A new playlist courtesy of Kyler

To help keep our family pumped about our upcoming Disney Cruise and trip to WDW, Kyler compiled my newest playlist. I edited it down to a more manageable number, but I must admit listening to the music certainly excites me. We're all anxiously counting down the days until Sept. 23rd when we get ready to set sail with Captain Mickey! A BIG thanks to my favorite 11 year old kiddo for keeping us all excited and psyched about our upcoming trip, even if I don't know much about the newest Disney break-out stars like Demi, Selena, Jo-Bro's or Miss Montana (i.e. Miley) I'll still be thrilled to see all of their impersonators and I might even find myself singing along to a little Highschool Musical.

A July heatwave in Utah. It all turned out great!

Sloths, giraffes, tigers and bears. Sharks, and eels, and mantas were there. Saturn and Mars, the list just goes on. A movie about BUGS, and how they abound. Of course there was food, and plenty of it. How could there not be ~ when talking about this family? We had buffets, and picnics, Lion House pie, an even a BBQ cooked by a great guy. The gardens at Thanksgiving Point were a definite treat, but something even more spectacular was a ride to the top of Snowbird's high peak. Up at the top, overlooking the valley, we even found snow in this 100 degree haven. What would our trip be without family reunions, and trying to get pictures to capture the moment. And of course, a true highlight was touring the new Mt. Oquirrh temple....a house dedicated to the Lord here on the earth. It was a blessing to see and a very holy place to be. A week went by quickly, but we managed to do tons. Thanks to our families for helping this dream become another reality.

My family at the Mt. Oquirrh Temple

This is a spectacular place to be and see!
It was a true blessing to be able to tour the inside of this temple before it was dedicated.

Uncle Brooks with his baby, Bailey!

Mireesa and I were finally able to get together and hang out for a while. It's been way to long since we were able to catch up in person.

Another treat was having a family picnic with Kevin's side on Sunday.

Our kids loved catching up with all the cousins they hadn't seen in a while.

We had a nice visit at Kevin's mom's house before going over to the picnic.

Family Picture time....1st up are Allyn and Jillee

Kyler & Hannah

Hailey, Jordan & Dave

My sister Kelcee and brother Brooks.

The Ehrhart siblings.
Travis, Jillee, Brooks, Tami, & Kelcee

The Ehrhart/ Scott grandkids

My Aunt Nancy flew out from Florida. It's been years since I've seen her, and my kids adored her.

Kyler at one of the beautiful pools.

The Scott boys walking the gardens.

Gramma and Caleb

Jordan found all the good smelling plants and herbs and made sure my Aunt Nancy got a good whiff of all of them.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens.
This is a gorgeous place to visit if you've never been here.

Uncle Brooks got in on the action of helping create a dinosaur mountain.

We seem to hit the Museum of Ancient Life almost every time we go back to Utah. It's one of Caleb's favorites.

Mom with a few of her grandkids.

The top of Snowbird.
In a couple months this will be a skiers paradise.

My incredible parents....Thanks for another wonderful trip full of so many memories!

Here's proof of the snow we found. Even in the July heatwave, there were small patches left on the mountain.

Jordan loved the rope towers taking you from level 2 to level 3 of the Museum.

Building and constructing towers and houses at one of the museums newer exhibits.

Navy Pier's Children's Museum had a water room, that was of course a highlight for my boys.

We finished off our trip at Navy Pier in Chicago. It was a great week, and another fantastic trip.

July 4th is a homerun!

Happy 4th of July!

For the Fourth of July we went to a Whitecaps Baseball Game. I couldn't think of anything more all-American then baseball, stadium food, and fireworks to cap off a winning night. The boys had a blast, and I got some good reading time in between the innings (oh, all right....let's be honest here....reading time happened during the innings,too!)

Kevin officially wins the Husband of the Year award since Kevin made me run back into the house and bring along my latest Jodi Picoult read. He knows me well enough that after 3 or 4 innings I'm ready for a change of scenery. This was the perfect distraction for me.

Entertainment was a riot. These puffed-up, blown-up mascots, complete with wiggling tails kept coming out to dance, fight, wiggle, and groove. They changed costumes quite a few times and go the whole crowd on their feet dancing and hollering.


This is the thanks I get for purchasing baseball tickets.
I'll gladly take the credit!
Kyler was a little peeved at Jordan for only getting his mouth in the photo, but I thought little Jord did just fine.

Another Jordan photo.
I stole the camera back after this one.
I like to be behind the lens, not front and center.

A little Chicken Dance and Dinosaur Dancing is always fun at a baseball game!
Sorry to the lady behind us who kept getting memorialized in our pictures.
She'll just be an extension of my family for the moment.

A night of memories!

Great game Whitecaps.
Thanks for a great night!

On to another Note:

I'm trying to figure out why I can't seem to bring myself to plug the Canon into the computer and download pictures. It only takes seconds (literally....today I counted to 5 and voila, picture download is complete!) I tend to psych myself out with anything that has to do with electronics. If an item requires me to push more than 2 buttons or if said item actually needs to be plugged into a wall in order to work, then obviously it will be too time consuming of a task for me to do. I tell myself I can't possibly find the time to sit to add another item to that long list of to-do's, but as with most things I proved myself wrong today. Here I am less than a minute later placing a check-mark next to item #1, and miracle of miracles, item #2 is about to be stamped DONE. I've officially blogged in the month of July. I'm on a roll today! DO you think this means I can now sit back, grab an icy diet coke, and relax the rest of the day! That sounds like a reward well deserved! 2 minutes of work = hours of nothing but bliss!

Happy Summer Days, all!

Time for a new Van

I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy a new van. Kevin will tell you I've been wanting one for quite some time, but truth be told I liked my other van just fine. What I haven't liked are the ever mounting repair bills! First the whole air bag system went down and so we replaced that, a couple weeks later the sliding door motor took a nose dive and stopped working. I'll just say I was shocked at how much a new motor was going to cost! While fixing that the mechanics discovered a leaking water pump which needed to be replaced, and to top it all off the transmission is starting to slip. When I go to put the car in reverse there's a loud popping noise and the car stays stuck for a few seconds before starting to move. Of course there were all the normal items too like replacing tires, fixing brakes, and overall maitenance. It's all money, money, money that never seems to end so for the past couple of weeks I've researched all I could online, visited a few car dealerships, got numerous price quotes, and finally settled on a van. We've been test driving it all weekend and tonight we'll go finish up the paperwork. All I can say is this time I need to remember extended warranty! Hopefully I won't need to visit a car repair shop again for quite a long time!

Am I really old enough for this?

These are pictures from Kyler's 5th grade graduation ceremony.
This is Jordan and his friend Sierra.
There always seems to be some girl who wants to hang out with my Jordy.

Kyler with his second 5th grade teacher of the year, Mrs. Pedersen.
He was lucky and had wonderful teachers in both of the schools he attended this year!

Yep, it's official.
Here's the paperwork to prove it!

I'm feeling kinda old this week....most likely stemming from the fact that I now have a MIDDLE SCHOOLER!! Man, how did that creep up so fast? The pre-teens have officially made an entrance into my household! Congratulations are in order for my oldest kidlet, Kyler. He's made it through elementary school with flying colors (quite an achievement considering he attended no less than 5 schools during his elementary school career!) And what kind of mom would I be if I didn't also mention my very favorite 2nd grader, Jordan! I'm looking forward to all the fun we'll have together this summer, but believe me when I say I've already got a BIG RED circle around Tuesday, September 8th. Quieter times are sure to ensue once school is in session again.

Happy Summer Vacation to all.