Possum Kingdom Lake with the Ellistons

The first weekend of August we were lucky enought to meet up with our wonderful friends from Business School at Tyler's parent's lake house outside of Dallas. We were thrilled to get the invite from them and they gave us royal treatment the whole weekend! Friends from school or grad school really are the best and Tyler and Ann are no different. These people are as good as it gets and we will always stay in touch (right, guys?!). I had to include a few pictures from the past just because it's fun to reminisce and see how we've all changed.

In the courtyard of the Business school - April 2008

Ann, baby Brooke and I - she was one month old here!

On to pictures at the lake...

Tyler's parents have a beautiful house right on the lake with a dock and boathouse where they store their boat and jetski. Brent and I love jetskiing so we were excited for this, and it was something I could do while pregnant.

Tyler and Ann on the boat - don't they look like the nicest people ever?

This girl loved being out on a boat! She was begging for it for days after.

The three of us on the lake.

A favorite spot for Brooke on the deck of the lakehouse.

One of my favorites of the weekend were the gorgeous sunsets. And the husbands awkwardly pose in front of it....

View from the lakehouse roof.

We loved having relaxation, swim, and boating time with these dear friends. We also loved talking them into playing our Wii Karaoke game, which they inevitably loved, of course. We had great food all provided by them and we stuffed ourselves like a bunch of fat kids (okay so maybe I did). We hope we can do it again soon or return the favor to you, Tyler and Ann!

South Padre Island, Texas

Wow, where did the month of May go?!?

At the beginning of this month, we took a trip down to the coast and rented a great house with two other families. I had never done any type of trip with friends before and it was a blast!!!

Top ten AWESOME things about this trip:

1) Our beach house (not exactly on the beach, but still). Each of us had our own room and bathroom, there was a large kitchen and family room area, a wrap-around deck on the top floor, and a pool in the backyard.

2) The beach, 85 degree weather, need I say more?

3) The FOOD. Alyssa, Crystal and I planned it out well, I must say. Each of us took three meals and we ate so well on this trip... YUM. Stuffed strawberry french toast... amazing chicken tacos... grilled chocolate sandwiches...Way better than going out to eat would have ever been.

4) Enjoying Brent minus his work laptop and blackberry.

5) Watching Brooke with her friends at the beach and at the pool. We haven't taken her to the beach since she was 8 months old in California. She's so grown up and it's so fun to see.

6) The hardly-bad-at-all 4 1/2 hour drive each way.

7) Being able to put all our kids to bed and then have grown-up time with dessert and games. So much fun.

8) Watching my friends be such awesome Moms to their kids. I wanna be like those girls.

9) The interesting town of South Padre that I would never really want to visit... just has an awesome beach.

10) The fun fun fun in the sun memories of this trip!

Ward Campout...

but we didn't really camp. HA.

I didn't blog about the ward campout last year because I forgot my camera but just in case you feel like it, click here to see pics of Brooke and Olivia. C-R-A-Z-Y how these babies (yep, she's still my baby) change in a year.

So last year we stayed overnight. I was on the activities committee plus I felt like the first camping trip of our marriage probably should happen. Um... I had fun except for that whole sleeping in a tent outside part. And Brent even dislikes that part even more than me, so that's how we roll. This year, we went up for the afternoon, stayed until around 10 p.m. and then drove home. I gotta say (and I do feel bad saying it), it felt really good to drive away from the ward that night (who experienced rain and thunderstorms all night long), and get into our own beds. Pictures taken from Alyssa's camera--

Whoa... halt! My Brooke looks SOOOO BIIIGGGG in this picture. And really pretty, too, right? These two friends just love each other.

Right before Alyssa took this picture of me, I was talking about how unnatural I felt roasting a hot dog. I'm just that girl, I guess. And now looking at the pic, what a ghetto firepit it was, and those hot dogs look nasty... ha.

The boys doing the roasting much better than I did.

So Alyssa typically just thinks of creative ideas like this... of course we needed to blow bubbles while camping! And there is no sarcasm in that sentence at all.

Cutie pie honey bunches

Maybe next year we'll consider staying the night, but it's more than likely that we'll do exactly what we did this year.

Totally fun!

Our friends, the Walburgers--

We just spent part of our weekend with some old friends who live in Austin, Jordan and Marlo Walburger.

They stayed the night at our house on friday and it was a treat because we haven't seen them for a year and a half for just a few minutes and then about 2 1/2 years before that.

We met these great people in our married student ward in 2005.

Brent was in the bishopric and Jordan was the Elder's quorum president so they spent a lot of time in meetings together.

They were also notorious for keeping each other up to date on the scores of whatever game was happening during church.

Men... I mean boys will be boys.

And a fun tidbit--I worked at Alysse's bridal in Orem and just happened to be Marlo's bridal consultant when she bought her dress.

It is fun to reminisce back on the times we spent together prior to having kids and then to see each other with kids. Marlo is such a sweet mother, and that baby Drake is dreeeaaamy.

They are also part of the original group that we played Nertz with almost every Sunday night and they always dominated.

But who dominated this weekend?

That's right, we did!

Sorry guys, but it did feel good.

Gratefully, we had good weather the day they were here so we hit up the Riverwalk.

Marlo, Jordan, Drake, Brent, Bethany, Brooke on the riverwalk

Stopping for some gelato

Terrible lighting, but I still like this shot of the river

The three of us on the River


We had some good times back in Orem and have really missed them so it was great to reconnect. We are so glad you came and stayed with us and can't wait to come visit you in Austin!

New Years Eve 2009

Oh, alright, I'll just say it... We had SO.MUCH.FUN on New Year's Eve.

We talked some people into being our friends and coming over and having a party with us, and even posing for pictures....haha (inside joke)

Pretty awesome, huh?

The Jorgensen family typically does fondue and some type of karaoke on New Year's and we were lucky enough to have both.

Oh, and some pretty rad fireworks.

We partied until about 1 a.m.

Proof in pictures...

TONS of food

Here are some friends that graced us with their presence: Steve and Kendee a.k.a. "The Latin"

After eating cheese and chocolate fondue with all the fixings, the karaoke competition got fierce.

Fierce? Sure.

Crystal is seen here getting up off the floor where she was laying when she saw her score. HA!

Brent tearin' it up!

Oh.. that Latin girl has got some moves....

Kendee's husband, Steve may or may not have won with Taylor Swift's "Love Story." Good job, Steve. If you know all the words to that song, you deserve to win!

Thank you Crystal and Kendee for being my girlfriends! I mean it. I mean it!

I also want to note...

The 3 bg's spent the next day and rest of the weekend chillin' and veggin' and loafin' and millin'.

Sleeping in and staying up late.
Eating lots of different kinds of Paninis.
Leftover chocolate fondue.
Playing Wii and more karaoke.
Seeing a movie.
Best start to 2010.

I am not sure which game it was but it was a big game that Brent had to watch. We had a little tailgate party in the family room.


Awesome tailgating.

Here's to a really wonderful twenty-ten!

Some much needed...

...girl time!

Jenae, my friend from high school and college roommate flew all the way from Seattle to spend 6 days with me. Isn't that amazing?!? She was 7 months pregnant with an almost two year old on her lap! Talk about a nightmare for her. She made it in one piece and I'm so grateful she came. There's nothin' like spending time with that friend that knows you better than you know yourself. Jenae and I have seen each other at our best and at our worst, and I am most grateful that she'll still be my friend. :) We enjoyed:

Seaworld, Kacie (our friend from High school) driving from Austin to go to Seaworld with us, Seeing "Confessions of a Shopoholic, shopping at the Outlets, making homemade strawberry jam, lots of laughs and making fun of each other for old stories and quirks, staying up late and talking, trips to the park, lunch with Brent, Brooke and Ella playing very well together and hyping each other up!

We were sad to see them go and even more sad that our visitors were all gone. Our house is quiet and empty, and very vacant for the next few months. Any takers????

Playdate: Olivia Jane

I have so many pictures to go through and edit that I decided to put off all the necessary "journaling" blogging and post some pictures of our morning. And... I got a birthday present that happened to take all of these pictures and I've been loving playing around with it. The saturation of the colors is A-mazing.

We went outside to run around for a bit. Brooke ran free...

Meet Olivia Jane: Brooke's BFF. Happy and content to sit on the back porch and watch Brooke run around. Is she not so angelic?


I have been extremely blessed in my life to have had some wonderful girlfriends that I have had in different stages of my life that I love more than I can describe. I can only hope that Brooke has that in her life, too. Girlfriends are the best...

They share food and snacks...

Laugh at their jokes and play pat-a-cake...

Play games together...

Have dance parties...

And the best kind of girlfiend is when you can just look at each other and know what the other is thinking...

{I love this picture the most!}

Who doesn't love seeing cute baby shower pictures?

More vicarious blogging...

About a month ago, I started to organize a girl's night out to dinner and to see "Bride Wars." A new darling girl had just moved into the ward, who was about 8 months pregnant, and my friend, Alyssa had the idea of throwing a surprise baby shower for her. We combined the two, and Crystal thought she was going to a girl's night out, and she was SO SURPRISED!

Crystal, the new mom, who had her baby a few weeks ago!

Lovely banner Alyssa made-

Martha Stewart Pom-poms. I helped make a few, but Alyssa did the rest!

Emily, Kristen, Cindi

Kendee, Me, Crystal

Jessica and Mindy

Lindsay and Nicole

I loved Bride Wars!! I'm a sucker for cheesy corny chick flicks.

{pictures courtesy of A's D80}