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.

New Lens

For our anniversary Brendan bought me a new lens.  It's the Canon EF24 - 70MM F/2.8L.   I've been enjoying photography, but there is a lot to learn.  With my new lens you are supposed to be able to get crystal clear images, but I'm still working on that.  Any tips from photographers would be appreciated.

Hazel's hair has been getting longer, so I put her hair in pigtails for the first time yesterday.  I remembered seeing some pretty places to take pictures on my run up the canyon the other day, so I took Hazel over to practice using my lens.  She looks so grown up.  As Hazel was wandering the halls at church on Sunday, two people asked me when she was going into nursery.  She still has another five months.

Best Yet

I know we've only had three, but this was the best anniversary yet. I love gerber daisies, so Brendan gave me three gerber daisies for three years. Last year he gave me two, so I'm assuming he'll continue this through the years. Look at the cute flower on top of my present. Brendan made it, and I was pretty impressed with how creative he was. He even sewed those buttons on top.

Brendan and I stayed at the Marriott Mountainside at the Park City Resort from Wednesday to Friday. On Thursday Brendan's mom came up and stayed in our hotel room (which was as big as our house) with Hazel while we went and played. We got all day passes to the park which included the zip line, alpine coaster, and alpine slides. I think the alpine coaster was my favorite. Here is a video of us on the zip line.  You soar up to 45 mph.

3 Years

Las Vegas, Cedar City, and Provo

My niece was baptized this past weekend in Cedar City.  Brendan and I decided to make it into a weekend trip and went down earlier.  We drove to Las Vegas on Thursday morning and went shopping and out to eat.  My mom and four siblings drove down from Sacramento and met up with us in Vegas.  On Friday we went to Hoover Dam and took a tour.  It was my first time there, and I thought it was pretty cool.  Saturday after the baptism, we all drove back to Provo.  On Sunday after church my family drove back to Sacramento.  It was a pretty exhausting weekend, but it was fun to be with family.

My family in front of the new bridge at Hoover Dam.

We stayed at a resort in Las Vegas that had some really nice pools, including a lazy river, but we only got to enjoy them briefly in the evenings.  We were hoping to get some nice tans, but we were just too busy.

We all went up to the Y mountain.

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream!

We threw a birthday party for Hazel at the park with friends and family.  It was on the same day as my sister Whitney's birthday, so we had a celebration for both.  We had a BBQ and ice cream sundae bar, and played lawn games like ladder ball and badminton.  (Sorry the last two photos are not very clear, but I wanted to include some of the guests.)