Mini Makeover

This past weekend, we hung up some curtains in our family room and kitchen.  I have been wanting to forever, and when my mom asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said curtains!  I knew I wanted orange in our family room.  Not burnt orange, bright orange.  That was pretty hard to find.  I finally found some on Ikea's website, but unfortunately, you can't order much from their website.  My sister-in-law's friend works at Ikea in SLC, so she pulled a favor for me and had her friend purchase the curtains and mail them to me.  I love them.

Before.  Very boring plain, uncolorful wall.

After!  Color!  It really makes the room look bigger, more lived in, and finished.

The kitchen has a sliding glass door to the back yard.  The previous owners had put vertical blinds and a redish window treatment above.  I HATE vertical blinds.  They are the biggest pain in the world, and unattractive.  So, we finally took down the ugly window treatments and put up our own!

Before.  Ugly to the max.

After!  Cute green curtains.  Functional and pretty.  Luckily these were easily purchased at Pier 1.  I love the pattern.  Here is a close up.

Thanks Mom for such a great birthday present.  It makes me smile every time I walk into these rooms! 

Good friends

For my birthday, my friend Rachel organized a trip to a pottery studio with our friends.  I got to choose the colors, and everyone designed and decorated a dessert plate for me.  I love them so much.  I can't wait to use them!  Thanks Rachel!

My birthday

I turned the big 3-0 on 09/09/09.  I was still in my pjs at 9AM when my doorbell rang and it was my parents!  What a total surprise (glad I had cleaned my bathrooms the day before!).  Haley and Maya were thrilled to find grandma and grandpa when they got home from school.  My mom took me shopping (thanks!) and then everyone went out to dinner to celebrate.  We came home and ate a big chocolate cake from Costco.  My parents were able to stay until Saturday morning and we were all so sad when they left.  Thanks for the great birthday guys! 

I'm in trouble

He moved the chair over and climbed up all by himself.  Oh dear.

First and last camping trip of the year

We went camping in Rocky Mountain National Park this past weekend.  This year we got a spot inside the park, in the Moraine Park area.  It was very wooded and pretty.  There were rocks to climb right by our site, which the girls had lots of fun on.  Caleb thought he could climb them and succeeded in falling and eating a lot of dirt.  We got there and started setting up the tent, which had last been used by the young women of our ward at Girls Camp.  They broke a pole and didn't tell us.  So, the tent took about an hour longer to set up than anticipated.  We finally got camp set up and started cooking dinner.  Hot dogs, the best camping dinner ever.  We of course concluded the meal with s'mores.  The kids were exhausted by this time and actually asked to go to bed.  Mike and I went to bed not much later.  Everyone slept except me.  Why do we ALWAYS camp right next to the group that brings enough beer to stay up all night drinking and laughing?  I need to bring ear plugs.  Caleb woke up at 3ish, tossed and turned with us until about 5 and then was up for good.  Then we were ready for a day of hiking!

After we took down camp, we hiked around Sprague Lake.  It was a very easy 1 mileish flat walk.  However, the children were cranky as all get out.

The girls found some more rocks to climb on around the lake.  Maya insisted on wearing Mike's hat.   

Caleb pointing at the water and quack quacks.

The whole family at Sprague Lake.

Then we went to Estes Park and had ice cream at Hayley's ice cream, which is a tradition.  Next stop was the Wild Basin area of Rocky Mountain National Park.  This area is more secluded and less used, it was a one way dirt road in.  We planned to do a .6 mile round trip waterfall hike.  But when we got to the entrance, the ranger told us the parking lot was full and we would have to park in a farther parking lot and walk 1 mile to the trail head.  Umm, yeah, that wasn't going to work.  So, we drove on and lucked out finding a parking spot about 1/4 mile from the trail head.  We hiked to the waterfall and back (with much complaining and carrying on - I made sure to point out to Mike that no one else had children as young as ours).  We ate our picnic lunch and headed home.  We arrived home at about 4PM.  Everyone took showers/baths and didn't have much energy to get up off the couch.  It was fairly miserable, but I guess I can do it once a year.  Soon, the kids will get older and enjoy it more (but for just about a year before they get to be teenagers and start complaining again).

Preschool Again!

Today was Maya's first day of her second year of preschool.  She has been counting down the days (me too!).  She loves her teacher and is excited to make new friends.  

I think that smiles says she knows it is going to be a good year.

10 years

Today is our 10 year anniversary.  Wow.  Can't believe it has been that long.  We were just babies when we got married.  Mike and I were just laughing today about some of the strange choices we made for our wedding.  First of all, it was on a Thursday, strange.  Second of all, our sealing was at like 9AM and then the reception was at 7PMish.  We had all types of time between the events.  Very strange.  I have no idea why I thought we had to get married first thing in the morning.  Another strange thing, I was totally not concerned about any of the girly things, like getting my hair, makeup, nails, etc... done.  Also, I went to a couple dumpy dress shops in Provo and chose one of the first dresses I tried on.  I guess I was blinded by love?  Whatever.  The important thing - getting married to Mike - was the best decision I ever made.

Minutes after we were sealed.

Several days later at an open house at Mike's parents' house.

Love ya babe.