Last night on vacation, we roasted S'Mores and Starburst(Dave's invention) after FHE. More pics of this to come!

Derick getting tossed by Dave and James!

Katelyn's turn! Not a very good pic, but she went just as high as Derick.

Little Taylor, she is only 4 and swims better than most adults! She is fearless too! She loves getting tossed!

Josh swinging in his most favorite swing! (He could have done this the entire time in Cali) So funny!
Taylor and Olivia hiding under there towels. (Actually the were just warming up.)

Josh attempting to bury Dave's sandels at the beach.

James is getting devoured by the wave...you can kind of see him...he is directly in front of Derick. Looks like fun!

James and Dave enjoying the very cold water! It took them a long time to get used the water temperature...actually they said "it's not that bad once your body goes numb." Sounds fun to me! NOT!

Dave and James running into the waves pretending to be on "Baywatch". Let me tell ya, when these two get together, they start acting like they are teenagers again! It's actually pretty funny!
Josh playing with a wrapper...all sorts of fun on the beach! :)

Olivia and Taylor playing "house" in the sand....they are the silliest girls! I love these kids!

Josh and Olivia being cute together!

Josh and I! Isn't he cute!

Josh giving kisses to Trisha! He is obcessed with giving people (well certain people) kisses. It is so stinkin' cute.
James with his kids, Taylor on the left, Katelyn and Derick and then Dave. (Can you tell Dave and James are brothers? Twins almost?)

Josh laughing at something, not quite sure! He's being goofy! :)

The Grays on Santa Cruz beach! I need to move to a beach somewhere! Definitly my kind of living! :)

Olivia saying "cheese". She is such a cutey!

California trip pictures

Trisha hanging out at the beach!
Josh playing with his sand bucket! So cute!

Dave and Derick playing "Crossbows and Catapults" They loved it!

Josh and Olivia continuing to "share" the stroller! (Thank goodness the have two strollers, they didn't have to "share" after this picture!)

First family trip!

Josh and Olivia "learning" to share with the stroller. It took them a few days! :)
Olivia helping "husking" the corn

Olivia, Derick and Katelyn helping Dave husk TONS of corn! YUMMY!

Josh being, Josh. He had so much fun with all of the "new" toys they had! He wasn't ever bored! That truly what made it a vacation for me! :)

Josh hangin out in the casino/hotel lobby! Yes, he was reaching for the camera!

We finally decided to go on a family trip to California. This was our first family trip with Josh. We decided to go visit Dave's brother and sister-in-law in Discovery Bay, CA. We decided to go on this vacation back in January or February. We were really looking forward to going and I made sure to save as much paid vacation as I could collect. Thank goodness I was able to take two full weeks off and get paid the whole time I'm not there! I love not working and still getting paid for it. ANYWAY! So we decided to get a head start on our vacation and left a day early(last tuesday). We ended up staying in Reno, NV to kind of break up the LONG drive. It was really nice, well the hotel was, Reno is just another Vegas, just smaller! Not my kind of scene. We stayed in this huge casino because it was the cheapest rate I could find. We had a lot of fun. We went swimming and then went to dinner to this "hole in the wall" pizza joint. It was delicious! After dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed at about 8:30pm. We were exhausted after the long day of driving, and having to wake up at 5am. Anyway, we woke up the next morning, ate breakfast and then headed to California. I have never driven to California via I-80 (I've always gone to southern cali), this was my first time driving through the Sierra's. It was BEAUTIFUL! I loved going through those mountains!

We finally made it to James and Trisha's house at around 12:30pm, ate lunch and put Josh to sleep for his afternoon nap. The first night we just had dinner and hung out, swam in there pool, and watched some movies. Pretty much this was our entire trip...it was awesome because we just hung out and relaxed. We swam A LOT, played with all of there kids, ate yummy food (thanks to Trisha!), watched movies and just enjoyed time OUTSIDE of Utah! :)

Saturday we went to Santa Cruz beach. It was beautiful! It was so fun and relaxing! It was the most fun day for sure!Dave and tons of fun hanging out with his brother James and their oldest son Derick. They enjoyed "riding" the waves in the freezing water! They had a blast doing this for hours! Trisha and I enjoyed soaking up all of the son and watching the little ones play in the sand. We saw a seal come right up onto the beach, about 20 feet away from us, it came up and then went back into the ocean. It was really neat. Then later in the day we saw a school of dolphins swimming close to the beach. They were jumping completely out of the water and stayed around for quite a while. It was really neat! The kids have fun just playing the sand and looking for crabs, eating snacks and playing in the freezing cold water! Did I mention the water was FREEZING? :) I got in a few times, but it was just too cold for me. I had to put Josh in the water to rinse his chest off after he ate his peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch, which he insisted on holding his own sandwich, therefore squeezing it so hard all of the honey fell onto his chest. He DIDN'T enjoy being the ocean's cold water!

After the beach we drove home, stopped at In-and-Out Burger (a tradition of being in Cali). Went home and crashed! Josh had hardly slept all day so needless to say, he was tired, along with the rest of us!

Sunday we got to go to church with them. It was such a nice and very hot day. We all got to take really nice long naps! My favorite thing on a sunday afternoon! :)

Monday was more just hanging out and then we got to have family home evening with the Gray's. It was so fun. James and Trisha's youngest, Olivia (she's 2 1/2) gave our lesson. Honestly I didn't know quite what she was saying, but half way through her "lesson" Josh decided that he needed to go stand by her and be apart of what was going on. It was one of those things that you just had to be there, but it was so cute! After Olivia was done, Josh started clapping. It was really funny! Again, had to be there!

We left California Tuesday right after we ate lunch, and drove the entire way home. We were very anxious to be home. The drive went really well...actually extremely well. Josh had fallen asleep right when we got into the car, slept for about 2 1/2 hours, then was up until about 9:30pm and then slept until we got home at 12:30am (cali time, 1:30am utah time, exactly 12 hours of driving, with 3 stops total! Not too shabby!) I'll be honest, I did give Josh some Benedryl and Motrin about an hour before he fell asleep, but he did wonderfully! I was so proud of him. BUT thank goodness for Baby Einstein videos and my best friend Melisa letting us borrow her DVD player so Josh could watch movies in the car. It was a LIFE saver! Thanks again Melisa!

Anyway, I just wanted to thank Trisha and James again for letting us come and stay with them for almost an entire week. It was such a relaxing time and we enjoyed spending time with them and their awesome kids! Derick, Katelyn, Taylor (I'm glad you still trust me sweety! :) ) and of course little Olivia! MY little sidekick for the week! Thanks for letting us get to know you a lot better! We love you all and will miss you! Now it's time for you all to come visit us! :)

Sorry all the pics are at the top! Oh well!

Thank you Trisha!

We made it to California! Hooray! Josh was a complete angel...honestly! He did AMAZING in the car, thanks to the DVD player my best friend Melisa let us borrow! (Thank YOU) Anyway, while sitting here at James and Trisha's house, Trisha and I decided to look at my blog, that didn't have any writing on it...couldn't figure it out. Trisha said, "well lets see what color your writing is in." Long story short, it was exactly what was wrong. I had changed our background, and didn't change my writing. The background was white as well as the writing. DUH! Thanks again Trisha!
Pics will come soon! We are having so much fun, and we've only been here a day! Good bye all of you in Utah! We are headed to the beach! :)

Happy belated 4th of July!

4th of July was so much fun! However I completly forgot to take my camera all day, but thank goodness my dad had his camera so I did get a few pictures of the 4th, I'll post those later.
I thought I'd tell everyone what we did!
Thank goodness I didn't have to work on the 4th of July. In the morning my dad, my step mom Diane, my brother Chad and his boys Riley and Braden, came over early and we made a big breakfast at our apartment. The reason we decided to come to our place is because the Layton parade goes right in front of our apartment. In fact we can't leave our place because the road is closed. So anyway, after breakfast we cleaned up and went out and watched the parade. It was a lot of fun, but Josh kept trying to go out into the middle of the road because he saw all of the candy that didn't get caught and kept insisting that he try and get it! Other than that, it was really fun. It was PERFECT weather, and the parade wasn't too long and not too short! After the parade we came back to our place and Josh took his nap and so did Dave and I! After we all woke up, we ended up going to my mom's sisters (my Aunt Marriane) house in Plain City. We had a great barbeque with a lot of my mom's family! It was so much fun! I love being around my mom's side of the family! Always lots of talking, laughter, and yummy food! We stayed there until about 8:00pm. Well, since by the time we got home, it was Josh's bedtime, we decided "forget the bedtime routine, let's go see the fireworks!" So we got Josh in his pj's and gave him his milk, but him in the stroller and walked down to the park to see the fireworks. We went with my dad and my step mom Diane. We ended up in the Golds Gym parking lot, along with a hundred other people! It was a perfect view! I was nervous that Josh wouldn't like the fireworks...actually just not like the loud noises, but he did awesome! He had his blanket and he was fine! He just sat on my lap the whole time and kept pointing to the fireworks and looking at me and saying "ohhhh" ! It was so cute to see his face while watching the fireworks! He was in pure amazement! It made my entire holiday! Anyway, we headed home and put Josh down right before 11pm. This was definitly the LATEST he has EVER stayed up! He slept until 9am the next morning!
It was a wonderful holiday! The 4th of July is truly my most favorite holiday! I love what it resembles and I love th time of year! I love feeling so greatful for our wonderful country and our freedoms. I'm so greatful for all of the sacrifices that have been made so we can live in a free country! I just hope it stays that way!:)
Anyway, happy belated 4th of July! (I'll post pics later!)

More pics

Dave and Josh after finishing the wonderful "continental breakfast" at our lovely hotel in Ephraim. ( I don't consider cold cereal a "continental breakfast!)

Yes, that is me shooting a small hand gun and getting pointers from my father in-law. This was actually a lot of fun!

Me and Josh watching everyone else shoot the guns!

My handsome boys! How cute are they?!

So, I found a lot more pictures of when we went to Ephraim for the Gray Family reunion. I thought you all might enjoy seeing more pics of our EXCITING trip to Ephraim!

Swimming, swimming and more swimming!

Dave and Josh playing in the water.
Josh doing what he does best...splashing the water.

My cute boys! Nice rug on that chest! I'm guessing Josh's rug will show up on his chest in a few years! (I hope not!)

Josh sitting in his stroller, anticipating his last swimming lesson! He always gets so excited when he sees that water!

You have got to love summer! I love to swim, in fact it is one of the reasons I love the summer so much! I LOVE the sun and the warmth, and I love being at a pool, lake or somewhere to cool me off! I was thinking that I would just hate it if my son decided that he hated being in a pool, that would be horrible! What else do you do in the summer time?! So I decided to enroll Josh and I in parent and tot swim lessons! They were so much fun and honestly Josh didn't really care what we were learning, he'd rather play in the shallow with his bucket and shovel. Well, it ended up being a lot of fun and now we can go to the pool for pretty cheap! Last tuesday we all got to go(me, Dave and Josh) because Dave finally finished his summer semester! Yeah! Anyway, it was a lot of fun! If anyone wants to go swimming let me know! Josh and I will come! I think I have created another "fish"! Josh loves the pool! Yeah!

A new Office fan! :)

So Dave and I have been watching re-runs of The Office lately. Well everytime the introduction comes onto the television, Josh comes running and begins to dance! It is really funny, well, at least we think so! Josh honestly doesn't pay attention to tv at all, so when he started doing this Dave and I thought it was hilarious! He is so funny! Enjoy the video!