Pulling up to Grandma and Grandpa's house was exciting!  The yard was immaculate with beautiful flowers blooming everywhere, the grass freshly cut, raspberries ready to pick and the garden planted and growing.  Grandpa had built a slide just for the kids and had borrowed bikes for them to ride during their stay.  We had a great couple of days together before Shawn and I took off for Spain.  We celebrated Mom and Dad's wedding anniversary together as a family with a family concert and a BBQ.  Annie lost her front tooth the night before we left.  She was very excited to say the least!

Pitstop in Moab

On our way to Utah we decided to stop in Moab to meet Nana and the McIlnays .  We always cruise past Moab in a hurry to get to SLC.  It was nice to stop and enjoy the beautiful red rock and arches in Canyon Lands.  We also had a lot of fun swimming in the hotel pool and riding Uncle BJ's Razor.

Fun with Arizona cousins

The McIlnays stopped by on their way to Colorado to spend a couple of days with us.  We decided to announce the gender of our babies to Mom and Dad together over the webcam.  We tied pink and blue crate paper around our bellies and had them guess who was who standing up in front of the computer with only our middle sections showing.  They guessed right on- Tami pink, Cami-blue!  We spent a day together Jemes mountains rock climbing and wading in a stream with mountain cold water.  So great to be in the beautiful mountains spending quality time with such fun family!

We had an incredible summer this year!  The month of June was busy with swimming lessons every day, catching lizards in the backyard, slippin' and slidin', and spending as much time as we could at the park on on our bikes.

Desert Crepes

For date night a couple of weeks ago we went to a French restaurant with some friends and had these amazing desert crepes. We decided to give our kids a chance to try it out the following night for our Family Home Evening desert. They are crepes filled with Nutella and ice cream. Yum!!

Halloween took a medieval theme this year. With Ethan deciding to be a knight in shining armor and Annie as Princess Rupunzel

Birthdays of 2011

This post collaborates our families birthdays for 2011. Richard's cake was inspired by his first word "cookie". It still to this day remains his favorite word to say. Ethan's birthday had some force with Star Wars as his theme. Earlier in the day we shared cupcakes with his preschool class at the park. Annie had an early birthday celebration before Shawn left for Paraguay. Her request was to go camping, so we stuck a candle in her smore. Her actual birthday was a fun day also wearing a birthday necklace to school. Shawn wanted to spend his birthday in the mountains, so thats when we decided to take our back packing trip together. (FUN!) As for Mama... her only request was a delicious chocolate chocolate chocolate cake. Her wish came true!!