Dave, this is for you...

I found this in my drafts, I guess I forgot to post it!

We went out to dinner to celebrate some accomplishments at work with a partner and his wife. Let me tell you, Derick about ate his weight in steak! He said it was by FAR the best steak he has ever had! 24 ounces of beef, a bowl of sauteed mushrooms and a bundle of asparagus later, he left ready to not eat for a week! I LOVED my chicken. Dave, someday you should go, but save up because it is all ala carte and EXPENSIVE!

Hanging out...

7 Years

On our anniversary this year the kids went to Derick's parents for the day so we could just hang out. We sent them off and didn't know what to do! We sat on the couch thinking, what do we always want to go and do when we have no kids? Umm, go to Wal Mart or Lowe's?? The temple would be nice, but they were all closed. Seriously we couldn't think of anything that wasn't horribly expensive or would take too long. So we decided to head to Boondock's. Neither of us had been there. We wanted to go to the go kart place that is like $25 each, but when you see where we went for dinner, we wanted to save a little money. So at Boondock's we did the go karts and then headed to the batting cages! We had a lot of fun! I chose the slow softball cage. I could hit them fine, EXCEPT WHEN IT WOULD THROW OUT 3 AT A TIME!! What is up with that! I was hitting one time and my glasses fell off, so I kicked them to the back of the cage. I was getting tired (my forearms) so Derick jumped in and I slipped out. Well, one of the balls hit my glasses on the ground and popped the lenses out. So that is the story behind the glasses! That cage was so messed up! It never did end up stopping. It just kept throwing out a single ball or three balls here and there! We just left it after 30 minutes or so. Derick tried the fast baseball, those ones cruise! He did hit them!

After the batting cages we headed up to Salt Lake and walked around to kill some time. Derick was curious what was going on with the construction on downtown, then we went over and walked around the Church History Museum. We took a quick drive through the cemetery to see President Hinkley's headstone. Finally we made our way back to downtown and had dinner at the Roof. We have gone there a couple times on previous anniversary's and are never disappointed! My favorite part is the 25 item gourmet dessert bar! Here is one of our 2 trips to the desserts! Derick had to test if this certain garnish was even edible because it looked so fake! Yep, it was chocolate!! My hands were shaking the whole time eating. Something about hitting at the batting cage made them shake for days!

I know it is expensive, but who doesn't love eating yummy food overlooking the top of the Salt Lake Temple! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for watching the kids, we really appreciated the break!

Happy Anniversary Derick!

Thank you Derick for being such a wonderful husband and dad!

Happy Anniversary and thanks for a great day today!
(if you were with us on our wedding day or with wedding preparations, post a comment about something you remember!)

Girls trip to Logan!

I ran my first 5k this weekend! It was so much fun! I am glad that the women in my ward do this. I am not much of a runner, but I am having fun getting into it now! We laughed, ran, sweat, ate, laughed, tried to sleep, laughed some more and had a great time! Here is the group- once I get others pictures I will put them up. Thanks for a fun trip everyone!

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes I know my birthday was back in July, but I never posted any pictures of my cake! My mom was just here for 2 weeks and one day we bought some of the famous pink cookies from the gas station. Those things are so good! Well, they were the inspiration for my cake! If you know me you know I LOVE LOVE LOVE sprinkles! So......Eat your heart out Granny B's!

SCROLL DOWN TO PLAY TUESDAY TRIVIA & WHAT ABOUT YOU!

Back in the day...

SCROLL DOWN TO PLAY TUESDAY TRIVIA!!

4th of July proposal...

Time to take a trip down memory lane! When Derick and I were dating, he decided he wanted to take a trip up to Alaska to meet my family and see where I was from! I was extremely excited, especially since he would be able to go to Seward for the 4th of July with us! If you aren't an Alaskan, then you probably don't know what or where Seward is. It is a little town of about 2,500 people. Glaciers, cruise ships, fishing charters, you name it! Well, on the 4th of July this little town turns into MADNESS! The population grows to close to 40,000 on the 4th! We have been going here since I was little.


Ok, back to my proposal story. We all go to Seward and camp on the 3rd and wake up for the festivities. The Mount Marathon is the main event. My little brother and I did the juniors race 3 times and it was HARD! Click HERE to see pictures of the mountain you run up! SO, there are a ton of people in the town, festivities going on and racers constantly crossing the finish line. As they come close to finishing, the announcers say their name and where they are from. These announcers also say what is going on when for the day. You can hear them pretty much ANYWHERE in the town!

So we are watching people finish the race and we hear over the speakers, "Derick P., we have something of yours at the announcers table, please come claim it." We look at each other wondering what in the world they are talking about and start running up there. Derick says, "Maybe it is my wallet." No, his wallet was in his pocket. I had no clue what was happening and finally we reach the table. When we get there, they give Derick a hand to pull him up on the table and hand him the microphone. WHAT?! What is going on?! Then he pulls me up there with him. Derick starts working the crowd, asking how everyone is doing today! He finally says, "I brought this young lady up here today to ask her to marry me!" My mouth drops open. He gets down on one knee, pulls out the ring and asks me to marry him! Don't forget this is in front of the whole town! People were crying, laughing, screaming, the whole works! I giggled and said yes, kind of. (Afterwards people told me I just sounded like I was giggling and wondered what I answered him.) We get down, take some pictures and start walking around again. People were stopping us right and left congratulating us! It was so much fun and perfect! Great job Derick and thanks to Amy for helping him set that up!!

Free Samples!

I was reading my friend Andria's blog and she was listing her five favorite websites, one of which was WalMart. I like WalMart I will admit, I like having one-stop shopping when I have a list of things I need and don't have a lot of time, but I haven't ever bought anything off their website. Well, she wasn't talking about buying things, she was talking about stuff for FREE! That is right, FREE! From their homepage click on "In Stores Now" towards the upper right, then click on "FREE Samples", then again on "Free Samples" on the left. (Or click this direct link) They have all kinds of items you can get samples of! So far I have received cereal, fiber, diapers, etc. She makes a good point saying these would be perfect for your 72 hour kits! You pick which product you want a sample of, enter your address, not email but mailing, and then just wait to see them in your mailbox! It has been fun I must say. Cheap, effortless entertainment for a stay-at-home-mom. I haven't received any junk mail from them either. SO, if you are bored, give it a try! It is fun to have these little packages show up in your mail!

Family Night at Jack & Jill's

Andrew was watching Reading Rainbow the other day (one of the really really old retro ones) where LeVar goes bowling. I think we were only watching it for 30 seconds that morning. Later when Derick got home from work he said, "Dad, let's go play with those big heavy balls that have holes for your fingers and hit the white things down." Pretty good description I would say for only seeing it for a second! We went to Jack & Jill's, a place that has been around for a really long time. Andrew was running around looking at all the different colors of bowling balls to pick his favorite. He and Derick had a lot of fun while me and Ashley sat and watched. To tell you the truth, I think Andrew had more fun finding things to climb on!

Here is Derick with his MAD bowling skills. Andrew was pretty cute pushing his ball down the ramp and watching it slowly make its way down. We tried just having him push it down, first he wanted to kick it, the next time he pushed it and it about stopped. Derick had to go give it a little jump start to make it down to the pins.

Me and Ashley were having fun taking pictures. Actually, Ashley kept getting startled every time someone would throw their ball and it would whack the floor.

Here is a cute video of the kids. This is when Andrew tried to roll the ball by himself and it couldn't hardly make it down. Then there is Ashley making a funny face while she is talking.

1st Digital Scrapbooking Layout!

I am still learning, but am pretty proud of myself for putting this together! Thank you Derick for the Mother's Day present!

Scout Expo

Since Derick has a calling in boy scouts, he had to work at the Scout Expo at Thanksgiving Point last saturday. I took the kids at the end of Derick's shift to walk around and let Andrew play. As you can tell, Andrew had fun! Right when we got there a Life Flight helicopter landed in the parking lot for the kids to go see! There were also tractors, tanks and boats out on display.

Next we let Andrew participate at one of the booths. They were learning about water safety. It was a race-he had to put on a life jacket, arm floaties and put the lifesaver around the cone. He about tied with the kid he was racing with, but then I was helping him! He got a medal for being a winner!

Next we took Andrew over to see the ambulance and firetruck that were parked there for the kids to see.

Here are some more pictures from walking around. Andrew wasn't scared of the owl mascot from the Owlz baseball team. I thought for sure he would be freaking out! The owl gave him 2 tickets to a game too!

Thankfully, Ashley just slept in the stroller for the majority of the time!