a saint called george

my family congregated, from all four corners of the mid-west, in st. george a few weekends ago. tyler and i had a blast showing my family around the greater st. george area.

we took them to SNOW CANYON...

cinder cones - one in the foreground, one on the right, and one in the distance on the left.
kevin and kayla at the petrified sand dunes.
hi mom!
then ZION NATIONAL PARK...
the top of angel's landing (i wouldn't get on that rock last time we were there, but i did it this time!!)

the landing before the chain starts. (scott's something or other, i think.) this picture was supposed to be of tyler, but kevin and kayla ended up in it, too. cuuuute.

on the way up (i don't have anyone else because we all used our own cameras).
walter's wiggles on the way down (take one). todd, karen, kevin, kayla, tyler.

much better shot (take two). todd, karen, kevin, kayla, christine.
weeping rock (view towards the canyon). you can see the rock's tears falling from above. (click to enlarge)

tyler tried drinking the water and THEN we saw the sign that it may contain giardia. awesome. no signs of it, though, so we're in the clear. :)

tyler took the more adventurous mountain biking to bear claw poppy seed (unfortunately no pictures) and, of course, we went shopping . the weather was perfect - 80s and overcast the entire time (no pouring rain like northern utah!). i think a great time was had by all and maybe we'll get karen all the way to the top of angel's landing next time.

:)

graduated

...from FPU, that is.

13 weeks, $7,000 in debt paid off, $2,000 saved. we're believers! still working on baby step 2, but soon to be on baby step 3.


thanks dave. and just for you, kevin (who doesn't ever read this), i'm going to get a bumper sticker that says "i'm debt free - daveramsey.com" when we're done. hahaha

:)

ticked off

pardon the post title, but what in the heck happened to my last post? it's GONE! no where to be found. thanks, blogger.

for all the marbles, part II

tyler and i went miniature golfing again, this time with some of tyler's family. 18 holes, two out-of-play balls, one scraped little nose, and a couple holes-in-one later, it looks like nicole should be picking the future dinner.


tyler and i agreed that if i won, it would not reverse our previous bet. tyler's choice of dinner is still in my future (even thought i beat him this time! for some reason, we're always within 1 of each other).

:)

for brynnley

tyler and i have all sorts of traditions that we've started/are going to start to help us and our (future) family remember brynnley. one thing we decided to do is plant flowers in her honor each spring, which seems fitting, seeing as her due date was in mid-April. this year we planted daffodils and tulips...which turned out to be ingeniously smart because we can dig up the bulbs and take them with us! once we find ourselves in a [more] permanent place, we plan to plant a tree.


(i'm going to have to work on making my thumb more green...let's pretend tyler and i didn't wait too long to plant these and that the daffodils are NOT dying. hahaha)

:)

for all the marbles

seeing as tyler and i have had the "pass of all passes" for over six months and only used it twice - yes, twice! - we decided go to miniature golfing one lovely, friday afternoon (back on the 15th of april. i know, i'm behind). we decided to place a bet on the game: whoever won got to pick a future dinner at a restaurant of his or her own choice, with no complaining from the losing spouse.

i think the scorecard speaks for itself.

a few tense moments, small victories, good laughs, and 18 holes later, i will be enjoying vietnamese food in the near future. thank you, trafalga.

:)

before the dental convention, tyler got braces

yup. you read that right: tyler has braces!

(but he won't let me take a picture. you'll just have to take my word for it. maybe i'll try and sneak one in when he least expects it.)

long story short, tyler has a jaw problem we're trying to fix with braces. we are so lucky - he doesn't need a super-duper expensive surgery to correct the problem (at least we don't think so at this point). we are doubly lucky because my friend angie's dad is doing them for us! shout-out to dr. graf!

tyler's lucky because he only has to wear the braces for 10 months. plenty of time to wear them, get everything fixed, and look great for graduation and his first job!

and, if everything goes according to plan, hopefully i'll be getting braces sometime after he's done. we'll see!

:)