Finally...Vacation pictures!

We stopped in Ogden to see John, Myrica and Aiden first. We always have fun with them and wish we lived closer! I love this picture of Jocelyn, Aiden and Uncle John. So cute. We were walking into the children's museum.

Of course, this was Jocelyn's favorite part!

My adorable nephew! When he had the hat on, you couldn't see his face at all. So funny.

This didn't last long, but aren't they cute cousins?!?

Camping out

The music room.

Daddy and Uncle John have skills. Look at that arch they built. This is why we keep them around. :)

We had SO much fun with them! Thanks guys for letting us stay with you in your beautiful home! We played A LOT of the new Wii Resort Sports game and I kicked John's behind in basketball....oh yeah!!! Aiden has changed so much since we saw him last. He has such a fun personality and loves kissing and tackling his big cousin. It was hilarious. Jocelyn adores him and unless it was late at night, had a lot of fun playing with him and making him laugh in his high chair. They are too cute!

Next we headed to the lake. I can't tell you how much I love this place! It's gorgeous. The first couple days we were there, we had rain on and off. We still managed to get beach time in and enjoyed having stress free family time!

Jocelyn was upset because she worked hard to get a sand castle started and it crumbled. If you click and make the picture big, you can see her sad little face. We helped her make one and it all worked out.

A very determined little girl. She LOVED playing in the sand.

The one picture I took at Pickleville Playhouse. The new show was HILARIOUS! I wish we could have gone twice. If you go to Garden City, you HAVE to go to one of the plays. We always look forward to it.

A zoomed in view from the deck of the lake house.

Right off the deck is the third hole of the golf course. The last night we were there, we saw a mommy dear and two babies running through the golf course. Jocelyn was so excited. Too bad she doesn't remember our Virginia house. We had tons of deer hanging out in our yard.

Jocelyn posing in front of our sunshade.

Waiting for Daddy to come back with the jet ski. This girl LOVES riding the jet ski now!! She became very daring wanting to go over big waves.

"Okay, I'm ready! Let go now!" hahaha. She was so funny. When I took her out on the jet ski with me, she said, "Okay Mom. This is what you do. I know ALL about jet ski's, so you just listen to me. okay?"

On Friday, my college roomie, Kim, and her family came up to visit. We had a blast hanging out and meeting her cute family! They live in Jackson, which is only three hours away. Thank you guys for coming to visit!!! We spent time at the lake, had the best pizza, stayed up late chatting and playing Elfer Raus. What a fantastic time!! Are we meeting up again next year?!?! :)

Miss Ava. She is so adorable! Jocelyn and I both wanted to take her home with us. :) (Just to give you a break, Kim. Of course!) haha.

Ethan and Jocelyn finding "sticks". They had a blast chasing the waves and laughing at themselves. So funny!

Can you tell she's excited? Second day on one, so she's feeling like a pro.

The first day they were there, it was mostly cloudy, so I was happy when we woke up and finally saw the blue water again!

We took the kids down to the resort to run and burn off some energy at the playground.

Until next year!!!!! We miss you already, Bear Lake!!!

We survived our first day of preschool!!!

We had a very busy first day of preschool. (One of the little boys said I should JUST call it school b/c it sounds cooler. hahaha) I worry that Jocelyn will get tired of being with me all week long for preschool, but hopefully horseback riding lessons will make up for it. Anyway, I am definitely going to bed early tonight, but it was a fun day! The kids had a blast and I think it'll be a great class. Tomorrow I have all girls in class so I'm excited to see how that will go! I'll post more pictures of the preschool room later. I changed/added some things. It looks cute!

This picture makes me laugh so hard. I don't think she was actually annoyed with anything, but wow....what a look.

Note to self: HIDE THE TIMER!!! hahaha. The kids LOVE the dress up. (Thank you, Mom!!) The chef was a very popular one today. It came with this timer that is basically a real one...TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK....... DING! haha. Of course, it's Jocelyn's favorite part of all the dress up.

Growing up...

One night at the lake house, we were hanging out and all of a sudden Jocelyn said,

Jocelyn: "Why can't we all grow up at the same time? I want to be the same age as you and Mommy."

Graham said something to her about all of us are born at different times, so we aren't all going to be the same age.

Jocelyn: "Well I wish we could all be the same age. I want to be a grown up."

I asked her why she wanted to be a grown up and told her that being a child is so fun. She replied by saying..."BUT I'VE BEEN A CHILD FOR YEARS!!!!"

Back to reality!

I will post lots of pictures when I'm not so overwhelmed with preschool stuff! We had a fabulous vacation and are so grateful we had family time without any stress! Here are a couple cute pictures of Miss Jocelyn. As always, most of our pictures are of her!! :)

Adios!!!!!!!!

If you need us, you'll have to come find us here...

enjoying this gorgeous lake...

Ahhhh, slice of heaven!!!! We will be back, hopefully feeling a lot more relaxed and possibly a little more tan! :)

(Oh, and did anyone see the brand new "New Moon" trailer?!?! It looks awesome!!)

Peace and Quiet, Naked Running Man

On Sunday driving home from church...

Jocelyn: "Mom, I have something to tell you. In primary, I was being all peace and quiet. Some of the kids weren't and got in trouble. It ruined all the peace and quiet."

Me laughing

Jocelyn: "Don't tell anyone that, okay?"

I guess I've used the phrase "peace and quiet" before. She cracks me up. Lately when she says something that makes me laugh, she always asks me not to tell anyone about it. So when she's old enough to read...

Jocelyn,
Please forgive me for sharing this story even though you asked me not to. You are just so funny and come up with the cutest things sometimes! I know you will love reading stories like this when you are older! I love you, my little bug.
Love, Mommy


Another funny thing I had to add...

Tonight we went to buy Boomer more food. On the way out of the neighborhood, Jocelyn saw a man running without his shirt.

Jocelyn: "I saw a naked boy running!!!! His top was naked!"
Me: "Yeah, guys do that sometimes."
Jocelyn: "But he'll be shy if he does that.... Maybe he has a wife and he forgot to ask his wife if he should wear a shirt!!"

She really is hilarious. Love it.

Here's how I found our little comedian tonight. Enjoying the cool water on her feet!!

Save a Tree, Slap a Lumberjack...

We attempted to go camping last weekend. Let's just say it wasn't as peaceful as we had hoped. It was a last minute trip and unfortunately, all the campsites were full at Fenton Lake. So we decided to continue to drive up the mountain until we found a good spot.
After driving for awhile, we spotted this meadow and across from it was a beautiful camp spot. It was a good thing we had our suv, otherwise we would have never made it back there!

We had a wonderful evening together. We made dinner, sat around the campfire and played Jocelyn new favorite game, "What's your favorite?" This game started in Oklahoma with Grandpa and Aunt Madeline and now she loves it. We went to bed listening to elk call out.
Oh, I almost forgot about our little setback... when we were trying to set up, we realized we forgot to pack the charger for our air pump. So Graham got about a minute to fill our big air mattress and thought we could blow up the rest of ours and Jocelyns. Hah. After a few minutes, he told me he wanted to try an experiment. Oh great! I should have had more faith though! He turned an old cell phone charger into a charger for the air pump! Hooray!

Our first interuption of the night came at about ten thirty. All of a sudden we hear this awful loud screech and we see headlights coming toward us. This truck must have been a hundred years old and held together with masking tape or something. It sounded like a ton of old, rusted bedsprings, magnified 100 times. Horrible! They stopped by us, got out and then started chopping up a tree!!!! WHAT?!?!?! Probably thirty minutes later, they finally stopped and drove off. There must have been a fallen tree on the path they wanted to take. Okay, back to sleep...

Until two thirty rolls around...I had been having a nightmare that someone was walking around our tent, threatening us and trying to get in and then I wake up to voices and flashlights nearby!!!! I freaked out, woke up Graham b/c he's the better shot (if needs be) and we try to figure out what these idiots are doing at two thirty in the morning. We hear lots of loud burping, lots of talk of beer and these people hiking up and down the hill we were camped on. We figured out they were setting up camp and their car couldn't make it up the hill, so they had to hike their stuff in. Great. Well, maybe after they get everything set up, they'll go to sleep...we hoped. They shined their flashlights on our tent and I heard, "SSHH...there are people camped there. That's a better spot, we should just set up our chairs right there by their tent!" RUDE!! Well, the SSHHH didn't last but a minute. I can't even tell you how loud these people were! There were three of them, two guys and a girl and I'm guessing they were in their late teens probably. Of course, in the mountain everything is magnified and echoes, so the yelling and laughing sounded like they were screaming in your ear. Fourty five minutes later, they stop hiking up and down the hill and they try to figure out how to set up their tent, drunk or high on drugs, we're not sure, but it wasn't helping them. A few minutes later, I think they decided they couldn't set up their tent so they decided to try out a new career....LUMBERJACKING!!! Three oclock in the morning and they get out their ax and chop down a stinking tree. TWO HOURS LATER, WE HEAR A SCREAM AND THEN "TIMMMMBBERRRR!" Are you kidding me?!?!?! At this point, I was SOOOO MAD but we didn't want to start something with these people who were more than likely on drugs, so we just stayed in our tent. It was killing me to not be able to YELL AT THEM!!

The rest of the night...I mean, morning, we had to listen to the music they were blaring and their annoying laughter and drunken jabbering. Five thirty rolls around and I am ready to LEAVE. It was sooooo cold though, I didn't want to get out of the sleeping bag. Graham and I start to talk about whether or not we should go ahead and pack up. Jocelyn rolls over and says "Guys...I'm trying to sleep!" Cracked us up. She had slept through most of the madness going on throughout the night!!!! Or at least, she was really quiet through it.
Jocelyn and I hiding from the FREEZING cold!!! A few minutes later, we were packing up the tent and for a small revenge to our lovely neighbors, I let Jocelyn throw those snap firecrackers while we packed up. Hahahaha.
Well, it was definitely NOT what we had wanted... A quiet weekend away from stress!!!! Do you think someday we will look back and laugh about it? Just remember, "SAVE A TREE, SLAP A LUMBERJACK!"

Our 4th of July Weekend!

Once again, I know my Mom's camera has some pictures I wanted to post but I will have to put those up later. We had a fabulous weekend. Jocelyn was able to spend the night with MiMi and Gpa this weekend. She was SO excited! Their house is done with the remodel, so she has been anxiously awaiting her time alone with them. Graham and I had a date night Friday night, so we went to see the new Transformers. Saturday afternoon we headed out to Edgewood, had a bbq and then Grandpa and Graham put on a GREAT fireworks show for us. They live outside the city, so we were able to set off a bunch of the BIG time fireworks, along with sparklers, smoke bombs, bumble bees, snakes, spinners, chinese lanterns, bottle rockets, panda bears, etc. The finale was a box of sixteen huge fireworks that you light once and sit back and enjoy! SO FUN!! It was actually pretty chilly, so we built a fire and wrapped up in blankets in our camping chairs. So different than our 4th of July in Oklahoma as kids! No way would you be wrapped up in a blanket in July!!!

I have to note that I am letting go of some control!!! Jocelyn didn't have her whole Fourth of July outfit on AND she didn't want me to do her hair, so I just let it go! My Mom was proud. Hahaha!

This picture cracks me up. This is how Jocelyn covered her ears when the guys set off the loud mortars. Too funny!

She was worried about something in this picture. There were a couple close calls with the guys and the fireworks, so this was more than likely one of those times!



Here is my attempt to capture our fireworks on camera. I think I need more practice!