Ah Dang...

I broke my two month streak. :/ Oh well, at least I am here... Let's see, what has happened since March. Busy season happened like it always does. Then its my birthday and then its time to play and enjoy summer and do lots of projects. Where to start.... Eden and I went to Lake Powell last week with my family and had a blast. That is her and Harvey on a tube right (with Kylee, Amy and myself of course!) Everyone was reminiscing this year about all of the years we've spent at Lake Powell. It really has been such a great thing to bring us all together. I cherish all of my memories at Powell. It had been a few years since I have skied and it took me a few runs to wear off the rust. I am still rusty. It is going to take going skiing more than once every few years to get any better. It was fun though, I just wish I could go more often. It is just so beautiful there! I love laying out under the stars at night. This year we had a bat that wanted to hang around and kept flying over us while we were laying outside talking at night. Missy was there for the first part then she had to leave to go to girls camp and then Kylee came out. Amy and I were there the whole time as well as Jace. Josh was the only sibling that wasn't able to make it. So we had a good crowd with everyone and all the kids. It will be one sad day when my parents no longer have a share in a houseboat. :( I don't know what we'll do. I would be sad to not ever get to go.  Seth stayed home with Ariana and they had daddy-daughter days full of fun.
They went to the zoo and to the Disney store. Dad bought Ari a doll (Izzy) from her latest favorite show Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
She was pretty stoked about that. They also went to the park everyday and just enjoyed life together. He is a good daddy and Ariana just loves her dad. That was Seth's anniversary gift to me, letting me go to Lake Powell.  He surprised me by taking work off so I could go. It was a very sweet gift, one of the best ones I ever gotten.

That week before we left, Seth had taken off the whole week, so we went bowling on Monday and had a great time. Ariana was hard to beat with her handy ball roller thing. She had a blast her first time bowling! We went out for pizza at the Pizza Factory afterwards. It was a fun little activity.


We hit the one-year mark of Michelle's passing and so she has been in my thoughts lately. It is crazy how life trudges on and how abruptly things can change. Still miss her. My cousin Denise lost her husband Kent unexpectedly this month after he had a neck surgery. We changed our Lake Powell plans so that we could attend the funeral services. Another reminder that we should not take the people in our lives for granted as they could be called home at any point. My heart breaks for her and her children. :(

My birthday was fun because Melissa had a performance at the Tabernacle and so Kylee and Jon came down. So our two little families got together for lunch at the Nauvoo Cafe (yummo!) and then I came back later that evening to watch Missy perform. She did a great job. She had a little solo in one of the songs. She is basically amazing.

In May my work invited me to a BDO work conference in Vegas, so I went and stayed for two nights. Seth did double-duty with both girls at home. He is super dad! They did great and everyone survived. It was fun to be with all the ladies at work, but it was fun to also come home to my sweet little family. We also went down to St. George for a weekend and got to hear Melissa play in her new band. They had a little performance at her home and it was just delightful. The weather was perfect, they sounded really good and they had a good crowd. It was just a pleasant night. I got to see Marchelle's new baby. He is sure a cutie. A little red-head. :)


The other thing that has preoccupied our lives was our little stint on Whole 30. I have been following people on Instagram that do Whole 30 and for a long time I thought they were crazy, but I kept following them. Then I saw they were coming out with a new book and it looked really good and interesting, so I decided to buy it. So I read it and decided that I wanted to try it, but I was really nervous because it seems a little extreme for me. So it took me 3 weeks to work up the courage and motivation to commit to doing it. But I did and Seth and I did it. Except we didn't make it the full 30 days. Going to St. George and Lake Powell made it really difficult to follow, but I have been making better choices. I needed something drastic to follow to get me going. I can say I really loved the food and the way it made me feel. But the amount of effort and time it took nearly killed me. I think that if I kept doing it, the time it takes would decrease since everything wouldn't be so new, but it was really labor intensive. I felt it was expensive but there are lots of people out there that have tips on how to not make it so expensive. I want to do it again, but need to figure out a better plan or something.

Eden is crawling as of this week (8 1/2 months)!! She loves her mama and cries pretty much whenever I set her down and walk away. She always wants her mama. :) Lately she keeps waking up about an hour after we put her down for bed. I don't understand why, but it really throws off her night time sleep because she doesn't immediately go back to sleep. Not sure what to do about that. Ari is growing up so fast. I am just waiting for the word from her that she is done with diapers. I don't know how soon its going to happen, she seems a little scared to give up the diapers. But we'll see. I don't really want to force it on her, I would love for it to be her choice. Time will tell.

We got to go to the Payson Temple Open House. It was so beautiful inside. I actually really liked the style they went with. It started to rain while we were in line outside but luckily I brought an umbrella. Except I left it in the car.....so Seth had to run and get it.

We had the boys from Provo up for Zombicide. They are a riot. They make the game really fun, it is fun that Seth still keeps in touch with them. They are a good group of guys. They are starting to get married, one is engaged and two others are close to being engaged. It is just fun to stay in touch and have some good laughs.

Our other exciting new thing is a 7 ft trampoline. I finally convinced Daddy that we needed one. He REALLY didn't want one. I wanted a full size one, but we both had to compromise and get a small one. Ariana loves it and I love to jump with her on it. This week I put the sprinkler under it and we had a blast. It has been fun for Ariana to have something fun outside to keep her active and burn off some energy. I love Utah summer nights outside, they are just magical.

Work has been going fine. I became a tax manager in January so my role has kinda shifted. I thought I would be more nervous about reviewing returns, but this year, it really hasn't been as scary as I thought it would be. I think it has been a good change. We have lost a lot of people this year that I love to work with, so that has been really sad. Things change. Sometimes it is hard to not have it be how it has always been, but life goes on.