Lacey's Birthday

Lacey turned 23 on July 29th. Where did my baby go?

We had lemon cake and Lacey's piece was served on the Red Plate. We had homemade taquitos and homemade guacamole for dinner too. Page did a great job on dinner, it was so good!

Lacey loves Ron Weasley, so we knew this present would be a big hit

And she is really into feather jewlery this year, so she got some of that too.

Happy Birthday, Lacey. We sure had fun celebrating with you.

Mariah's Open House

Page and I went up to Livingston a couple weeks ago to attend Mariah and Shad's Open House. Don't they look happy?

cutting the cake

It was good to see friends too. (It's hard to keep table clothes on tables with the Livingston wind coming through)

We stayed for the weekend and enjoyed going to church before we went home too

Pioneer Day

We celebrated Pioneer Day at Washington Park today. All three family wards came together for a big BBQ/potluck. Lacey brought Chris and the kids. Here we are with Ebin and Rhiannon.

Lacey with Chris and the kids (look at all the missionaries goofing off on the merry-go-round in the background)

Page and Rhiannon

Lacey and Rhiannon

Chris, Lacey, Rhiannon and Ebin with their handcart

corn dog

I wanted to show you what the best corn dog in the whole world looks like. I ended up eating 5 of them over this week since the county fair has been here. I had a Pioneer Day picnic tonight and I am going away for the weekend, so no ability to add to that number. Last year I had 7, so I fell a couple short of my record this year..... but there is always next year......

County Fair

Today is opening day of the Park County Fair. Page and I went tonight, specifically because it was "free admission" day.... AND this county fair makes the best corn dogs I have ever eaten!!! Well maybe Disneyland's are better, but they are pretty close in flavor and crunchiness.

We ended up getting some sasparilla, a texas twister, corn dogs (of course), Indian taco and an Italian sausage sandwich. We didn't go away hungry.

We also met up with Lacey, Chris and the kids. We treated the kids to cotton candy and ice cream too. (hey we don't have to deal with the sugar overdose.....). They had pig wrestling tonight, but we didn't get over there to see it. We did however see a hypnotist do her thing. We had a nice evening. It wasn't too hot, in fact we had a brief thunderstorm come through.

The Fair is here all week, that means there are more corn dogs in my future!

Roddick Heartbreaker

Nobody really gave him a chance. But Roddick made a lot of fans today, although he lost to Federer in a 5 set Epic match for the ages. The 5th set went to 16-14, longest in history, yet Andy was denied the prize he has wanted for most of his life. It was a heartbreaker. This one is going to hurt for awhile. Especially the second set when he was up 6-2 in the tie breaker and let Roger come back with 6 unanswered points to win the set. If he could have won just one of those points, he would have been leading 2-0 and I don't think Roger could have overcome that. Yet, Andy kept playing tough and even when down 1-2, he dug deep and one the 4th set. I thought maybe the 5th set would go on forever. I did feel Andy was at a disadvantage always having to serve to hold, and even at that disadvantage he held 10 times.

Andy had a great tournament, beating a former #1 and then his greatest match until today, he beat Murray, the #3 player in the world. Nobody expected him to do that. Nobody expected him to even when a set today, yet he almost won. I truly believe this match could have gone either way. They were both that good. I don't want to take anything away from Roger. He now holds the record for most Grand Slam titles at 15. History was made today, but I think we also saw the resurgency of Andy Roddick. I expect to see a championship or two in his future.

I'm still a huge fan of Andy Roddick.

One More, Andy

Way to go Andy in the Semi-finals at Wimbledon. Impressive win over #3 Andy Murray. Murray has beat Andy the last three meetings, but not today. You do have to feel for the British people who have waited 71 years for a Brit to make it to the finals of their own tournament, but it wasn't meant to be. Now Andy has a big challenge ahead, playing #1 Roger Federrer. Enough said! Let's go, Roddick !!!

Let's Go Roddick

Andy has been having a great tournament at Wimbledon this week. Awsome 5 set match against Hewitt. Now it gets harder as he plays Andy Murray, who has the full support of the British and is ranked #3. If he happens to beat the other Andy, then it is on to the final.

Go Andy Roddick !!!

Pitchfork Steak Dinner

Page and I went to our first Pitchfork Steak Cook out. It was pretty good. They take steak and stick it on a pitchfork and then set it in a big vat of hot oil over a fire. The steak gets seared really fast and it is juicy and tender. They also marinated the steaks all day long so they had a wonderful flavor. We went with our friends Roger and Sina. It was a fundraiser for the local swim team. I think I'm going to have to do this again next time I hear they are pulling out the pitchforks.

Father's Day

After Sacrament Meeting at Church onSunday, they passed out big bottles of Dad's Root Beer to all the Fathers. I thought that was pretty awesome. Lacey also got me a big can of honey roasted peanuts.

We took a drive to Big Horn Canyon. It's only about 30 minutes from our house. They have a wild herd of horses there that are protected. These wild mustangs were left by the Spaniards. Last year Sean and I came up here and didn't see any horses. On Sunday we saw a herd of them. I was really excited.


I love this view. I wanted to show it to Page and Lacey. We are standing above Devil's Canyon looking south on Big Horn Lake. Page surprised me with tickets to take a 2 hour excursion on this lake. So I will be down there in a boat soon.

This is looking north. I love how the canyon is long and narrow and filled in by water. Part of it is in Wyoming and the other part in Montana.

Page and Lacey making sure I have a great Father's Day.

And I did! We came home to BBQ ribs, homemade potato salad and baked beans. Page also made her famous chocolate sauce, just for me!!!, and poured it over vanilla ice cream and sliced bananas. It was so good.

Sean also sent me Happy Father's Day wishes earlier from Argentina by email. So overall I had a great day.

Another Birthday

We also celebrated Sean's Birthday on the 24th. He turned 20 and is in Buenos Aires, Argentina, so we had a party without him, in his honor. Grandma Sherry, Page and I cut this beautiful cupcake into thirds and wished Sean a Happy Birthday many miles away.

Happy Birthday 76

Page's Mom turned 76 on May 28th. We took her to one of her favorite places to eat, The Cheesecake Factory in Huntington Beach

Lacey had us bring her Grandma a turtle and the birthday tiara

Kim, Kathryn and Matt also joined us.

Happy Birthday !!!

Moms

It was wonderful going back home to see our Moms

Seal Beach

We had to go walk on the Seal Beach Pier, of course. There is something about looking out over the Pacific that makes you know you are back home.

Jacaranda

Here is one of the sites I love seeing while back home on vacation in southern California. All the Jacaranda trees are in full bloom. They are beautiful and remind me of home.

Crazy Haired Girl

Lacey came down to my office to show me her new hair

Well, it sure beats my boring gray hair, doesn't it?


Lacey makes me laugh. They actually found this colorful wig in her department and she had to come down to show it off. So what do you think? Good look for her?

Mother's Day 2009

I made this awesome chocolate cake for Page for Mother's Day.

We were excited for "the call" from our missionary, Sean, in Argentina today. He ended up calling about 2:45 p.m. our time but the calling cards didn't work out as planned. At Christmas he bought the $10 peso card, but couldn't find one this time so he bought 2 $5 peso cards. When he used the first one, it only lasted 7 minutes. When he used the second one, only 7 minutes. He tried calling collect and it didn't work either. He thought he could call back later with the help of other elders, but here it is after 9 p.m. and no call.

I did make Page a steak on the grill and we had baked potatoes, cut up fresh fruit, grilled asparagus and sauteed mushrooms... along with the chocolate cake. It was a lot of work but she was worth it. I also made some muffins and piggy pudding for breakfast.

Lacey spent most of the day with us too which was really nice. We watched a movie together also. So a movie, dinner, and 14 minutes (instead of the 40 that was allowed) with Sean. Sean sounded good, also sounded a lot older to us. Used a few words in Spanish instead of English which made us laugh. So that is how our day turned out.

Mom- I love you!

Yellowstone

Page and I headed to Yellowstone National Park the first weekend the road opened to Old Faithful. We pull into the parking lot and we see through the trees that it is going off. Ugh. Would have to wait 90 minutes for the next eruption. Can you see the geyser through the trees?

Here is some geyser water making its way down to the river. I love this shot.

We saw some Big Horn Sheep leaving Gardiner for Livingston.

We always see Elk around Mammoth Hot Springs.

Buffalo, Buffalo ! We saw lots of bison in the park. We also saw a wolf. Too far away to take a good picture of it, but we had binoculars and it was awesome.

Page at Old Faithful

We came up over the ridge and saw this beautiful winter wonderland.

Right inbetween Hot and Cold

Everytime the kids see this rock formation, we call it a Nephite fortress.

and the kids call this place, "big rock in middle of river" .

We had a great day together in Yellowstone. It is one of my most favorite places in the world.

Easter

How was your Easter? I spent part of mine in the Emergency Room of our hospital. (Lacey told me to look like I was in pain, but the pain wasn't really bad).

See the blood? I punctured my arm with a very sharp carving knife while helping with Easter dinner. It was in the drain board, sharp side up and I wasn't careful.... That is what I get for helping. Lacey drove me to the hospital and Page cleaned up the big mess. It hit an artery and the blood went everywhere in the kitchen. I'm sure glad they were around to help.

Despite the drama, we had a very nice ham dinner for Easter.

The Easter Bunny left a basket and gifts for Lacey. Page and I were thrilled to have Lacey attend our Ward for Easter Sunday with us. Lacey and Page got to hear me sing in the Ward Choir too. I really love singing for Easter.

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter