Home Sweet Home

It was sooo nice being in Denver in the middle of the summer! For pioneer day weekend my sisters and I took a few days off work and headed home just for a summertime visit. I hadn't been home for over a year and a half, so this trip was long over due. It was so fun being around the babies and just chatting and spending time with each of my siblings. The weather was perfect! I took a bike ride on my favorite creek trail, went on a jog to the reservoir, ate dinner with a good friend on the outdoor patio during a rain storm, and went to the park with almost all of my siblings. We had a family BBQ on the back porch and spent some time just playing outside, in the water, on the tramp, and with the neighborhood kids. I got to see Trisha (dinner in the rain), and Margaret who I had a really good catch up on our lives and reminisce about awesome memories together for a good long while, and I got to visit Laura and her newborn baby Ezra.

One night was spent looking through old photo albums seeing how similar Jess and Sophia look and catching glimpses of Jacob in Sarah as a baby. Claire became so jealous of the awesome birthday cakes mom made us as kids and feels totally jipped with her year after year plain old rectangular cakes. Ha! My favorite night was the BBQ on the porch and then our big kids only outing to see Eclipse together. Great movie! I'd already seen it, but it was still worth it on the 2nd go round. Then Joe and I went and played volleyball for 2 hours straight on indoor sand courts. It was awesome! I obviously was sooo sore at the end, but it was a good sore and so much fun. I miss playing sports. That needs to be a new years resolution.



There were a few good laughs as always with Emily and her naive-ness about the male anatomy (she's 16 for cryin out loud!). And we had a good time one morning jamming to rock band together. Joe sang an amazing solo in church on Sunday, Hollow of Thy Hand, and I'm sooo glad I was finally there to hear him sing. Mom took me to my first acupuncture experience and it definitely w as an experience. Totally different then anything else I've done; hopefully it helps cleanse/eliminate bad stuff from my body. And how can I forget the puppet show! The little girls and grandma put on 3 puppet shows each out of puppets they made themselves. It was way cute but a lot longer then I expected for an 11yr old, 8yr old, and 5yr old puppet show. ha! It was nice seeing grandma and grandpa and the kitties. I think that is just about everything eventful from the trip and I'm so grateful my dad was able to pay my way and let me come home and visit. I so miss summers in the Rockies. I love going home in the summertime!

Beating the Heat

My poor Lily has been trapped indoors so much lately with this crazy heat spell. It's been over 110 degrees for quite a few days now, which means really closer to the ground and asphalt it's more like 120. So thankfully she can visit her best buddies Sadie and Roxy at my in-laws house usually once a week and then occasionally I take her over to the Starleys because Cael loves to see her. And so they have this pond in their back yard that she recently discovered and had a good-ole-time in there while we stood there and baked. She loves the water! :)

4th of July

Travis had to work/school in the ER this 4th of July so I spent it with his family lighting off fireworks on the street. Brighton definitely brings the kid out in all of us. Lily of course was not a fan and went running to the front door to get away from it all. Later when we went home, she hid out in the laundry room most of the night. Poor Lil...

The Mortal Instruments

I recently finished The Mortal Instruments 3 book series, aka "City of" series, by Cassandra Clare. I definitely recommend it for being fast paced, action packed, and for its surprising twists. It has a good amount of love drama, comparable to Hunger Games; not too much but almost not enough drama. The action packed fantasy side of it reminds me of a mix between Twilight and Harry Potter. For those of you that know nothing about it, it's about a girl that gets introduced to the ShadowHunter world- shadowhunter: humans with powers from angels to protect regular humans from the ever pressing demon attacks. Within the shadowhunter world are warlocks, vampires, werewolves and fairies which all play their part in the story. I think I like these types of books because they are written as if this kind of life could really exist right now, but it's hidden from the normal human eye (comparable to Harry Potter and Twilight). I like them because it's interesting to see things from a different perspective; it gets the creative, imaginative juices following and its just refreshing. So great read, definitely recommend it.

Striper Boil

On a random Wednesday night, we headed out to Lake Mead with Nick to find the striper boils. It was super hot out so as soon as we slowed down I jumped in and just enjoyed the perfect water. Once I got settled back in the boat we found the boils not too far away. We took off and ended up in the middle of a boil! There were fish jumping out of the water everywhere!! It was the most exciting fishing I've ever done in my life. Nick and I caught the first fish of the evening at about the same time and same huge size. It was a blast! They boiled for about an hour and we caught about 10 all together. Travis squeezed in an awesome ski run right before sundown as well. Then Mindy, Cael, John and his son Nick meet up with us to night fish. It was a pretty slow night fishing evening, but fun to be out with everyone.

It's hard to see the boil in the video but if you listen you can hear all the splashing around. Mindy just happened to call Nick right when Travis was videoing. :P

A Brown Visit

Jocie & Scott Brown passed through town one weekend last month and I just couldn't let a blog post go by without mentioning it. Jocie & I spent the afternoon chatting away while Scott & Travis to naps. Travis seemed to be extra energetic when he woke up so he was the main idea suggester for the evening. Sushi was a pre-determined dinner so we headed off to an all you can eat. It was so fun tasting everything and laughing away with them. There are just some people you can laugh with a lot and they're one of them; and it helps that Jocie bounces when she giggles. ha! Then we headed to the strip first stopping by the Coyote Ugly Bar to find out it costs $ to get in and then to the Toby Keith Bar, which was free but no bull riding :( That was our main purpose for going there since the music is so loud that you can't really enjoy being there. The detours we took to get around the strip traffic were entertaining in and of themselves. We couldn't help but laugh at all the different and weird people walking around. It was a great evening and definitely went by way too fast!