As Seen By My iPhone

There were certain pictures from our trip that I only got on my iPhone.  Just wanted to share these random, sweet moments... in no particular order at all!

Dinner in Dublin with our dear friends, the Daytons.  I think Max wants to kiss Jared!

Taylor teaching Maris how to text.  

The view from our bike ride on Christmas Eve morning.

The stockings were hung at grandma's house, ready for Christmas morning!

Thankful for my handy hubby who helped my dad fix the microwave when I blew a fuse trying to cook B's lunch.

Hiking with Jeff and Molly's family in Pena Adobe.  I never appreciated this place when I lived here.

My mom trying out Taylor's airsoft shotgun.
She certainly looks like she knows what she is doing!

Maris at the museum.
It was so hard for her to be trapped in a stroller while all the bigs kids got to roam free.

My Temple at Christmas Time.  LOVE.

Brayden and my nephew, Dallyn.  They are three weeks apart and have all the same loves... swords, nerf guns, and Ninjago!  What a surprise it was to find out they both got the exact same pj's for Christmas.  When they had a sleepover, I had to mark B's tags with his name so we didn't get them mixed up and accidentally leave them behind.

These girls hide from my Nikon, but they love getting their picture taken on my iPhone.
Love my neices... they are amazing!

The celebratory cake for the wedding anniversaries.  My mom has a friend
who can make amazing cakes gluten free and dairy free (just for her).
It was beautiful and didn't taste half bad, either!

Ian playing the Wii with Kate and Matt.  Love these cuties!

Max hanging with Charlie.  You'd never know they are the same breed.  Max is so big next to his "uncle Charlie".

20 Years and Counting...

I'm not sure if it was fate or not, but we ended up being home visiting during our 20th wedding anniversary.  This beautiful LDS temple was where we were married in Oakland, CA. 

This is the view of the Bay from terrace on top of the Temple

This temple has always been my favorite.  It's the temple I grew up going to for baptisms, and it's the temple I vowed I would be married in.  I was lucky that Eric was also from the Bay Area, so there was no debate about our wedding location when the time came!

Pictures like this make me Sooooo homesick for my Bay Area.... 

There is a beautiful christmas light display at the Oakland Temple.  We were lucky that the night we picked to go was pretty quiet.  We really did have the place to ourselves.  (Maybe because it was COLD and windy....)

Every year the temple has been closed during Christmas vacation for one of it's bi-annual cleanings.  They will open up one day during that time to accomodate live sealings.  So, we've never been able to go back to the temple and do any work there for our anniversary.  Since I knew we'd be there for our 20th anniversary, I decided to check the schedule again, just in case, and guess what... they were open! We were able to take some family names and go do proxy sealings for some of Eric's ancestors.  It's been too long since we've been in the sealing room, and I was super grateful to be able to go back and be reminded of the special blessings that come with a temple marriage.

This was the only picture I managed to get of Eric and I in front of Our Temple.  I'm so thankful to have him in my life.  Best decision I ever made!

Family Pictures

We spent our entire Christmas vacation visiting family in the Motherland of Northern California.  It was stressful and exhausting in many ways, but also so fun and rewarding!  

Here's some family pics we took in my grandma's backyard while my brother and his family were down from Eureka.  We had less than two days together, so we decided to do our family pictures while we were visiting my grandma.  She has a picture friendly backyard anyway, and I love being able to kill two birds with one stone.  

Thanks Annie for teaching me this trick to get a fun picture of all the kids together.  Afterwards, Brayden said, "Why does everyone have to tickle me?" I promised him that next time, I'll ask everyone to tickle Ben instead.

I'm so excited to be an aunt again... and we didn't know it yet when we did the pictures, but Adam and Delia are having a GIRL!  That's going to pose a real challenge for the woman whose favorite color is black.  I don't know how much self restraint my mother will be able to exhibit.  I wasn't a big fan of pink when I had Megan, and neither is Delia.  Poor mom!

This picture was a chore to get.  Brayden was not in the mood to cooperate.  And you can see how forced most of their smiles are.  I can almost guarantee Taylor was muttering something under his breath like, "just smile, so we can get this over with."  

 I don't think Grandma expected to be put into our family pictures that day in her backyard, but she should have known better.  Of course, she was dressed pretty cute, so maybe she suspected, and decided to be prepared!

This picture was too cute not to include.  My aunt and uncle were at my grandma's house the day we did our pictures, so they became our photographers.... and my Aunt Karen, just had to sneak into this one.  Love it!  

Four generations of girls... and another girl on the way!

I love this picture... the last year has been a rough one for my grandma with her health, and quite by accident I caught her and my mom having this private moment.  I wish I knew what she said to my mom... it was obviously funny!

A New Year

One of my four goals for the year is to blog at least once a week.  I figure Sunday will most likely be my mandatory blogging day, so I'm starting off easy with posting some pictures we had taken over Thanksgiving weekend.  Annie Critchfield came to visit her family for the holiday, so I quickly booked some of her time.  As you can see, she did a fabulous job!  Thanks, Annie!  (She is currently living in Provo, UT, but comes to Phoenix to visit her family here a couple times a year.)  Check out her blog (linked on her name) or her Facebook page.  She is awesome!

Ward Camp Out

Since our dear friend became the Bishop, our ward has had an annual campout every summer.  The reason behind this has to do with the fact that he is the father of all girls and they love to camp.  Every time he left to go on a Priesthood campout, they would get jealous.  So, the DR2 "Everyone is Invited" Ward Campout was born!  The last two years we've reserved spots at Long Valley.  This is the same place the Stake does Girls Camp, and it's one of my most favorite places in the whole state of Arizona.  

Bless Kyle's heart for having hot dogs.... Brayden would NOT eat what they served for dinner.  If it hadn't been for Kyle, Brayden would have gone to bed VERY hungry!

We were both nervous and excited to bring Max this year.  We knew he would love Long Valley, but we were worried that sleeping in the tent with us (and not in a confined space or kennel) might be a dicey proposition.  

He found a comfy spot between Megan and Ian and I made sure he was covered up with a blanket for the night.  All was well until Jeff's dog Husker, a cute, but naughty, Jack Russell Terrier, escaped from his tent at 5 a.m. and started making the rounds to "visit" other tents where dogs were sleeping.  Let's just say Husker made a few enemies that morning!

Eric was in charge of the kids Geocache activity, so he and I went out for a walk to plot all the points and hide the treasure.  Long Valley doesn't look this beautiful during girls camp... it's still too dry up there from the spring.  But after six weeks of summer thunderstorms, the wildflowers were everywhere!

And so were the butterflies.... they were huge and not afraid of people at all.  When they landed on you, it felt like they were biting you a little bit.  Super crazy!  (Maybe Ian should be a hand model?)

Kate brought up fun games for the kids to play, but adults were getting into this one too... How many Oreos can you stack on your forehead before they fall.  I think Eric and Megan and one other person all tied at nine.  Truth be told, I think Eric had the unfair advantage with that chair.  It's a natural recliner!

This view always reminds me of Girls Camp.  It's the road that leads to the area where the YCL camp always is.  But now it will always remind me of my last campout with the DR2 ward.  Since we moved here to AZ over seven and a half years ago, we've been in this same ward.  And these people have become my family.  Three weeks ago, we were moved into the G3 ward.  Overall it's a HUGE blessing for us, as the new ward has a much bigger Young Men's/Young Women's program.  Rumor has it that there are 47 YM in our new ward... SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!  More than half of our DR2 ward came with us over to G3, so we haven't been thrust into a new ward where we don't know anybody, but we are still sad about being pulled away from some dear friends that stayed behind in the other ward.  Boundary changes are always bittersweet, but I plan to make it my personal agenda to push for a G3 ward campout up at Long Valley every year.  It's such a fun activity!  Can you tell I love camping?