Farewell

My brother Blake entered the MTC today.  These days you just drop the missionary off at the curb and drive away.  It's pretty fast and painless.  I'm sure I would have cried if we would have gone in and watched the regular movie.  Everyone knows at the end they have the missionaries leave through the other door as you part your ways.  Missions are great, but they can also be rough.  I guess I better send him some same day mail tomorrow.  I remember mail was always the best part of the day!

Family Reunion

We went to Island Park, Idaho for Brendan's family reunion and just returned on Monday.  Island Park is only 30 minutes from West Yellowstone Park.  The cabins we stayed in were really nice, and the weather was perfect.  It was a great place for a reunion.

Breakfast

We had oatmeal for breakfast this morning.  I usually feed Hazel myself if it requires a spoon, because I don't like messes, but Hazel kept trying to take the spoon from me.   I finally gave in and let her go at it.  Of course there was oatmeal everywhere, but she had a good time.

Sisters

After spending a few days in California with my family, my sisters Breeze and Holly 

drove back with us to Utah.  We had a fun filled week.  Our fun included:

mini golf

indie cars

xd theater

picnic up the canyon

alpine slide rides

shopping in park city

bowling

gelato

temple square

homemade lasagna noodles

swimming in the pool

sailing at the lake

movies

spoon it up frozen yogurt 

magleby's at travani

homemade apricot jam

Humboldt, Nevada

We drove to California a few weeks ago for my brother Blake's missionary farewell.  On our drive out there, I just had to stop at this "special" spot and take a few pictures.  When Brendan and I were dating, we drove out to San Francisco to meet up with a friend of Brendan's who was in town from Russia.  We were also going to stop and visit my family in Sacramento on our way out there.  This was Brendan's first time driving to Northern California from Utah.  Brendan pretended to have some car trouble in the middle of nowhere and pulled off at this Humboldt exit on the side of the road.  To make a long story short, he had me get out of the car to check some things out and proposed to me.  I did say yes, but was a little shocked at his location for such a proposal.  Anyone who knows Brendan knows he's pretty creative and romantic, so it wasn't exactly what I had expected.  Especially since it was the day after Valentine's day and we were headed to a pretty romantic city the next day.  Later, when I asked why he chose such a spot he told me that in the future whenever we would drive out to visit my family we could tell the kids that's where Dad and Mom got engaged.

So on our drive out to visit my family I just had to stop and show Hazel where Mom and Dad got engaged.

Ice Cream Cake and Cupcakes

I mentioned in an earlier post that my family grew up having Baskin Robbins ice cream cakes for our birthdays.  Last week was my brother Bruce's birthday, so I decided to make a homemade oreo fudge ice cream cake.  I was surprised at how easy it was, and it tasted great.

Speaking of Bruce, he had to do a process paper for his English class and decided to do strawberry cupcakes.  I photographed the process for him and he made a book.  It was a lot of fun to practice taking pictures, and the book turned out great.  I think it was an A project for sure.  Here are some photos I liked.

We couldn't leave Hazel out of the book.  She was Part 4: Enjoy!

And this was just a cute picture I took at Bruce's house of Hazel that I really liked.

Family Pictures

Last week we had pictures taken.  They were supposed to be around Hazel's birthday for her one year old pictures, but we decided to wait so our friend Katie, who lives in Ohio, would be able to be in town to take them.  She is an excellent photographer and did a great job.  I'll post some later, but for now you can view some of them on her blog.

Deer Creek

On Saturday we went sailing at Deer Creek with Whitney, Bruce, and his roommate Andy.  Hazel loved the water and kept walking down to the beach to get in even though it was a little cold.  I'll have to remember to bring her sand toys next time, because she kept trying to take the other kids shovels and buckets.  With the weather continuing to be so hot, we'll have to go back again soon.

Independence Day Weekend

Saturday: Woke up really early to run the Freedom 

Half Marathon in Salt Lake and made my goal

 of running it in under 2 hours, took a nap, 

attended the Stadium of Fire.

Sunday:  Went to church, had a family BBQ with 

great food, attended a non-secular patriotic 

observance at the Scera Shell. 

Monday:  Rode to the Grand Parade on our patriotic 

tandem, walked around the Freedom Festival 

and met up with my sister and her five kids, 

took a nap, went sailing.

4th of July Dessert

My sister needs a 4th of July dessert on Sunday, so I 

was practicing with these mini cheesecakes.  I thought they turned out really 

well, and they were super easy to make.  I got the idea 

from this website, but I altered the 

cheesecake recipe.