Mothers Day 2012

The school did a Donuts with Moms morning before school just before Mothers Day weekend. The 1st-3rd graders did a cute little dance for everyone. Jaxon did a dance for the Dad and Donuts day that Don took him too. It was a fun little morning.

 Yea, these aren't my families greatest pictures ever, but hey it's real life right? Don and the kids took me to a big nursery to pick out some flowers for some pots and for the yard. Parker picked the biggest one that he's holding, its really pretty and it gets to stay in the house.

 I have NO idea what I am doing with my hand. I think I must have been blocking the sun, either way it looks totally silly! The sun was super bright and we were  looking right into it. Thank the photographer for that! :) It was a good day. Before we left the kids helped SO much working around the house and yard. I was really impressed with how well they all worked and how much we got done... on a side note, this was also the day we lost our kitty Lilly. RIP kitty cat.

5th Annual Girls Weekend Bend, OR

This year our trip was in Bend, OR. Sarah and I flew into Portland where Stephanie lives and started our trip there. First stop was the Portland Temple. We have talked about going to the temple together for a few years now and finally made it happen this trip. We had a long drive the first night to Bend so we were a bit short on time and so we did Inititories and then sat in the BEAUTIFUL Celestial room. It was a neat experience and really nice to be there with the girls. This picture below is inside the middle of the temple in a courtyard area. It was beautiful.

 This one is outside the temple. The weather was beautiful, but totally deceiving! On our way up to Bend it SNOWED!! It was crazy, it made Stephanie a bit nervous driving in the dark. It was snowing pretty hard for a while. We still managed to make good time.

 This is the house we rented. It was just outside Bend in Sunriver, which we didn't explore too much but the one night we were there looking for a grocery store it looked really fun. It would have been fun if the weather were nicer to have gone around on some of the trails they had there.

 Our top priority on our girls weekends is always pedicures!! We had a good time there, the people were super nice. We all went a little out of the box and got different colors than we would normally do. I don't know how we managed to only get a picture of mine and Steph's because I liked Sarah's the best!

 A big attraction in Bend is the candy shop.... Goodys.  We stopped at about 4 of them I think while we were there. It was SO GOOD!! This is at the actual factory. We did a short little tour and watched some of the candy makers do their magic.

 These were cute :)

Sarah is really good at

 capturing the moment!

                                                                                     

Beautiful Sarah

                                                                                                                                                                                                     They had really good home made ice cream. They had different flavors all the time, I think I had Cookies n' Cream and Butter Finger. It was the creamiest ice cream!! We also got LOTS of candy! My favorite was the salted caramels. MMMM!! They also did fresh made caramel corn. We may have gotten a bunch of that as well. :) Each of us grabbed some for our kiddos at home too and had them wrap them all cute for them. I got the kids some lego shaped candy that actually snapped together. Easton loved them. It was definitely one of my favorite places on the trip!

 Of course what is a girls weekend with our SHOPPING!!?? There was lots of that in Bend. This was at the Factory Outlets. Nike had a HUGE sale!

 We also hit up the Maurices store and Sarah's favorite, the Black White store. I think she would love it if I mentioned that she is only in workout clothing because while Sarah and I were at a home store she went to the local Cross Fit and worked out with them. She is a very dedicated Cross Fit PRO!! She did change shortly after these photos were taken and looked beautiful. :)

 We ate at some yummy places... the best was actually this amazing donut shop, but we didn't get pictures, probably to keep from having evidence of the awful pigs we were!!! OH WE ATE BADLY this trip!! The top picture was at a Mongolian place and the lower is at the Pine Tavern, there were two huge Pine Tress right in the center of the restaurant. It was yummy and our waitress was great, she hooked us up with a box of the yummy sweet rolls they had there.

 Sunday we visited the local ward in Bend. It was neat in Relief Society reciting the YW motto with the Young Women who were in visiting RS. I got all emotional (what else is new??) standing there saying it next to my two dear girls who I learned that theme with. The spirit really touched me. I am very thankful for these two girls in my life and the memories we have shared and the strength I get from them.

 Sunday afternoon walk. It felt so good to get outside!!

 So our last day on our way back to Portland we stopped at this Lava Forest National Park. We were able to walk up around the rim of the volcano and look out at this amazing view of all this hardened lava from hundreds of years ago.

 Alvin, Simon and Theodore were all there. :)

                      Beautiful Views!!!

 

Sarah... takingpictures I don't know about!!

This is it... our last stop and last photo before saying "Good Bye" til next year!!! Next year we are hoping to be in Hawaii all together, with our Husbands for Don and I's sealing in the Laie Hawaii Temple.... if that doesn't work out for everyone we have talked about going to Victoria British Columbia with our hubbies as well......Until next year!!!

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Fruitland Trips

Recently I had a chance to stop in Fruitland, ID on a drive home from seeing my sisters. It was a fun unannounced visit. We went to Kiwi Loco with our kids, it's a self serve frozen yogurt place. YUM!

 

 We took this picture by Sarah's front door just before I left. She was heading to a funeral, that's why she looks so cute! It was a really fun one night visit.

A few weeks later Don and I had a chance to go back to Fruitland to see Sarah and introduce Todd, her husband to Don. They really hit it off! I was really glad. It feels so good to have such a close friend and to have my husband enjoy being around her and her husband too. We really had  a good time. We stayed a few days and nights. We brought Easton along with us and he just LOVED playing with her kids.

 It was really cute watching them try and bounce each other. Looks like Ashton got the best of Easton on this one!

 We also had the kids to a little Cross Fit challenge. It was pretty stinking cute watching them do these pushups! I was really impressed with their enthusiasm. I don't think they knew we were just trying to tire them out before bed!

 Don was out unwinding on Todds basket ball court, he was pretty impressed with it.

 Ashton and Easton had a BALL watching movies down in Sarahs theater. It's a fun little set up. They mostly watched Star Wars I think and then came up stairs to act it out with their light swords. They really had a good time together. Easton misses his friend! 

One last picture before we hit the road