Our little kitchen remodel

We've lived in our little house for two and a half years now and this last March I decided I had endured the ugly 80's tile counters and oak cabinets LONG enough.  After finally getting the green light from Ethan, we (not personally) demo'ed those ugly counters replacing them with beautiful granite, repainted the cabinets white, added knobs/handles and got a new deeper stainless sink.  What a huge difference!  And it only took a little less than a week thanks to our great contractor Mark Edmundson from our ward.  He did great work and even though our kitchen is still small, at least it's cute now:)  Please enjoy the before and afters below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two and Nine

It's been several months since these occasions actually happened, but I still wanted to post them because birthdays are a big deal for a kid:)  Wesley turned the big 2 on January 3rd and we were so happy to have my Mom and Dad here visiting from Utah (that still sounds weird to say).  We didn't do anything crazy, just a fun simple family party at our house with presents, cake, Grandma and Grandpa and of course balloons.  What else does a two year old need?  He thoroughly enjoyed himself and we are loving this age with all the new discoveries, new words and silly mannerisms.  Current favorites of his: balloons, balls of any sport, balloons, puppies, playing with water, did I mention balloons?  And yes, he can blow up a balloon all by himself just like his big brother:)  We love this little boy who is not a baby anymore:(

 

Can't hang out with Grandpa without standing on his hands:)  We all grew up doing this with him.  Watch out for drool bombs!

 

 

 

 This is what he was working on when I was taking him to his 2 yr checkup!  Amazing kid.

Audrey turned nine on Febrary 20th and decided to hit Sea World for her special day instead of doing a "friend party" but she did get to invite her best friend Miriam to come along.  Her favorite part of the day was watching the dolphin show.  She LOVES dolphins.  Since it was her birthday, we also let her get a dolphin painted on her face that turned out really cute.  

Wesley enjoyed seeing Elmo in real life and surprisingly was not afraid of the gigantic red monster!  He just walked right up to him and snuggled up in his lap- it was the cutest thing.  All in all, it was a fun day and I still can't believe I have a 9 year old!!!  Love her!

 

Whew!  I feel like I'm a little more caught up on the blog.  Still more to come...

Fall/Winter 2011

Why must I always fall off the blogger wagon?!  I realized that I was avoiding our blog because of how far behind I'd been and didn't want to devote so much time in my attempt to catch up.  I think I need to forget the past and just move forward and TRY to be better about posting.  No promises though!  Before jumping into the present, I couldn't help but look at pictures from last year and grab a bunch to include in a last minute post to recap the rest of 2011. 

Here are some highlights from our Lake Cuyamaca cabin getaway.  We stayed at this great little house for 2 nights and on the second day, Ethan's parents came up and joined us.  We are loving this fall tradition!

 Breakfast at the Lake Cuyamaca resturant.  Sooooo yummy.

Feeding the ducks on the lake in peddle boats

 Wesley got to hang out with Grandma near the water:)

 And here's Halloween featuring Supergirl, Green Lantern and our cute little Monkey! 

 

 Fast forward now to Christmas morning.  I wish I took more pics but I used the video camera most of the morning taking live footage.

 Ok, that's the rest of 2011 in a very small nutshell:)  More to follow!

Utah Valley Marathon Trip

Disclaimer:  I just saw that this post was never published from last year!  It's been sitting as a draft.  Oh well, better late than never.
[June 2011]
Just as school got out this summer we took a little vacation trip to Utah. In fact we ended up pulling the kids out a day early, thus missing their last day of school, so that we could get there a full day before Ethan would run his first marathon. It's called the Utah Valley Marathon and starts way up Provo canyon then descends down gradually finishing on Center street in Provo. Ethan had to leave the house around 3am for the 6am race start. Super early! We stayed with my wonderful Aunt Margie in Spanish Fork and since I wasn't going to be at the start, she dropped me and the kids off near Center street about a block from the finish so that we could cheer him on right at the end without being caught in the massive crowd at the finish line. We saw him coming in strong and I snapped a quick video clip where he came in towards me to get a quick kiss for good luck to help him finish:) What a guy. He did awesome with a time of 3 hrs 41 min! We were all so proud of him. Here's the clip:

Ethan was pretty wiped out after the race (who wouldn't?) so the rest of the day he rested, ate and drank a lot and we spent the afternoon and evening with my brother Kevin's family also in Spanish Fork for a BBQ. Since our wedding anniversary fell on June 10th (the day before the big race) we had to wait to celebrate. The following evening, Ethan had set up previously with Kevin and Tami, a little surprise getaway for us leaving the kids with them for the night. I was so excited and very grateful to the Fenn's for being so generous to take our kids. Here's a picture of their little sleepover that Kevin took.
That night Ethan took me out to Rodizio Grill for dinner (yum) then we stayed at the Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake. Every room is a different theme and they are totally decked out! Ethan picked the Hawaiian Hideaway room for us because we had talked about wanting to go there for our anniversary someday. This was the closest he could get to the real thing:) It was such a fun room! The walls and ceiling were painted, the bed was up a few steps on this platform to look like it was a little grass hut bungalow. The shower/tub was built into a rock wall in the corner of the room and the shower was an actual waterfall! There were plants, trees and flowers everywhere and a little tiki hut eating area. It was pretty sweet.



The complimentary breakfast was actually REALLY good and very fresh- homemade tasting. After checking out, we stopped at Thanksgiving Point to ride Segway's through the gardens there. That was a total blast! I can't wait to get back on one of those things.

 

I had to include this little cutie.  We went to a fun pool with slides in Payson with the kids.  All in all it was a fun trip and we look forward to going back!