August 2018

Andy and I celebrated 8 years of marriage!  I love him and I love our family!  Andy has been everything I wanted and more.  We went out as a family the a few days before to The Roof.  It was so fancy and delicious!  The kids were so good! Andy and I also went to Lagoon for the day and had a great time!  Andy's mom was so nice to watch all 3 kids while we were there.

We had fun at parks, the girls played outside as much as possible and Penny was potty trained and celebrated by riding a train!

All 3 out cold

Sad Penny part 1

Sad Penny part 2

Celebratory train ride!

Ellie turned 7 and wanted to celebrate with mini golf, and Red Robin.  She is such a special, smart girl.  She is so patient and kind to her brother and sister, and so considerate of those around her.  We love her!

She wanted skeleton pj's

6th Anniversary

We celebrated our 6th anniversary and it was such a fun day.  We don't really have anyone to watch the kids here, so we made it a family affair.

We went up to Julian that is famous for its apple pie.  We had lunch, walked around the town, and took a tour of the old gold mine.

Afterwards we drove back to downtown San Diego and had dinner overlooking the water.  It was gorgeous and delicious.

I'm so grateful for Andy and our marriage.  I am so loved and I love my life.  I love our 3 beautiful children, the many adventures we've had, and I look forward to the adventures to come.
 Andy is my best friend, and more importantly my eternal companion, and I could not be more blessed.

5th Anniversary

We had our 5th wedding anniversary on August 6th.  It ended up being an all weekend celebration.

On our actual anniversary Andy and I went out to dinner in Salt Lake and walked around City Creek. We love Ellie, but it was so nice to go out to dinner alone.

The next day we went with Ellie and hiked to the Timpanogos caves.  Ellie was a trooper all the way up and we all loved the caves.  It was so amazing to see what is inside the mountain.

On Saturday Andy and I went out one last time and saw Mission Impossible 5.

I love Andy so much.  He really is my soul mate and my best friend.  He understands me and accepts me like no one else.  He is a wonderful father, and I am so grateful that Ellie, Thomas and Penny have him as their Daddy.

Our Anniversary

We had such a wonderful 4th anniversary this last week.  We started the day off with a 3 mile hike, and it was gorgeous when we reached the top.

Draper Temple

Later in the afternoon we drove up to Park City and went on the alpine slide.  It so fun to go down!  Afterwards we went out to dinner, and we told them it was our anniversary and they spread rose petals out on the table and upgraded our dessert.  It was so nice to eat dinner without a child!  When we were done we drove around the mountains and then we went and saw Guardians of the Galaxy and we loved it!  It was so funny!

Ellie spent the day with her grandparents, and got to go to the zoo, out for lunch, and play with her Uncle Chris.  It was so funny when we got home it was almost midnight and the grinch was sitting at the table dressed like this, haha!  Ellie is so funny!

A Letter to Myself

Back in college I had the best roommates, seriously.  I almost always lived with Paige and Megan (2 of my best friends) but there was 3 other roommates as well.  One of them was named Lindsey and one night Lindsey, Megan and I decided to drink some Snapple, and write a letter to ourselves and to our future husbands, to read when we got engaged.  I honestly can not remember why we did this, especially since none of us was in serious relationships and engagement was a few years off for all.

The toasting of the Snapple

I recently came across the the letter to myself again.  It was a trip down memory lane, and most importantly reminded me of all the things I expected out of myself and my spouse.  I didn't make extreme demands because I knew then that it would almost be impossible to follow ridiculous things, and I knew that marriage wouldn't be some romantic fairy tale all the time.

I'm happy to say that we do abide by most of these goals.  We can always improve with scripture study as a couple, because some nights I fall asleep before Andy gets home, and we can work on having a more regular FHE.

It makes me so happy to be reading this note, and know that I am living the kind of marriage I always dreamed of.  I was married in the temple, Andy is a hard worker, and a worthy priesthood holder.  We laugh, even through our darkest times, which lets be honest, we have gone through the worst thing ever in our short 3 (almost 4) years of marriage.

At the end of the note I encouraged myself to write letters to our children to be given to them at different times.  I really do want to do that, and think I will get started on that for Ellie.  I know that I am an hoarder of notes and they really mean a lot to me when I read them again.  Hopefully it will be like that for Ellie.

p.s. This all sent me on a trip down memory land and I found my journals from college before I got married.  Hilarious, and super embarrassing!  I was very dramatic when I was 18.  While I was going through the journals, I found another note of qualities I wanted in my future husband.  First of all, I was demanding, but I'm pretty blessed, because Andy fits the bill.

Did I hit the jackpot or what?!