2012 Dance Pictures

Our girls attend Julie Moffitt ballet school and they absolutely love it. Yesterday was their end of the year dance Luau party and they brought home dance pictures. Both Cambree and Calee look so stinkin' cute in their dance costumes. We are so lucky to have such cute girls! We are also so lucky to have them go to such an amazing dance school. I know I complain about how expensive it is, but is worth every penny. We send out a big thanks to our girls awesome dance teachers for everything they do for our girls.

Cambree's field trip to the Dinosaur Park

The 2nd grade got to take a field trip to the Ogden Dinosaur Park today and Cambree was really excited. Our kids have always loved the Dinosaur Park. It is one of their favorite places to go. The weather was perfect and I was able to spend my lunch hour and be with Cambree. Each child received a field guide with different dinosaurs that we were supposed to locate and answer certain questions about. When we were all done they were supposed to turn them into their teacher and get a prize. It was a lot of fun.

Solar Eclipse!

Last night from 6:30 to 7:30 we had a solar eclipse. We had the Hardees over for greek food and then we all hung out on the driveway where we could get a good view of the eclipse and start our sunday night driveway party a little early. We had a basketball game going on and the rest of us were trying to view the solar eclipse and not burn our eyeballs.

 This is what it looked like

 Calee and Emmy (It was not cold, but they thought they needed a blanket)

 Christy

This was a picture with my iphone that didn't quite work out

cute note from Cambree

I love finding notes like these around the house....

 Front

Back

playing frisbee with Calee

Calee has a thing for playing frisbee lately. Most of the time she doesn't get it anywhere near me when she throws it and then she yells, "go get it Dad!" It can be a real workout, but she is so cute and we have so much fun playing frisbee together.

Bountiful Temple

Our cousin Carlie received her mission call to to fukuoka Japan this month and we are so excited for her. She took out her endowment last night in the Bountiful temple and we were invited to attend. We dropped our kids off in Kaysville to spend the evening with their cousin Megan, and we had us a little date night. It has been awhile since we have done a session in the Bountiful temple, so we were excited. We arrived early and got to sit together in the chapel for awhile and it was so awesome. It was so peaceful and quiet. The Bountiful temple is one of our favorites. It was fun to be able to go through with Carlie for the first time. It is hard to explain to people why the temple is so amazing and why it is so important to us. I feel very blessed to have been married to Christy in the Salt Lake temple and be sealed to her and our children for time and all eternity. I can't even imagine not being sealed to them and having that comfort. I snapped a couple of pictures of the temple with my iphone: one when we first got there and it was still light out, the other one was as we were leaving and it was dark. On our way home we all stopped at In-N-Out burger in Centerville to eat. It was a very fun and very relaxing night for Christy and I. It was just what we needed. We are so happy for Carlie and the decisions she has made in her life and look forward to her serving in Japan and how awesome that is going to be for her.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Carter's 4th grade class is doing the play "A Midsummer Night's dream" by shakespeare. Carter was very excited to be chosen to play Peter Quince. He has been practicing his lines at home each night. Yesterday was their first performance and I was able to attend. Carter came down to talk to me before it started and he was sweating like crazy and telling me how nervous he was about remembering all of his lines. I gave him a hug and told him he would do great. I was really proud of him. He remembered all of his lines and delivered them perfectly. We are so proud of him and how well he has done in school this year. We were lucky to have Mrs. Stratford and Mrs. Allen for his teachers. They are so awesome and have made it such a fun year for Carter and the rest of his class.

Summer Driveway Parties

Summer is finally here and that means it is time for our nightly summer driveway parties. Everyone is invited. Sometimes it is just Christy and I & our friends Bryce and Amanda. Other nights we get quite the crowd of friends and neighbors. Most nights Bryce and I play basketball against Carter and his friends while everyone watches. After our basketball and the kids have gone to bed, us adults sit out in our chairs, eat treats, drink  pop, and just have a good time. Last night we had the fire out and we had fun just talking and making each other laugh. We love this time of year!

If you can dream it, you can dance it!

This last weekend was full of dance rehearsals and dance performances for our girls. Cambree and Calee both take dance at Julie Moffitt ballet school and they love it. They have been dancing all year and working so hard on their performances. This year the theme of the spring dance recital was, "If you can dream it, you can dance it!" and it was held at the Peery Egyptian theatre in downtown Ogden. It has been a year long process of dance lessons, performance days, fundraisers, costume fittings, rehearsals, and lots of money, but it was all worth it Saturday as we got to watch both of our girls perform. We were so proud of them. They both were so confident and performed their dances flawlessly. They were both so excited to get trophys at the end and we bought them purple roses to give to them, which they thought was great. I think Calee told everyone she saw at church on sunday that she danced and got a trophy and roses. It was really cute!

 Calee getting her hair curled Saturday morning

Golf Season!

Carter has golfed since he was little, but this year he has decided he wants to take it more seriously. We signed him up for golf lessons this summer and he couldn't be happier. He is in the same group as his friend Will, and he we got to meet his instructors and some of the Weber High golf team coaches. Carter now has a new goal to be on the golf team some day. Especially after hearing that they get out of school early to go golfing and that he can earn a scholarship. Carter begs to go to Toads and hit buckets of balls whenever we get the chance. I am so proud of him for the little athlete that he is and that he has already developed a love for the game of golf. He already has such a good little swing and can hit the ball pretty far. We are pretty excited for a weekend full of camping and golfing up at Round Valley this memorial weekend.

Our Nissan Armada

We have been contemplating selling our Nissan Armada and getting something else, like a smaller SUV or even a crossover. Something that gets better gas mileage. We even put it up for sale on KSL and had lots of calls. Finally, we had a couple from Sandy want to buy it and Christy and I just couldn't do it. The more we talked about it, the more we realized we absolutely love our Armada and we had to tell them we couldn't sell it to them. The other night after I washed it, we were sitting on the driveway hanging out and I took this picture with my iphone. I was amazed at how cool this picture turned out.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Monday was Natalie's birthday, and she had to spend it up in the ICU at Mckay. Our kids miss their Aunt Natalie and wanted to do something special for her so we came up with the idea to take some fun pictures that we could frame and take up to her along with some presents and balloons. These are the pictures that we took. We were able to see Natalie and talk to her for a minute. She is doing so much better, but she still has a long road ahead of her. We just keep hoping and praying that she will continue to get better and be able to come home soon!

Golf Ball Hunting

Our kids have been spending a lot of time lately over with Charles and Carrie Crosbie and their two boys, Taylor and Noah. They live right along the edge of Ben Lomond golf course and our kids love to go golf ball hunting. They also have a little business going selling cold pop and golf balls to the golfers on the 13th hole. The other night we had a pretty successful golf ball hunt. I think we found about 20 golf balls. Calee found a cool pink one on her own that she was pretty proud of. It gets us excited for Memorial Weekend up at Round Valley and golf ball hunting.

The never-ending backyard project

We have been working on our back-yard for a few years now, trying to get it just how we want it. First we had to have some of our lawn dug out, then we put in a castle-brick retaining wall. Next was getting our trampoline enclosure in the ground just right. Finally, putting down weed barrier and certified playground chips. This is a picture I took the other night. We are pretty proud of how it has all turned out. Our kids love it.

Friday Lunch Dates

I look forward to my lunch date each friday with Christy and Calee. Usually it is a hot dog or pizza from Costco. It is always fun to break away from work and spend some time with two of my favorite girls in the whole world. I took these pictures with my iphone after putting Calee in the car. She looked so cute in her blue outfit and blue sunglasses.