Good luck my friend!

On Saturday, we had a luau for some really good friends of ours. My friend Chelsey will be serving overseas and will be gone for about a year and then will move back east with her hubby.

We had a really good turn out. I think we had anywhere between 30-50 people altogether. I even had fun at my own party. Usually, I'm really uptight when I have to host a party because I'm either worrying that people aren't having fun or that people are letting their kids get into things they shouldn't or people making a mess and not cleaning up after themselves and that sort of thing.

These cardboard cut-outs were a hit. They were so fun. Some of the people that put their faces in them were hilarious! I'll bet you didn't know these cut-out were actually modeled exactly after me and my hubby.....Don't we look hot?!? I'm totally kidding.

The hula hoop was a ton of fun. I have to say though that I was giving people a hard time for not being able to keep it up. Then, someone challenged me to do it and I did and at first it didn't last 5 seconds. I finally learned the trick to it though.

See? Oh yeah! Look at me go!

My friend served in the Young Women and so this is a picture of all the leaders and some of the girls. I forgot how much I loved the Young Women.

How low can you go???

Apparently I did pretty well at limbo. I got to the last one and just about cleared it until I fell on my bum. I didn't feel too bad though because our friend Keiko couldn't do it either.........

She kind of cheated.

After most of the people left, we put on some dance music and started shaking our groove thing. It just got interesting after that.

Oh yes. And here are the three remaining men of the night trying to look manly. Hahaha! I couldn't help but laugh!

This was our pathetic attempt at trying to look sexy. I know. It was fun anyway. We couldn't stop laughing at ourselves.

I love Brian and Tali's face in this picture! It cracks me up everytime I see it.

I know this probably looks like Brian has a flower in his hair, but it's actually a starfish hanging on a net that we put on the fence. I love my cute little family!

The party animals of the night

After everyone left, we lit the tiki torches, lit our fire pit and roasted marshmallows. It was a great way to end the night.

Chelsey, I love you to pieces. You have been such a good friend to me. I'm going to miss your bubbly personality as well as your infectious laugh. I'm so blessed to have known you. You have a special place in my heart. I will NEVER forget you!

4th of July

FYI: This may be a long post. That is why I have been putting this off for a while. We had a pretty full 4th of July celebration.

The day began with a flag raising ceremony with Brian's parent's Stake (church). Tali apparently didn't need me. She had Grandma.

That's okay. I still love my little munchkin!

I know she looks like she's sleeping or really bored, but honestly she was having a good time.....especially after the program. She got to eat a donut and milk. They even had a candy cannon. It was awesome. She will definitely love that when she gets older.

I really love this picture!

Tali has found a new friend. She is getting to be quite attached to that grandpa of hers.

Later in the day, we went to see my sister's new house and take family pictures. Aren't we a cute bunch?

Love is spoken here.

After the photos, we went to the Riverton Park for a carnival and fireworks. It was the BEST! Tali got to even pet a camel.
Tali also got to ride her very first carnival ride. She didn't like it too much at first as you can tell. She looked kind of scared. She ended up liking it though after a minute.

One of my sisters, brothers, and two of my nephews rode on the scrambler. It was so much fun! We couldn't stop laughing!

Then came the fireworks show! It was the best I have ever seen! I swear they did probably 5-10 fake finales. It was AWESOME!!!

Here are some pictures I took of the fireworks.

I LOVED the fireworks!

Aren't they so pretty???

I really liked this picture of my sister and my niece Maddy.

Tali was so exhausted. I think she was overstimulated for one day. Doesn't she look so cute in her little patriotic outfit though? After the fireworks show, we decided to finish using our tickets at the carnival with my sister, two of my nephews and my brother. It was so much fun! We ended up going on 2 "throw up" rides. Brian didn't want ride any of the rides because he doesn't really like the "throw up" rides. Tali ended up falling asleep in his arms. It was so precious. It all turned out though. The last ride my sister, nephew and I went on, my sister and I both had to concentrate just to keep from throwing up. I still loved it. I didn't care. It was a BLAST!

Family Reunion

This week was my family reunion with all of my siblings....well all but one anyway. It's been years since we've seen each other and some of them we had never met. This may be a long post, but hopefully the majority of it will be pictures.

My sisters Melisa & Julie. For those of you who don't know, I have 3 brothers and two sisters. Our family has grown from seven people to 27 people including in-laws and nieces and nephews. We had a total of 21 people including my mom that got together for this family reunion. Let me tell you it was CRAZY!.....but a lot of fun! It was funny because at times you couldn't even get a word in and everyone was so excited and talking so loud. I totally forgot how loud my family really is until we all get together.

There was also some confusion considering I have a brother named Brian as well as my husband. My Brian couldn't go by his middle name because it's the same as my other brother who also goes by his middle name. Trust me. It was confusing at times.

Two of my adorable nieces. Yes, we have a good lookin' family I think. See how cute they are? It was so funny. Simmone (left) had never met her cousin Madysen (right) and she was wanting her to come sleep over. They were so cute together!

On Thursday, we all decided to go to the zoo. It was so much fun. The kids were loving it!

I was so amazed at how fast the kids became good friends. They really enjoyed having cousins their own age to play with for the most part.

Brian even secretly enjoyed himself.

This is my niece Madysen. She was my little buddy. She was always wanting to hold my hand and she would get so excited when she'd see me. She is such a sweet girl! I just love her!

I loved this picture of my sister with Maddy.

Here are the majority of the kids on the rhino statue at the zoo. It was so funny trying to get them all on there.

Later, after the zoo, we were all supposed to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House, but only my family (Brian, myself & Tali) and my brother Brian's family were able to go. Here are the pictures from that outing.

This picture was kind of awkward. After we had gone through the temple open house, we went into a tent for cookies and water. One of the people serving there had asked if she could take our picture because it just looked so "perfect." I was kind of caught off guard, but gave her my camera anyway because I figured it would be nice to get a picture of us. Aren't we a cute bunch???

My brother's family at the temple

I LOVED this picture of the boys! They were so funny trying to hold their little brother. I thought the girls looked like little angels. What's not to love?

On Friday, we all went to the aquarium.

I loved this picture of my sister and our nieces. I thought my niece Mykenzy (left) looked just like my sister when she was little. Funny thing is, Mykenzy is my brother's daughter. Weird.

The aquarium had a bunch of new exhibits. The kids were having so much fun! Here is a picture of the older kids and the younger kids.

In one of the new exhibits, you're able to touch these buttons in order to feel a small shock from what would be the equivalent of an eel. Some people in our group were enjoying it a little too much. They even had a few people stand in a circle holding hands to see if they would all get shocked. I know. My family is apparently very easily amused. They could have entertained themselves for hours with that thing.

Brennen was so funny when he saw the anaconda. I had to take this picture.

Here is my adorable little princess! I LOVE this picture of her! How can you resist that face? I JUST LOVE HER!

My small little family cramped inside this small fake coral cutout. I'm actually surprised we fit. It was a tight squeeze.

The majority of us at the aquarium.

All of us at the aquarium....except my sister who was taking the picture. Can you believe there are actually more of us??? There were actually six more people that were unfortunately unable to make it for this family reunion.

West Fest Fun

I know I'm a little late for this, but things have been crazy busy around here the last week.
Last week we had gone to the West Fest Parade which Tali really liked until the fire department drove by and turned on their sirens. After the parade, we walked over to the Carnival.

I didn't realize I was also taking a butt shot in this photo. Sorry you had to witness that.

Anyway, Tali was LOVING the West Fest. She got to try a nice fresh churro for the very first time as well as a snow cone. She could not get enough of the snow cone. As for me, I stopped by at a shop that our Bishop's wife was running with her sister and bought a super cute headband to match one of my favorite dresses. They had a lot of really cute stuff!

Later that night we got together with my sister who had just come into town for a BBQ and then we went to the West Fest for fireworks. The fireworks were fun, but we couldn't find the family. There was also a fight that had broken out behind us between two polynesian women. Apparently I was having another out of body experience, because without thinking I went over to where the crowd was "gathering" and no one was trying to stop it. It was like they were egging them on. I was so appalled. I ended up going over to the girls and yelled at them to stop. Lucky for me some cops came over pretty quick to separate the girls. I have NEVER done that before in my life! I was just so surprised that no one was doing anything to stop them.

Overall, it was quite an eventful day.

Sychopy

Wednesday morning, I gave Brian a little scare. I got up really early because I couldn't sleep. It was really hot, so I got up went outside to look at our curbing took some pictures of the sunrise (which NEVER happens mainly because I never get up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning) and surfed the internet while waiting for someone to wake up. Brian had woken up at about 7:00 and so I got up to give him a hug. I then started to bend backward to stretch and that is when the drama happened. I had gone limp and passed out. Luckily Brian was there to catch me. Brian then tried to lay me down and my body started twitching. He thought it was a seizure, but there's no medical history of seizures in my family and I had certainly never had one before. I remember hearing Brian call my name and feeling like I had no control over my body. I couldn't even see. It was the weirdest thing I had ever experienced before in my life.

After some convincing, I finally went to the doctor. He told me that since it didn't last longer than a minute and since I didn't bite my cheek or anything, it wasn't a seizure. He said that basically when I bent back I wasn't getting enough oxygen to my brain which caused me to pass out, but when I bent backwards (like doing a backbend) it also somehow made it so I wasn't getting enough blood to my brain which caused my body to twitch. He said it was kind of like my body's way of restarting itself. He did say that I wouldn't "win an award with those reflexes" though. Apparently they weren't very good. It was kind of awkward though when he was checking my reflexes though, so who knows.

In other news, our curbing is in!!! Our yard looks so much better! I will have to post pictures later. We did 138 feet of curbing in our front and backyard. With color and a cobblestone texture, it was $3.75 a foot. It really does make a big difference in the yard!