Busy Week

Wednesday:

Here are some photos from my grandparents 65th wedding anniversary party. We went to the Spring Chicken Inn in Wanship. Wanship is where my great great grandma was killed when lightning struck the tree she was sitting next to ... so sad.




While we were there, my cousin opened his mission call. He is going to one of my favorite places - Prague.

Thursday:

Our Elders Quorum street taco night social was a huge success. Thanks to Matt Sherry - see previous post. Over 110 people came.

Friday: More waterskiing. Grandpa let Kai drive the boat ... in circles.

And of course, we had a wonderful anniversary. Amethyst is the traditional six year stone, but turquoise will do in a pinch. Don't believe me - see http://marriage.about.com/cs/anniversaries/a/annivstones.htm

6 Years

Yesterday was our 6 year wedding anniversary. We had a nice day and enjoyed celebrating with a little boating last night. It was a beautiful and relaxing night.

On Wednesday we went to a dinner celebration for Lance's grandparents who were celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary. We are very fortunate to have great marriage examples like them on both sides of our family. Not something that is always common these days. At the dinner there was some reflection about special family memories and what makes a marriage work. This was a nice reminder as our own anniversary approached.

I am very grateful to have found and gotten to marry my best friend. I know I have been given a great gift. We have already have a nice little collection of our own family memories and I look forward to making more.

In honor of Matt Sherry

My friend Matt Sherry is quite the gourmet chef, and has created a blog essentially devoted to his exquisite creations. See http://mandjsherry.blogspot.com/. Reading his blog makes your mouth water. Note to be outdone, I would like to describe the palatable dinner I came up with tonight, described a la Matt.

I decided to make an italian meal for Kai. First, I had to choose the pasta. I decided to go with a delectable favorite of our house, macaroni. I was careful in the selection, choosing only the most supple noodles, sure to boil just right. Next came the choice of topping. The topping is key to creating a perfect italian plate. Of the many options, I chose to use a finely grated cheese, which may have come from France. Although Swiss and Provolone are good selections, I went with cheddar. I used only my finest wooden spoon in mixing the fromage with the noodles. As a side dish to complement the acquired taste of the noodles, I went with des fruit d'Albert (son's) including chopped pears, peaches and pinapples. And to wash it all down, milk from a free-range cow.

Here is a picture of the masterpiece.

For the advanced food connossieur, try dumping it on top of your head before eating it.

Father's Day Weekend

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful men in our lives.

Lance and I feel very fortunate to have fabulous fathers and grandfathers that have taught us many things. Our grandfathers have had many amazing life experiences that they have shared with us. We also both feel that we have very special Dad's. We know that we are very lucky.

It has been so much fun getting to see Lance now become a father himself. He and Kai have a very special bond which is so neat. Lance is a super Dad and for this I am also very grateful. Kai and I love him so much.

We had a nice Father's Day weekend. Yesterday we went boating with cousin Kennedy (and her family). We had a great time and Kai LOVED it even more this year. Lance's family has a boat, so this will hopefully just be the 1st trip of many this summer. Then today we also got to spend some time with family here. Hope my Dad and Whit had fun at the HUGE Del Mar Fair! Sorry we weren't there to join you. Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Friday Field trips

We really enjoy our neighborhood for several reasons- great location, fun people, some kids Kai's age, nice newish Church building, etc. But one of the other super cool things happens at summertime. Every Wednesday is a planned park outing to various local parks and every Friday there are field trips to various local places. Upcoming field trips are things like the fire station, a candy factory, bowling etc. Last year we mostly just did some of the parks, but this summer Kai I think we will make it to more now that Kai is a little older.

Today we were able to go on our first field trip of this summer which was to the Red Butte Gardens. I had never been there before and it was pretty neat. I believe this was the location of the Wise wedding festivities??? Anyway, this place is about 5 minutes from our house and is basically paths through beautiful gardens, fountains etc. There is even a special childrens garden area that has all sorts of neat things for kids to do. So, Kai and I enjoyed today's adventure. He is the one in the fountain pictures with no shirt on because he was enjoying the splashing too much. I didn't stop him considering a bank temperature sign that we drove by on the way home said 100 degrees. HOT times!

Swimming

Kai and his friend Amanda have been in a swim class the last 2 weeks. Today was the last class so I tried to snap a photo of the two before they got in. Amanda lives just down the street and is in nursery at Church and playgroup with Kai. She is about 3 weeks younger than him. It is fun to see them together because she is tiny and such a girl and well Kai is so tall and such a boy. They have a lot of fun together though and are so cute. These two also did a session of swim class together last summer so that is fun too. Amanda's Mom and Dad are our same age and she is also their first. Later in the summer Kai is going to try an older swim class with cousin Kennedy. We'll see how that goes. He gets so excited every time we go to swimming.

Birthday Time

This time of year is quite the birthday time for us. My Grandpa Evans birthday would have been at the beginning of this month, my Grandma Michael's birthday was Saturday, Kimberley's birthday was Sunday, and Lance's Grandma Flynn's birthday is in just a few days. It is also a busy birthday time for a bunch of my friends from High School. And I'm probably missing lots of other important ones as well. So Happy Birthday wishes to the June birthday people!

Wish I could have celebrated with Grandma Michael in person. We can't wait to see you next month!


And thanks for the super fun birthday celebration at the Bees game Kimberley!

The Myers and Painting

Yesterday Kai and I were invited to go to the zoo with our friends the Myers (minus Lance and their Dad who were at work). Their little girl Elsa is the one I watched while we were living in London. It is amazing to see how much she has grown up. She still has such a special place in my heart. She also has a brother now named Carter. We got season passes to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and have since been averaging about 1 trip a week. It is about 7 minutes from our house, it is clean, and it is a perfect size for us right now- big enough to have most of your major animals and cool exhibits, but small enough that it isn't overwhelming.

In other news we took on the adventure of painting/ touching up our garage this weekend. Last night we did a lot of scraping as you can see quite clearly in the first picture. The other picture was taken this morning after the first coat. We've still got some more work to do on it, but it already is looking much better. It is best to look at a distance though since it has seen many coats of uneven paint through the years.

Millcreek

Lance grew up with this fabulous canyon called Millcreek Canyon in his backyard- literally backyard. In fact, he even proposed to me at a super nice restaurant up this canyon. So anyway, we made our first official trip up there this weekend. It is just a few minutes from our house now too. We just took some sandwiches up and enjoyed a little walk and water time afterwards. Kai loves it as you can see.

Happy Birthday Uncle Tyler!

Happy Birthday to Uncle Tyler yesterday. Thanks for the fun at your party last night. Hope you had a good one!