Months in Review

So, I realize it's been a long long time since I've updated our blog. Things have been crazy busy and I have been a slacker with taking pictures. So I'll just breifly update the last couple of months for you.

May:
The end of May I had the chance to be one of the lucky ones who got to go to Taylor Swift's Fearless concert! My wonderful husband gave me a ticket for Mother's Day and I was so excited!



I went with Sami, Natasha, Hollie, Nicholas, and his frined! We had so much fun! All I have to say is WOW!! Taylor sure does know how to put on a good concert. She was very intertaining with all her different costumes, dancers, and props! She had a ton of audiance interaction by going into the audiance and singing, giving hugs and hand shakes! She shared a lot of things to make you think about your life, the things your going through and that your not going through them alone, how important it is to be fearless and to knock the walls down that are holding you back from the things you want to get to in your life and not let the walls of things going on in the world hold you back! She is an amazing person who a lot of people look up to and I now can see why they do. I only hope she stays her cute fun self and doesn't turn crazy like most teen hits!! Thanks for a gread night Girls and again, for the ticket babe!!







June:
The beginning of June Nate and I went with my family to Cedar City for the weekend. Lexi's gymnastics team competed in the Utah Summer Games down there. While we were there we went swimming quite a bit, went to an outlet mall in St. George, ate at In-N-Out, played games and went to the meet. We didn't do a whole lot but it was nice to get away for a little bit and hang out with family.

Nate and I

In-N-Out Hats!!

Jason and Lexi at the pool

Hands Up

Stands Up

Lexi practicing her dismount off the side of the pool

Lexi's team after marching in in the black and white Leo's

Lexi running to the valt

Lexi on the beam

Lexi jumping to the high bar

Lexi doing her floor routine

Awards Ceremony-Lexi got 4th for this event!



We also celebrated Father's Day with the Wonderful men in our lives and did a lot of yard work.

July:
More yard work

the 14- the grass was delivered!!

the 15- the curbing guy came and did our curbing and quite a few awesome men came over and helped us lay our sod!!!!



Celebrated the 4th and 24th with our families. On the 4th Nate and I went to his Grandparents with their entire family and had lunch and a little water fight then that night Nate and I and his family all went over to my families and had dinner and did fireworks.

the 24th- the other side of Nate's family has a breakfast up in the canyons complete with pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs, baccon, sausage and juice! It was so yummy. I also was introduced to a super fun game called MasterMind!! Then that night after doing some finishing touches on our yard we went to dinner with his family and went and saw The Proposal.

On the morning of the 25th, before starting on the sprinkler adventure with my dad we went to our neighbors and had a dutch oven breakfast burrito breakfast! It was delicious!!!

On Sunday the 26th we had both of our families and all of our grandparents over for dinner in celebration of completing our yard!! It was nice to get together with everyone and not have to worry about the yard.

August:
The first of August we Celebrated my dad's Birthday by going to Leatherbys, our families favorite place! Then we had his birthday dinner, cake and ice cream on Sunday.

This summer has also been full of many weddings. We had one in May and two in June. We were able to go to all three sealings and what a neat expereince they all were! I love being in the temple with my family and friends. All the weddings were beautiful and we are so happy for the new couples and wish them all the happiness in the world!

More yard work

I'm starting to catch on to the idea that you are never done with house or yard work! Luckily this time it wasn't ours! My parents were getting huge dead spots in their grass and after looking into it my dad found out that the previous owners of their home didn't lay the sprinklers like they should have. My dad ended up redoing part of their back yard and changed out all 57 sprinkler heads and a couple other things that I don't understand. Of course he decided to start that fun project on July 25, the day before we finished our own yard and of course Nate was over there all day helping him! They were able to get it all done in just over a week and just finished Monday!! We definitely owed it to my dad to have Nate help him with all the help he gave us on our yard but I was so glad when they were done!! It was just so much at once and I hope now that we are done with big stuff for a little bit.

I am pleased to Announce.....

WE HAVE A YARD!!!! After many many months and all kinds of weather (snow, rain, heat, wind) we finally finished our yard on July 26th!! I know, I know most of you are thinking to yourself "but Kristin you are really never done with yard work" and my response to that is, I will take planting flowers, weeding and straightening up the yard over all the work we have done up till now any day! There are still a couple things we need to finish up like adding a drip line to our bushes in the front and a couple little touch ups on the pond but those are "little things" that we can do here and there as we want to! We also need to plant some flowers but we are going to be waiting until next year to do that.

It felt like we had another full time job there for a little bit after about 4 weeks of 40 hour weeks in the yard alone! We couldn't have done it alone. Thank you so much to all of those who have helped us over the past 4 1/2 months and especially that last month or so! Thank your for helping with the cement, the deck, the sprinklers, and laying the sod! Thanks especially to my dad for all of his help with our darn sprinkler system and trenching in our amazing rocky soil!! We would not have been able to finish when we did without all of your help! Thanks also to our neighbors for your patience in our HUGE mess! Thanks Babe for all of your hard work! There were many nights he was out there working all by himself because I couldn't help him with what he was working on. I would do what I could to help but I usually just got in the way. Thank you for all of the time and effort you put into our yard to make it as nice as it is now!

We had some friends over for dinner last nigh and we were able to sit on our deck and relax and enjoy the sound of our pond for the first time! It was so nice...

I posted some pictures of our yard and hope you can enjoy them as much as we do! We're still working on getting the grass green and a couple other little things. Trying to get the grass green is a very long process especially when it's so hot!! Nate has done a great job at getting it to where it is now though!

THE BACK YARD




DECK


VEGGIE GARDEN (we planted a little late and didn't water like we should have at the beginning so it's not doing so great for the most part - our strawberries however are spreading pretty well! I can't wait to try for real next year!)


FOUNTAIN/POND


SHED


THE FRONT YARD

"Happy Birthday" to the BEST dad in the WORLD

I just wanted to take a minute and let everyone know why I have the best dad in the world! He is someone who is always there and very supportive of anything and everything our little hearts desire! He is a very hard working man - he works hard to support and provide for family things that we both need and want, he works hard at home fixing things both inside and out so he have a nice functioning home and yard, he also works so hard in his church callings! No matter what it is it's important in his eyes and he always gives them his all! He is wonderful at fixing things and if by some chance he isn't sure how to fix it he'll try and have someone show him but not after trying to teach himself first. He loves to learn new things! He is so knowledgeable of the gospel and is a great speaker so listening to him give a talk or F.H.E. lesson is always fun! He is a spiritual giant with an amazing testimony and he honors his priesthood so well! It was so nice while growing up to have that spirit of the priesthood in our home! I loved the new school year blessings we got every year! He has a lots of wisdom and things he learned while growing up that he loves to share to help make our lives better! He loves our mom and shows it so well. He always insisted that we show love and respect for her as well.



I really admire my dad. He didn't have the easiest life growing up. He was the youngest of 15 siblings, 6 of which didn't live longer than a month and he lost his dad at the age of 8. They didn't have much money and had his first job by the time he was 12 and has worked ever since. A good Christmas for him while growing up was when he got both socks and underwear! I am very blessed to say that while growing up we seemed to be okay. If there were tight times us as kids could never tell! My dad does a great job providing for us and we have always had wonderful Christmas'.

Thank you so much dad for all that you do for Nate and I as well as the rest of our family! You are so cute with Chloee! You treat her like a grandchild! Thank you for giving me your sweet tooth! Thank your for all of your love and your example. I love you so much and hope you had a wonderful Birthday because you deserve the BEST for being the BEST!!!