Flow Rider...

The twin's are on C Track for the last time of their lives! Hooray! They went back to school on July 25th only to go back off track 3 weeks later....just in time for one last hoorah before the older two went back. So we spent a day at Flow Rider....

Coolest family, ever! I love these NO FEAR kids! Ayden was the first to get up on his feet and ride the wave. Proud of him! Eventually everyone got on their feet, but they all digged the boogey boarding the most!! Darn, summer.....came to an end!

Layton High School Class of 1991 - 20th Class Reunion...

The whole reason I have not blogged the last 6 months......and might I add....well worth it.

It was our 20th High School reunion, if you can believe. Way back in December I was getting a good handful of posts on my FACEBOOK wondering, if we had plans, and what we were going to do. Nothing like feeling a little bit of pressure! Our Senior class Pres. lives out of state, and well....the 7 others didn't so much care, so I had the pleasure of planning this reunion on my own. Aside from a couple of phone calls, someone making a banner, and a deceased classmate display. This reunion was up to me. Set up, take down, accounting, reserving, collecting, following up, confirming, scheduling, finding, choosing, paying, refunding.....yes, all up to me!

Happy to report....I think it was FANTASTIC!

Friday, August 12th we had Big Scoops Creamery come to the park for an ice cream social.

Families were invited and they provided a Sundae Bar complete with waffle bowls, 4 choices of ice cream, and 6 different toppings! The day was warm, and it was perfect. It was the bigger

turnout with about 150 showing. It was fun to reminisce and see those forgotten, with their families.

Our senior year in High School we had our classmates fill out a survey that talked about their past, present and future at that time. We told them we would put them in a time capsule and open them on our 25th. But since we won't be having one......we opened it this year, everyone enjoyed laughing themselves, funny to see what we felt was so important to us back then.

Saturday, August 13th Day Activity- Was an absolute ball! We sold All Day Ride passes to Snowbird to all alumni and spouses, where they could spend the day playing, hanging out with each other before getting all dolled up for dinner! From 11-8:00 they could ride an Alpine Slide, Zipline, do a Ropes Course, Peruvian Chair, Tram Ride. I only was able to do the Zipline, and Alpine Slide before having to go set up the room, the DJ, and get ready to check people in. But still managed to have a good time!

Saturday, August 13th Evening- Was held at the Snowbird Lodge. We checked everyone in mingled a bit, had a dinner, and slide show of the past. There were displays, and history books, a table recognizing the deceased. About 90 people showed. It was a fun night!

My good friend Lex De Azevedo II, aka DJ Lex from B92.7 in Southern Utah came and DJ'd for our dance. He was amazing! He had every 80's song we requested AND played the music video from the 80's with it. It was so fun, and brought back many fond memories.

Pictures of the stragglers.....wish I was smart enough to get a pic of everyone there ALL at the same time. Oh well, lesson learned. These were most of my favorite people anyway!

Snowbird offered discounted rooms for $79, which was a deal! So nice, and so needed....

A picture from our balcony, after a much needed good nights rest.

Until another decade passes......

Can you guess what movie we saw last weekend?

My sweet little, Ay!

2nd Trip to New York!

I LOVE NEW YORK! Darren has been out of town quite a bit to Chicago twice, Tennessee, Vegas....seminar, after seminar this year. It has not been my favorite. He knows how much I love New York, so much that when he booked our first ever trip to Hawaii he sensed my sliver of disappointment that we were not going to New York! So happy when he scheduled this New York seminar, and let me come! Yay!

This although would be a trip we would not soon forget. Having been on so many flights Darren thought that he had it down to a science, and decided it was not necessary for us to leave our usual 1 1/2 hrs. before our flight. He said 1 hr. would be ample........well, needless to say, he was off by 1 minute, resulting in us missing our flight. We were able to get on a flight 4 hrs. later, by luck but had a layover in Washington D.C. for another 2 hrs. Finally arriving in N.Y.C. at 9:00 that night.

Exhausted and spent we took a 1 hr. cab ride to our hotel the New Yorker, only to find out we did not have a reservation! Deciding I would come at such late notice Darren forgot to book the hotel the one extra day we wanted for sightseeing! We spent a good while at the reception desk to see if they could fit us in, or find us a room in their sister hotels. With no such luck! They eventually sent us on our merry way with a list of 125 nearby hotels we could try to call on our own. Did not know we were there on such an important weekend! Every decent hotel was booked, now was not the time to be picky...we gambled and found a little diamond in the rough about 2 mi. away. The next day we woke early dropped off our bags at the New Yorker where we would be the remainder of our stay and went and rode bikes through Central Park!

After doing the 6 mi. loop, we went around again and stopped to see all the sights. The Central Park Zoo, the Guggenheim Museum was closed (dang!) and spent the rest of the day at the Metropolitan Museum. It was the BEST day ever! Alexander McQueen was there, sooo cool!

That night we went and saw "Rock of Ages" a musical with all the hair band songs. Poison, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Foreigner 4, Journey...the play was silly, but the songs were great!

After our fun day, we headed back to our 4 star hotel and crashed.....and woke up the next morning to this on my pillow:

BED BUGS!!

You heard that right. After much panic and standing in the middle of the room with my hands in my pockets afraid to touch anything else....they finally sent up a management team and inspected my room. Turning the room upside down, tearing apart the mattress, they found NO CULPRITS! But, pleased me anyway by getting me another room, 9 floors away, and on the opposite side of the building.

Darren had his seminar that morning, and my day was busy switching rooms, and packing back up. It was the hottest day recorded in New York history at 108 up to 115 with the humidity. So, I was not ready to venture out on my own anyway.

We had tickets to a Yankee's game that night, and after many warnings by the media, and hearing about others changing their plans......we decided to go anyway. We hopped on to the

F-train for the 45 minute ride to Yankee stadium.

Not the picture you want to see for a 45 minute Subway ride, on the hottest day of the year.

Yankee's beat the Oakland A's 13-9.

The one last thing I wanted to do on this trip was to see the Book of Mormon Musical. I figured it was one that would never come to Utah, thought we might never be out here again, and I wanted to see what the world was learning about us through this musical. We looked for tickets and they were saying they were SOLD OUT until October. There was 2 ways to get tickets....either through a lottery, or go 2 hrs before the show and attempt to get "standing room only." Darren said "when there's a will, there's other ways" so he got onto Stub Hub and found two somewhat reasonable priced tickets. Darren had his seminar again that day, so I spent the day shopping. The play started at 8:00, and we couldn't pick the tickets up until 6:00pm. We arrived just in time to pick the tickets up, and......they couldn't find them.....they didn't have record of them. After much searching they finally handed over to us 2 tickets. Relieved we headed to dinner, and rushed to the play. We stood in line for about 20 minutes. got up to the door and what do you know? Our tickets wouldn't scan! Looking closer....our tickets were for the 2:00pm show, and not the 8:00pm. Are you kidding me?

Devastated, I didn't want to leave. Darren tried to go and smooth talk the box office, the back stage hands, the ushers....it wasn't working. It usually does, but not this time. Not even room enough for two more bodies in "standing room only" The doors were about to close and we see this gentleman talking with about 3 other people, that one of the ushers had pointed out to me. He was a concierge. And he was selling the last two tickets. The other 3 people talking with him he said, he felt were dishonest. So he said he would sell the tickets to us. They were the owner of the playhouse's tickets. The people he had given the tickets to could not make it, and so it was his job to get them sold! He needed cash, and we did not have enough on hand, the show was about to start and he said, "just go....we'll square up after the show." I couldn't believe it.

So with seconds to spare, we head in the doors to the 3RD ROW AISLE SEATS. 3 seats away from Kathryn Heigl, her husband and her mom. and 3 ROWS ahead of the villain in the Spy Kid's Movies. (Cannot remember his name.) Crazy, amazing. We were able to see the show, a little bit of stress, and a pretty penny later. I am glad I saw it. It had more moments of greatness, than moments of absolute disgust. For me, I had to see what others are learning about us, and have to say there were some times I was pleasantly surprised, and a couple thoroughly offended. And feel anyone with a belief in a God. Would have been offended at those times as well. I can't say I would recommend it, and would NOT see it again, but am glad that I did.

We headed out the next day feeling complete. It was in the end a successful trip. Feeling like we had done enough to not feel the need to ever come again. But why wouldn't we? New York is great....BOTH times I have been able to come.

Cake Boss...wanna be's!

Believe it or not. Ayden and I spent an afternoon making this SpongeBob cake. Took about 2 hrs, and a dozen trips back and forth to the store, but we did it. And it actually turned out! This was Ayden's idea after a couple of episodes of Cake Boss. He originally wanted to surprise Darren for his birthday but time did not allow it. So we made this cake for one of his bestest friends. Ethan Giacalone. Fun....but never again!

4th of July in Bear Lake...

Our 4th of the July was spent in Bear Lake this year, and we had the best time ever! Darren had some family come down from Canada for a family reunion...people we met for the first time, people we haven't seen for years. Love adding faces to the names on our family tree!

Playing minute to win it games

Bear Lake is at the highest level we have ever seen! It was soooo cold, and soooo fun!

Darren and his super powers somehow managed to prance onto the tube after

Ayden's attempt to push him into the water.... Darren followed up with and his threats of "you better jump in yourself, before I get over there!" Ayden obeyed. Love this family.

Ended the weekend on a fun little hike through the Minnetonka Cave. Loved it, way more than

The Timpanogas. We love new traditions, and hope this is one that we'll keep.

San Diego...

My sweet cousin Andrew was getting married, and we decided to spend Memorial Day in San Diego. It was a quick 3 day trip, and so much we wanted to do!

We arrived Friday and wanted to go visit my friend Misty up in Newport Beach. She owns a quaint little restaurant right on the pier. Unfortunately she ended being tied up....one day I'll visit her in Cali!

So Darren and I decided to take a kayak trip in the pacific ocean. It was quite the adventure trying to get a kayak over 10-12 foot waves. Not going to lie, I was a bit nervous. But out of a group of 8, Darren and I were the only kayak that didn't capsize! Thank goodness!

Saturday was the wedding, and it was beautiful. Andrew and Amanda met at a job where they were both event planners. And boy do they do their job well! It was beautiful. Soooo beautiful, and so perfect. And they are a perfect couple. My brother has been lucky enough to live out in Cali for the last 10 years and he and Andrew have been the best of friends since. With a little prodding my brother said a few comments in honor of the groom, and entertained us all!

Sunday morning before we went home we toured the USS Midway, and got to talk to all the veterans from years passed who had served on it. They were happy to tell their stories, and we were happy we had the time to listen. It was a great trip!

Legacy Junior High Awards Night...

McKennah and Logan were both invited to the yearly Legacy Junior High Award's Night. Logan was being recognized for being on the Honor Roll for 4 terms, and McKennah was the one chosen out of a group of 250 for the Fine Arts Departmental Award for Theatre! Her favorite class, and favorite thing to do! She will miss Mrs. Land and Mr. Furch.



How lucky are we to be the parents of these two? So easy to love!

Easter 2011

It's been about 3 yrs since the last time the Easter Bunny came to our house. But came, he did...and hopefully made up for the years gone by. Had the Estoque side come over to celebrate. Homemade soups, soup bowls, and finger foods. YUM!

Searching for eggs!


And finally picking prizes out of the prize bucket!