Birthday Weeks

The past 2 weeks have been a blur!

Friday March 27th, Zach and I went out for his birthday dinner. We knew we wouldn't get much time the next day since we were expecting our families coming into town.

Saturday March 28th (Zach's Birthday) we started off the day right by going to Chuck E Cheese! Zach even wore the sticker that told his name and age, plus he got 3 extra tokens! We were only there for 3 HOURS! Jeff and Rachelle were there with their clan, and we had a BLAST! Then after quick naps, and the arrival of my sister Emily and her family, we headed off to the park. It was SO beautiful outside and we actually made it home without any injuries. My other sister Kim (Kim and Emily are the only siblings who DON'T live in Vegas) arrived from their Disneyland/Beach trip minutes after we got home. LET THE PARTIES BEGIN! We had been counting the days until our mini family reunion. Ok, so there is NOTHING mini about my family... if we're being honest! And I am SO GLAD! You can pretty much count on a roaring good time when you get us all together!

Sunday was a full day packed with church, the blessing of baby Josephine (Jeff and Rachelle's latest bundle of joy) and a family dinner all over at Rachelle's house.

Monday was cousin play day at our house and then dinner and F.H.E at Greg and Whitney's house.

Tuesday my friend Anita brought over her amazing bunt birthday cake for me and Easter baskets for my kids. Minutes after she left my Mom came over to make some sweet necklaces (she brought hundreds of pounds of beads back from Africa), followed up by a baby shower that night for Amy (my brother Christian's wife, due with baby #1 in a few weeks) at Rachelle's house.

Birthday Breakfast

Wednesday was my birthday, which started out with a birthday tradition of coffee cake (made by my MOM! which hasn't happened since I graduated high school) and Emilee, Denett and Natalie bringing me birthday breakfast at 7:30 in the morning! (See Photo) My day got better when another friend dropped off 44 oz of my guilty pleasure... Diet Dr. Pepper from Sonic. By lunch time, I had a visit from Whitney and her kids, and my visiting teacher. Rachelle and Kim came by in the late afternoon, and Zach got home from work early! By the time I had dinner I was EXHAUSTED! Too many late nights and family parties. I was excited to open my gifts from the kids, but not half as excited as they were! A new door bell chime (well 25 to be precise), tile for the kids bathroom and a pedicure! I thought that was a pretty good end to my 27th birthday. But man was I wrong! At 7pm some friends showed up. Blindfolded me. And drove around like mad women for 10 minutes. They led me inside to a SURPRISE party! There was yummy food and sentimental gifts. I couldn't believe it! I was TOTALLY SHOCKED! I have NEVER had someone pull something off like this for me. I had been 100% clueless and it was SO fun! We relaxed, ate, laughed, ate, laughed, ate and laughed some more. It was perfect.



Thursday was quiet . Thank Heavens! I was on sugar overload!

Friday was over productive. I started AND FINISHED 8 loads of laundry. Spot cleaned my entire carpet upstairs and thoroughly cleaned my house. I was expecting a quiet weekend at home in my nice clean house, but that wasn't in the cards for me. At 7:45 Zach pulled out a video camera and there was a video message from Becky and Jenna. All they said was that I had 30 minutes to pack specific items that were on a list (that Zach then handed to me), and that I better hurry!

I was filled with excitement, anxiety, and surprise. My poor kids just wanted to watch Star Wars Episode 5 with me, and I knew that I wasn't coming back that night, or the next for that matter. They were so cute, and McKinley was the only one who got sad when Jenna and Becky showed up at the door.

After we got loaded in the car Becky asked me if I could choose ANYWHERE to go this weekend where would I go? I answered MY obvious answer "CALIFORNIA- the beach!". That's right. In 8 years of living in Las Vegas I have never made it South of St. Rose Parkway! I haven't even been to State Line/Primm. That answer was all it took to start off our screaming, laughing, driving, reading, shopping, eating, snacking filled weekend. Jenna summed up our weekend best so CLICK HERE to jump to her blog for a complete update and fill in!

Mostly I just feel really lucky to have great family and friends. I was so excited to get so many emails, phone calls and stopper by's! What a great way to start off April!
And that's no joke!

Harvest Weekend

Harvest Holiday

This past weekend we took a trip up north to St.George and Paragonah. And by "we" I mean that Zach dropped me off in St. George for a little R&R with my two best friends from college (Megan and Melissa), and He took the kids up to his parents house in Paragonah.

Saturday I was..... Hiking around Zion with my gal pals




and almost getting killed by an Elk that was fenced in!


Meanwhile in the mountains near Paragonah,
Zach was going hunting with his dad, his sister Riley and Lincoln


And the girls were having a good ol' time with Grandma Ginger!! Grandma gave Reagan a makeup box WITH makeup in it! I've never seen such glittery beautiful girls!


Sunday afternoon my friends dropped me off in Paragonah
(not before a few games of Yahtzee could be played)



on their way back to SLC, and I reunited with the fam. The kids had TONS of fun stories to tell me about the 30+ hours they had spent away from me. They always seem to have more fun when I'm not around (to stop them?).



Monday was "Harvest Day".
Harvest day is an official day off for those in school in Southern Utah. I guess it might be equivalent to NEVADA DAY here in Las Vegas. During the morning hunt I took the girls across the street to the playground. Of course we were the only ones there!
It was so nice outside and the girls had a blast.





Riley went to take her permit test (and passed! Way to go lady!) and we headed over to the fishing pond to catch a few fish.



Everyone caught their own fish, however not everyone wanted to touch theirs and throw them back. Lincoln had enough guts for everyone, so he did the dirty work.

Reagan getting as close as she can, by only POINTING to the fish.

McKinley was at least game to hold the line for the picture.

Lincoln liked to feed the ducks, and sometimes he liked to try and kill the ducks with rocks.
Here is a picture when he was being nice.
I tell ya, when it's hunting season, he has a hard time turning off the "kill" switch.


After fishing we stopped by Grandma Cora's house.
After a few Schwan's Ice cream treats we headed home for naps and clean up and MORE hunting.


Lincoln could honestly NOT GET ENOUGH. He doesn't complain at all about riding around for 5-10 hours at a time. Here are a few phrases that Zach told me about. I only wish he could have recorded them!

"I bet when other people drive by our truck they think 'there goes 3 hunters', but they're wrong. There's actually 4 hunters. ME. I'm the 4th one. But actually I'm like the biggest hunter in the truck because I don't just want to kill a deer, but I want to kill EVERYTHING"

Sobbing on their way home the last day.... "Dad, why can't mom just FLY home so we can stay and hunt more? Then when we finally kill a deer we can drive home and meet her there."

"Hit the deer with the TRUCK dad... NOW! Hit it! Hit it! Hit it!"

" I know, we can just make a cage. Then we can catch a male deer, and then next year when deer season comes along, we can just go the cage and shoot it!"

"Riley, it's okay if you shoot a spike...."

While I packed up shop and got ready for the hunters to come back home (sometime after sunset when you LEGALLY can't shoot anymore), Grandma Ginger kept the girls occupied by playing duck duck goose, and painting fingernails and toes! Side note: Reagan wants nothing to do with me when her Grandma is around. I can't take her to the bathroom, put her shoes on, or cut up her food. ALL SHE WANTS IS GRANDMA!!!


How did it all end? Did we have a good time? Well, you can hear for yourself. The kids pretty much summed it all up. I took this video a few minutes after we left Grandma and Grandpa Hulets house. I turned all the lights on inside the truck but you still couldn't see them. So I snapped a few still shots. Play the video and then scroll down through the pictures of the kids.

Yes, that's a tear streaming down Reagan's face onto her neck!

I had to laugh to keep from crying myself. We really feel lucky to have such wonderful friends and family!

Day At The Park

Game Night Madness

So much fun. We had another game night with girls mostly from our ward, and a few others that we love, and it was super fun. We played old fashion PICTIONARY, then a GUESS WHO game (super fun! way to go Sara's Dad!), and the last game of game night was the TOOTHPICK GAME. Everyone has 2 toothpicks. Then everyone decides secretly whether to put 0, 1, or 2 toothpicks in their hand, and places them in their fist and holds it out. Once the entire group does this, everyone takes a turn to guess how many toothpicks they think there are total in the group. We started out with 15 girls, which meant a total of 30 toothpicks IF everyone had put both in. So you take turns going around the circle guessing the total number YOU think is out in everyone's fists. The trick is, that every number can only be used once. Whoever guesses the right number is out (meaning safe), and you start all over again... subtracting the two highest numbers as possibilities. This continues until you are down to the last person who never picked the right number. To me, the only reason this game is fun, is because before you begin, you pick a consequence that the loser has to do. If I had played this in High School with my friends, we would have had to roll in the snow (most likely without proper attire... wink, wink), or freeze our bra, or prank phone call the cutest boy in Bloomfield. But since we are all past that :) We decided to jump in the pool fully clothed was the best alternative (we did have a good time thinking of other things). So here it is! The proof that the loser of the dreaded toothpick game actually did jump in the pool fully clothed. She is a trooper. Despite constant begging to leave before the debt could be paid... Brit Dye dutifully jumped in and by doing so earned SO MUCH RESPECT! Way to go lady. p.s. I need that towel back!

Synchronized Swimming Video

We really only practiced for a total of 3 hours. I know that seems hard to believe. I have bruises to show for it too! I am so lucky to have fun and funny friends to do silly things with. We were third to last, and so we didn't hear as much clapping (people were tired) as we heard laughing. But they were laughing with us not at us, right? I would like to thank all those who helped make this performance possible. My girls: Becky, Wendy, and Jenna. The sound guy. The lighting experts. My husband and kids (for their support). SIDE NOTE: It was really dark in the gym. So if you click on the video and make it full screen, it is a little lighter and you can see the detailed synchronized moves better!