Our All-American Girls!

For the 4th, my sister and I took the girls to Sugar House park and walked around, fed the ducks, played at the playground, enjoyed the beautiful Utah day and watched all the preparations for the big festivites that night. Later on, we had some yummy dutch oven BBQ chicken at grandma and Aunt Judy's house. After the girls were asleep we watched the Sugar House fireworks from the comfort of the driveway. A pretty nice, low-key 4th of July.

(We couldn't get enough of Maddy in her little "Apple Dumpling" outfit--it was vintage 2004 from Ellie!)

Utah's Hogle Zoo

While we were in Utah, my sister and I took our kids to the Hogle Zoo. We had a great time (even if it was 102 outside!). We were delighted to find out that the white alligator was still there and we got to ride the new carousel. The bird show is always fun to attend and the train is still the same as I remembered it being as a kid. The important thing was, that the girls all had a great time together and they made some wonderful cousin memories!

Fresh picked strawberries

A group of our friends met at the Carlsbad U-pick strawberry fields and had a great time! You can eat all the strawberries you want while you pick and I really think Ellie probably ate more than she filled her bucket with! There is nothing like a beautiful summer day picking and eating delicious red, ripe strawberries straight off the vine! YUM!!

Happy 31st Mark!

Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mark, happy birthday to you! I hope Mark had a fabulous birthday! We made him a yummy breakfast, and after work, he opened presents and we even got to eat ice cream cake before dinner! Later that night, we had a babysitter for the girls and met up with some friends for dinner and an awesome bowling game! (Mark's high was 212 and mine was 137!) I can't believe I am married to such an "old fart!" Happy birthday babe!

Happy Father's Day!!

Mark is such an amazing dad! His girls just ADORE him! We are always so excited when he gets home--it's truly one of our favorite times of the day! (Ellie even made up a song about 2 years ago that we sing whenever he gets home! "Daddy he is our hero, he always chooses the right..." ) Everything is more fun with daddy! He is so loving, thoughtful, patient, understanding, righteous, fun loving, humorous and an all around AWESOME dad!

WE LOVE YOU DADDY!!

Maddy and Daddy

Ellie and Daddy

Ellie wanted daddy to even have his own prince crown since he is always Ellie's prince when she plays princess dress up

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!!

This was Ellie on her first day of preschool last August

Here is Ellie today--on her last day of preschool. (These pics were taken in the same place outside her preschool) She has grown so much and not only in inches. It's bitter sweet that her first year of preschool is over. I can't believe that she is getting that much closer to kindergarten, she is growing up way too quickly, but we are looking forward to lots of play this summer. Way to go Ellie!!

Beautiful Lake Tahoe

Mark's parents took us on a wonderful trip to Lake Tahoe for a week. We absolutely loved it! Neither of us had ever been there before and just fell in love with the tranquility and beauty of this place. The water was so clear and this gorgeous shade of blue. There were great little hikes that we took the girls on, scenic drives, and wonderful picnic spots. We had such a great time relaxing, playing games, sight seeing and we were so lucky that the girls were such angels in the car for the 10 hour drive!

The water was a bit too cold for swimming, but we ignored the "Warning: Extremely cold water" signs and dipped our feet in the water--BRRR! We drove out to Virginia City one day and had fun exploring the old mining "ghost" town. And to Ellie's disgust, we even fished for our dinner one night at a trout farm--(I caught the biggest fish!) We drove out to visit Squaw Valley--which was absolutely beautiful. We hung around the Marriott a bit and played some table tennis and attended an ice cream social. What a great trip!

Yosemite National Park

On the way back from Lake Tahoe, we had the opportunity to drive through Yosemite National Park. WOW--What a place!! It was so breath taking! We stopped our car every few minutes and had to get out to oooh and ahhh over all the sites!! There was even a climber on El Capitan that we watched for a bit. The waterfalls were simply amazing and there was even still snow on the ground in some places. On our way out of the park after a full day of sight seeing, we stopped to hike around Mariposa Grove with all the giant sequoias and we saw 16 deer (in addition to the 6 we had seen earlier in the day). 2 of the deer even lead the way up the trail only a few feet in front of us for about 10 minutes. To Ellie's (and my) disappointment, we never did see a bear--even though there had been a sighting while we were there, but Yosemite was SO amazing!