sending Derek off to the MTC!

So, my family came to town June 11th to drop Derek at the MTC on the 13th.  It was really fun having them here, but I was still in school and that week was finals week!  In fact my Philosophy final was scheduled from 1-3 PM on the 13th and we were supposed to drop Derek off at 1:10.  Sooo that was stressful.  We just dropped him early and then rushed me to school so I could go take my final.

It was a weird/stressful/emotional morning for me.  I was stressed about my finals and feeling like I should be sadder that Derek was leaving, but I couldn't really think about it.  So that morning I drove over to the Sutherland's to eat breakfast and say goodbyes/prayers with Derek.  Dad gave him a blessing and everything.  Then we all piled in the van to drive to the MTC!

All piled in the van:

me studying on the way to the MTC and having some final giggles with Derek:

 

Outside the MTC

Final hug for Mom:

Final hugs all around:

There he goes...

Cody and Jayce were pretty bummed

Billy dropped me at school and I went and took my Philosophy final!  The guy next to me was cheating off of his iPad during the test which was very stressful for me.  I didn't know if I should say something to him/the teacher or not.  Big moral dilemma.  Anyways, after the final is when it hit me that Derek was really gone for 2 YEARS!  That is a long time.  Its a big sacrifice the Lord asks of teenage boys, but there is no better thing he could be doing!  He seems really happy and excited to be out now.

Derek's Farewell

Memorial Day weekend we drove out to San Diego for Derek's mission farewell!  We left Thursday afternoon and stopped at Jenny's in Brea and spent the night there.  Thanks Jenny for letting us stay and play for a bit!  We heard the little girls outside our door in the morning saying "I think they're still sleeping.  No, they're telling each other secrets, that's why they're being so quiet".  So funny!

Playing with Whitty

We headed down to San Diego and hung out for a bit and then went to the temple with my parents, Derek and Uncle Kenny.  That was really cool because Derek started working at the temple and he knew so much about it!

Saturday we went to the beach to go kayaking but it was too windy and rough so we couldn't go out.  So we went to the tide pools and looked around and played there for a while.  Jayce had never been there so it was pretty fun seeing him find all the crabs and everything.

Down in la jolla cave

Cody being a seal

We stopped at Road Runner sports on the way home and got me some new running shoes!

Sunday was the big farewell day!  Derek did really well and had a lot of support from family and friends!  It was a great talk.  He seemed really nervous and not too comfortable up there...so I'm hoping he'll get more comfortable with public speaking on his mission.  I'm pretty sure he will :)

Once we got home we all ate and hung out.  It was a great day!

My Grandpas! (and Dad sleeping in the background :) )

Aunt Linda, cousin Kenny, Colin, and Derek!

On Monday we went for a run in the morning and then had to drive back to Utah :(  It was an awesome weekend!