The Subway

May 24, 2014

There is no rhyme or reason to the order of these pictures! Just know, it was hard, fun, challenging, scary and amazing! Would I do it again? {Ask me in a couple months!} Lol. This hike was 9.5 miles and there were 12 of us that hiked. Wade was our fearless leader and he's an animal. On the way out, he smoked Ben and I. Ha! It took us almost 8 hours with rapelling in 3 different spots! We had to actually swim in a couple spots too! The water was frigid! And because it was so overcast, the high that day was like 75. 😁 Overall it was an amazing experience. One I won't soon forget!!! 

P.S. I am still sore... 4 days later!!! 

Island Park

Does anyone blog anymore?

I cannot believe how long it has been since my last post! I like to try and keep this up mainly for journaling purposes but man, I have struggled. Guess I'll try to catch up. Try not to be too overwhelmed. In fact, for those that even still read this bad boy, go ahead and skim the pictures and move on!


Ben....

Ben is super busy with school. After his transition from one new school to another new school, I think he is starting to like it. He enjoys all the breaks that come with teaching and is looking forward to start football again in June. In January, Ben and I decided to try and lose some weight. Like the rest of the world, we wanted a quick fix! Well, we got it and both lost. However, after some research decided that was not our smartest decision. Anyway, since then we have both tried really hard to do it the right way! (I'll share my story in a little bit!) We have had lots of fun doing this together. Just trying to eat right and do more active things have really been so good for both of us and our kids! It has also been so much easier with a friend by my side! We've had lots of fun so far this year with a couple trips to Salt Lake and Vegas where we had a fun little get-away with dinner, shopping and some much needed sleep! ;-) He also keeps busy with church basketball and helping coach Benson's soccer team! I sure do love this man!


Benson...

This boy cracks me up! I have so many funny conversations to write down from things that he has said. He is so smart and so observant. The surprising thing though is his interest in the gospel. He will ask me and Ben question after question about Jesus and the church and why we do certain things etc. I usually have to direct him to Ben but I do my best! Ha! He finally lost his first tooth. He was so excited. All his friends had already lost a lot of teeth so he was excited to finally join in the fun! He pulled it out himself after it had been loose for a couple days! He has only lost the one though since then so hopefully they keep falling out on their own and he won't have to have them pulled! I recently took them to the rock wall at our local community center and he loved it! I couldn't believe how much he liked it! He climbed right to the top and rang the bell on his first try! He asks to go back daily! He has been busy with soccer and kindergarten. He has loved soccer and says he likes it better than baseball.With our recent lifestyle change he has been so funny about calories. He reads and checks the calories on everything and asks if it's ok if he eats it. :-) He is such a good kid and hates to get into trouble. He is an even better brother! He is obsessed with Ninjago and anything Lego! He also is quite the gamer! I just love this kid!!!

Bensonisms:
B: Mom, how many calories do I have?
Me: I'm not sure, a few I guess. How do you know about calories?
B: I don't know, you just talk about them all the time!

Benson during a prayer... "Please bless the prophet. Bless him that he won't do cigarettes or drink bad stuff!"

We're practicing for a spelling test...
M: Spell "we"
B: W-i-i

B:Mom, how come practice was deleted?
M: You mean cancelled?
B: Ya, cancelled.
(Think this kid is a gamer or what??)



Hiley...

Oh my. This girl keeps me on my toes! She is so sassy however I wouldn't have it any other way! She is such a big helper when it comes to Sadie and is always making sure Benson does his chores! She loves to swim and has recently learned how to ride her bike without training wheels, which she loves to do! Like Benson, she has taken quite the interest in the rock wall. She totally went right to the top and loved it! (I did it with her the first time and was terrified! Ha!) This girl stays busy with going to pre-school on Monday and Wednesday and dance on Thursday. She is so smart and cannot wait to start kindergarten in the fall. She also loves playing babies, make-up and helping me whenever I let her. Her BFF is Dayvenee and wants to play with her every minute! She is so spoiled by her aunts and can talk them into just about anything! ;-)
I sure do like this little girl!!


Sadie...

This girl is so dang sassy. Seriously. She has such a strong personality and makes me laugh all the time. She loves her bink and is such a daddies girl! She also loves to eat. :-) I'm not kidding when I say she is going to be a little trouble maker! This little thing has already colored on the walls, twice and likes to put things in the toilet! Just when you think you have this parenting thing down with the third... Nope! I swear... I mean I literally swear. j/k! I am going to have to thrown blame at the white grandma up there in Heaven for this little girls sass!! I so just love her though and those cheeks. Oh. Man. I could suck them off! ;-) She gives the best kisses too. Love her!!

I'm feeling sorta... Wicked!

The Pantry House

Me and JoJo

Me and Javier Colon

Oh.my.goodness! First let me just say that I am so spoiled! My bestie Brooke called a couple months ago and asked if I wanted to go with her and some girls from her ward on a weekend trip to Cali to see Wicked! Well, after much "convincing", I decided to go! ;-) It was scheduled for the weekend after my birthday so it was the perfect excuse to give Ben! Happy Birthday to me!

We had so much fun! We left St. George Thursday morning and headed to LA where we would check into our super sweet hotel, get some dinner and then head over to Pentages to see the show! Wicked was a.ma.zing. It blew every expectation I had out of the water. Seriously. I still find myself thinking about it. I cannot wait to see it again! After the show we wondered around to the back to see if we could see any of the performers but we grew impatient and decided to grab some delicious Pink Berry instead! Yum!

Friday we slept in and then went and grabbed a delicious breakfast at a little diner called The Pantry House! They had huge portions and yummy yummy food! I LOVE places like that! We then headed over to the Fashion District where we shopped until we literally dropped! So fun! We actually just hit up Santee Alley because some locals told us that was the best place to shop. It was like a little Mexico! Lots of knock-offs, purses, make-up, shoes, toys... We did some pretty good shopping that day! It was lots of fun though. Later we met back at the hotel so we could grab some dinner and then head over to a tree lighting event they were having at our hotel. While we were in the elevator one of the girls asked this guy if he was a singer because he was carrying a guitar... I looked up and it was Javier Colon from The Voice! Ahhh! He was so nice and took pictures with all of us! He was actually staying in our hotel and was performing at the tree lighting! So fun! That night we went to dinner and then over the tree lighting which was so fun! Then later we were getting ready to go to one of the other girls room when we saw JoJo! No one knew who she was except for me but it was still so fun to stop and get a picture with her. Don't mind me in the picture. I look special. I was just so excited!

Saturday we got up and headed back to Santee Alley to get some last minute deals. Then we hit up a sweet fabric store that Brooke had heard about! Then last but not least we headed to Ikea where we spent literally 4 hours at!! Ah! We did not leave LA until like 5 pm. We had so much fun though and I made some great new friends!

A huge shout out to "brown" grandma for watching the kiddos for me while I went! Thank you!!! The kids just love having you so close and so do we! Thanks to Ben for letting me go too! He is such a great husband and dad! And thanks to Brooke for the invite and for the great friendships I made while on that trip!

Benson's Bday party

I swear I threw this party back in September for his actual birthday! I'm just a little behind in the blogging department! I wasn't sure if I was even going to throw him a party but I came across this blog and basically copied ev.er.y.thing about it! (I'm good at that!) Besides, it made it so easy! The boys had a blast! I made them robes. For lunch they had galactic pizza and yoda sodas! They played pin the light saber on Darth Vader, keep the balloon off the ground with light sabers and they went on a "mission" to find their goodie bags! They also had quite the fight when Darth Vader himself showed up!!

To finish the party off, we had cupcakes that were lined up to look like a light saber!

The boys had a blast!

We are so blessed to live in this fun, close knit neighborhood! Every single friend he invited has or does live here and will be a life long friend!
I also hold a special place in my heart for all of these cute "little" boys!

Check check...anyone out there?

Sadie was blessed on September 3rd, 2011.
We did our traditional Saturday blessing at my parents ward building. It is so nice to be able to do our own thing! We don't have to worry about the circle being too big or being on time... haha. Anyway, we had a great day. The guys that were in the circle were:
Ben, Grandpa Joe, Grandpa Wade, Great Grandpa Bradshaw, Great Grandpa Swensen, Great Grandpa Meier, Kirk, Uncle Spencer, Uncle Levi, and Great Uncle Craig.

We had a nice luncheon afterwards with some yummy chicken salad sandwiches, chips, fruit and some mini cup cakes. Thank you thank you to all those that helped and are always so willing to lend a hand. Thanks to my mom for being a rock star like always and making things happen!! :-)

On a side note, Miss Sadie Lou is actually named after Ben's grandpas mom. So his great grandma. After the blessing, his grandpa was so sweet and shared some of her history with us. Here are just a few things that I wanted to jot down for journaling purposes.

Her full name was Sadie Peay Meier and she was born on July 15th, 1898 in Kentucky. She was born in July like our Sadie and also had an older brother and an older sister. In 1925, Sadie and her husband Rob attended there first sacrament and were later baptized members of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.
Then in October of 1943, they moved their family of 6 kids to Utah!
We are so proud that we could name her after such an amazing woman. The stories of her are always of service and kindness.

Happy Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year! My mom came down so she could be with us and see the kids! We did our traditional "dinner in a pumpkin" which was so good! Next year though, we decided we'll do that the night before Halloween and pizza the night of! Ha!
Benson was Darth Vader, Hiley was a cheerleader and Miss Sadie was a little witch! We went around out little neighborhood and got loads of treats.
I'm pretty sure this is Hiley's favorite holiday! :-)