Memorial Day

Just a quick recap of our Memorial Day.....

We always, always start out the day with breakfast at Village Inn. Luke deemed it appropriate to wear his I'm Allergic to School shirt for the day. These boys are awfully excited to be out for the summer, the jury is still out for their mother. Today was rough.......I am not going to lie. I gotta work out some sort of summer schedule, or I may just lose my mind.

After breakfast we had originally planned on making the rounds to all of the cemeteries in the valley, since most of them have at least one family member of mine or Eric's. However like the rest of the state we are having water problems as well. Thankfully our pump is working great but because of the ground being so saturated it's having a little trouble keeping up with all that water. We only have a few minor puddles in our crawl space but our neighbors who were out of town for the weekend were having major problems. So Eric went over to get theirs under control so they didn't have a big giant mess when they got home to deal with. So it was just me and the kids for the day.

Ash and the kids came up and we made our way over to the cute little white house of Granny.

After visiting a while with Gran we headed over to the Hyde Park Cemetery where my Grandpa is buried, to pay our respects to him with our little Gran. Unfortunately the weather started in on us yet again and the rain made our visit nice and short before we got drenched.

Side note don't you just love my little Granny with her hair net on to keep the rain off her hair. Makes you smile doesn't it? That little hat will always remind me of my Gran, that and her visits to "the Walmarts" as she likes to call Walmart. That's Walmarts plural, and there is no telling her any different.

Luke refused to join us or get out the car.

You see he was sulking.

He got in a fight with a mouse trap at my Gran's house.

He lost the fight.

He wasn't hurt, but.....

The trap won his pants.

Need more of the story?

Gran uses traps that she fills with the stickiest crap you have ever seen.

Luke stepped in it, (his own fault), he was in a closet he shouldn't have been in.

His pants were plastered.

We couldn't get them free.

The pants and the trap went to the garbage.

Luke was without pants.

He was mad and sulking.

The rest of us got a good chuckle out of it.

Well everybody but me.

I was sulking too......because they were brand new pants.

Good story eh?

Everybody came to our house for a BBQ in the loosest since of the term. We went super easy, I was exhausted from our crazy busy weekend. We grilled hot dogs, bought some salads from the deli, chips and fruit. I didn't lift one finger for this dinner except to bake some brownies. That was it, and you know what it never tasted better.

Elle Bell, I just can't help it, she so's cute my camera just calls me to her.

The last half of the evening was spent with little jammied babies playing round after round of Candy Land. Elle won. Brevy won. Luke won. Lance did not win. Lance was not happy. Someone needs to learn how to be a better loser.

Thanks Ash for spending the day with us, we love our little Phongsavath's!

Greg + Amanda

Oh geez when I first met Eric his youngest brother was 7 years old.

Now that same little brother just got married on Saturday.

The last of the Smith boys.

Little Greg that used to sit on the tramp with me and tell me all the dirty little secrets of his oldest brother.

Can I say it makes me sad just a little, happy too because I just gained another great sister in law.

But sad cause I still think of Greg as little Greg.

Not big Greg, who now has a wife and a real grown up life.

Crazy how time flies!

Anywho it was a great day, really beautiful, the weather kinda cooperated, kinda. For Utah lately and our month long rain storm it seems we have had, I was just glad to see the sunshine out for a bit on Saturday.

They were married in the Bountiful temple, which was de ja vu for me seeing as how we were married in the same temple, in the very same room 8 and a half years ago. The grounds are lovely this time of year. I had big plans to get some great pictures while we were there.

Didn't really happen though.

Tired kids.

Grumpy baby.

And a mom that was quickly losing patience with that grumpy baby.

This is the best I got.

This boy was throwing major Kindergarten attitude, honestly it's like they reach school age and out comes the attitude.

The happy couple with baby Jacob.

Amanda looked like she stepped straight out of the 1920's, her dress was gorgeous, made by her grandmother, her hair, and that bright red lipstick. Lovely she made a very sweet bride.

This girl was a handful, she got maybe ten minutes of a nap all day long. Combined with a terrible cold and well she was a grump the majority of the day. Can't say as I really blame her, but still it was a long day with this munchkin.

Oh heck how cute are my kids, seriously?

This picture kills me, just kills me.....

The ties worked out beautifully I must admit, these little gentleman were melting me all evening. How handsome and grown up they looked.

These three pictures are my new favorites of my babies. Who would have known my inlaws wood pile would make such a great background for portraits?

It was off to the reception later that evening.

Don't you love her colors she chose? Sky blue and that lovely red orange, it was perfect for Spring.

Dapper little husband and a sweet little baby, that was being mildly happier.

Just don't laugh at the bow. I so know I am not pulling this look off. But I am not the bride and that is what she wanted us girls to wear in our hair. I would like to know why all of my sister in laws totally pull this look off flawlessly and why I look like a silly five year old playing dress up. I just don't understand it, just know the second pictures where done, out that bow came. I am obviously not a hair accessory type of person.

And for those like me that get a kick out of the little details, here's a few that made me happy!

Great day, a long day, we came home and died in our beds. We actually slept in all of us until 8:30 am on Sunday morning. That never happens in this household, Lance and Katelynn have built in alarm clocks, they wake up at 6:30 every morning on the dot. So appreciated that little gift the next day, it was much needed.

Congratulations Amanda and Greg, we sure do love you guys!

Les Mis

My favorite date night of the year.

Les Mis at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City.

Eric and I have a goal to at least make it to two plays a year.

It's one activity that we both totally love and eat up every second we are there.

Last Fall was The Lion King.

This Spring was Les Mis.

It was brilliant.

The music was amazing.

The atmosphere terrific.

My chocolate covered blueberries and caramel toffees were delicious.

And of course my company was perfect.

I wanted to go to Les Mis so bad, but it was only playing for ten days at the Capitol Theater, I had heard it was a nightmare trying to get tickets. So I didn't even bother hoping I would be lucky enough to get to go. One afternoon a few months ago right before the tickets officially went on sale Eric called me up. He had gotten an email saying they were offering tickets for sale an hour before they were released to returning customers. He snagged up 2 tickets right there on the spot and 2 hours later they had sold out!! Man do I feel lucky we got those tickets.

One more great thing about these tickets was that the only showings they had left were matinees starting at 2 pm. We live two hours away from SLC, a matinee sounded pretty much perfect allowing us to have dinner afterward and still get home at a decent time.

Poor Eric I tried to set the settings for him on the camera, obviously they were not quite right. Not the greatest picture of me but still proof....... I was there......at Les Mis!!

So we didn't get a picture of the two of us together besides this way cute reflection in a passing store window.

Cute, eh?

I have the biggest problem passing off my camera to strangers offering to take a picture of the two of us. I hate switching it over to auto. I hate that they never seem to zoom in close enough. I hate how they somehow always manage to get some random passerby in the photo. I hate lopped of heads. I hate seeing my little sweetheart in the arms of strangers.

I can't do it.

Call me a camera snob, it's true I probably am.

But I just can't do it.

So I don't.

I was going to have Eric's mom snap a picture when we dropped the kids off to them for the night. But we were running way late because we had Luke's Sound Beginnings program that morning and time just got away from us.

So short story long.......this is the only picture of us two, and I am okay with that.

Yup it was definitely wonderful and magical and I loved every second of it. Poor Eric it took me six months to get the "Circle of Life" out of my head and now it's been replaced with "I dreamed a dream". I keep singing it over and over and over again. Only problem is I only know four words.

So my version goes something like this "I dreamed a dream, I dreamed a dream, I dreamed a dream........I dreamed a dreammmmmmmmm.", nice huh. Eric loves it, he has always been blown away by my singing abilities........I am that good.

It ended at about 5 pm which left us plenty of time to wander the streets of Salt Lake trying to decide what sounded the best for dinner. We only have one other rule about our play nights. The rule is they must be followed by dinner at a restaurant that is new to the both of us. Last time we tried a fabulous German place, this time we finally tried somewhere we have been wanting to go to forever.

Market Street Grill.

I was so happy to see a lovely diet coke with lots of ice arrive at our table, it was just what I was needing.

The house salad was wonderful.

But of course Eric's clam chowder was delightful as well.

But this oh this was so good! Crab stuffed halibut. Basically a fresh piece of halibut, covered in crab cakes and bernadaise sauce. Oh man I wish I hadn't been such a pig and had saved some leftovers for myself...sounds so much better than the tomato sandwich I just had for lunch.

Sadly I was so excited to dive into my food, I forgot to get a picture of Eric's teriyaki mahi mahi. It was darn good too.

We ended the night with a shortcake meant for two, it was scrumptious.

Oh there's Eric, see I promise he really was my date!

Gosh it was a perfect evening, I didn't even mind the long drive home. It is sometimes so fun to have two uninterrupted hours in the car to chat about life. Eric's a good sport he puts up with a lot of my silly ramblings. He totally humors me when I spend 30 minutes discussing which pair of shoes goes best with my new red dress for his brothers wedding tomorow. But for the record I am still undecided about the shoes. Hmm.....maybe I should take some pictures to post on here and let you sweet friends decide for me?

Have a happy Memorial Day weekend!!