New York

At the end of July I went on a girls trip to NYC with my mom, sisters, sister-in-law, aunt, cousin, grandma and my grandma's sister. (Thank you to a great hubby who was willing to play Mr. Mom for a couple days)   Before I met Jared, I was finishing my Finance degree.  I ultimately wanted to get some of my "Series" licenses and work on Wall Street.  Needless to say, that obviously didn't happen and I'm glad it didn't.  After seeing everything, that is not a place for me.  Glad, I chose the other route. :) 

We visited the 9/11 Memorial (what an awesome experience), Empire State Building, China Town, Broadway to see Wicked, Statue of Liberty, fun shopping places, carriage ride thru Central Park, and lots of other stuff.  We also did a dinner cruise.  Bad idea for me...my vertigo kicked in.  The next two days weren't the greatest, but I managed to make it thru. 

All in all, NYC was a great trip!  I hope we are able to plan another girls get away sometime.  It was a lot of fun. :)

My cute Grandma (pictured above in the white blazer) whom we love and adore was just diagnosed with breast cancer two weeks ago. She is a trooper though and in good spirits.

I look a little glazed over...lovely vertigo.

Keslee is 3!!!

Keslee turned 3 July 15!!! I can't believe it. For some reason, it seems she is my child who should still be little. Time has gone by too fast with her. She is such a sweetheart and is a great sister. She did not have any requests for her birthday like Ryah did. The only thing she requested was a bike, "panacakes" for dinner with "chocate" milk, and a yellow cake (thanks to my mother-in-law)...this girl loves her some pancakes and bacon and the color yellow. Other than that, she was perfectly content with doing nothing. She is our child who's love language is quality time, I have decided.

Thanks to Jared for pulling off her birthday. Unfortuately, I was stricken with vertigo that I have struggled with the last 10 years. I kept trying to get involved and help, but couldn't even get up...hence the lack of pictures. :( It was miserable and I felt horrible because I was so helpless.

Here are some facts about Keslee:
-She is our peacemaker. If anyone wants something she has, she gives it up. She doesn't like to see people get hurt.
-She is the best sleeper out of her sister's...Ryah being the worst. Ryah never has required much sleep. -Loves the color yellow.
-Insists on wearing matching pajamas to bed.
-Likes to play house
-She is my little helper. She is always offering to help me fold laundry, clean the windows, bathrooms, vacuum, etc...you name it she will do it.
-Loves milk and chocolate milk.
-Total daddy's girl
-Always wants crimped hair.
-Likes having her nails and toes painted, but has them picked off in a matter of hours.
-Doesn't like to be in trouble.
-Has a stubborn streak to her every once in a while.
-The other day was playing play-doh and during a conversation with herself said, What’s this? In her next voice she answered, a dinosaur…then she said, yeah, that’s right, it’s a pretty cool dinosaur...and it was a big glob of play-doh.
-We were playing groovy girls the other day.  I asked her Groovy Girl to make me a snack and she said in real life or groovy girl life.
-She was playing Barbies the other day and one of them fell off the chair.  She said, "Oh, that's a darn it."
-Kes was going to walk to the neighbor's the other day to get Ryah.  She told me, "I will bring myself right back, mom."
-Keslee came to me and said my belly hurts, I need to dump it out and she ran to go potty.
-She was playing house with Jett and Keslee wanted him to ride with her in the car she made out of chairs. She said I even have a trunk to put your bike in.

Had to throw this picture in of Keslee helping me fold laundry. She is actually a pretty good "folder."

We love you Kes!!!

Lake Powell

We had our annual Lake Powell trip the second week in July. My mom's family have been avid watersports people ever since they were little. My grandparents have a houseboat and it's a tradition we all look forward to. We pull down the camp trailers and camp, but meet up at the houseboat every morning. My grandparents opt to just leave the houseboat parked in a cove and then we do all the exploring on the boats.

We headed down on a Sunday and came home Friday. It was and always is extremely hot in July. I kind of wish we could either do the trip earlier or later in the summer months, but it has been difficult accomodating people's schedules, so my grandma has left it as the second week in July. That is one nice thing about camping, is going back to sleep in the air conditioned trailers. I like getting off the water; it's a nice little break.

This year we spent some time at Antelope Point playing on the platforms, getting ice cream, etc. That is a fun place to go...a little too much fun for the kids. The girls asked daily to go back to the ice cream place.

Tube Wars were a big hit this year, unfortunately, I missed those boat rides and Jared didn't do a good job of cameraman/driverman so I'm missing some pics.  Jared did attempt surfing while the kids were tubing, luckily Zach took the wheel when Jared decided to jump in and went SLOW.  Jared did run out of gas during one of their outings. Gas is not cheap if you have to get it on the water...we made sure to gas up everyday to prevent that from happening again.

It was a lot of fun with the girls this year. They did great on the drive down and drive back. We watched Little Rascals way too many times. They keep asking when we can go back to the place where we camped and swam a lot. Can't wait until next year. :)

Jeff wore this singlet the entire day, it was a classic...he is basically our brother from another mother. It will be sad when he leaves on his mission next year. :(

We had a great time!!! Hopefully next year we can make two trips.