California!!

I am really slacking on my posts and for those of you who have already seen my sister's or my cousin's blogs then this will be old information for you, but for everyone else I just wanted to post a little bit about the awesome trip we went on to California. The main reason for going was because my Great Grandpa Burdick was turning 100 and we were going to celebrate his birthday with him. My parents wanted to make sure all of us could go so they rented a huge

12 passengeer van. The only sad thing was that Richard and Jason (my sister's husband could not go because of work).

Anyway so there was a lot (and I mean about 17 hours one way) of traveling in the van, but we made the best of it. We took a lot of crazy pictures to keep ourselves from getting too bored!!

Here are Arwen and I

Jackson also made some crazy faces . . .

Here are my awesome sisters . . . Sian and Liz

And this is the man (my dad) who gave us the amazing ability to take such photogenic pictures (did I mention that I love him?)!!

When we weren't in the van, it seemed like we were trying to get some sleep in random motels, but we did make sure to have some fun too and we spent one whole day at Great America Theme Park!! That was so much fun!! Here is a picture of my whole family in front of Great America, including my mom and my Brother, Daniel!!

My mom and dad were so nice and they took the kids on a bunch of rides while my siblings and I got to ride the big rollercoasters!!

We also went to the beach the following day!! The kids were having so much fun they would not even look up for a picture!!

My siblings and I . . .

Last, but not least, my mom and dad. . .

Home Sweet Home

For those who don't know, we are in the middle of building our house; well I am not doing much, but Richard is our general contractor. People said building a house was stressful and I was afraid, but it has not been too bad (occasionally things have been stressful) up until the last couple weeks when we were about to get drywall and someone decided to come in and cut out a bunch of our electrical wiring. Richard had to call and cancel drywall and now we get to wait on the insurance. . . and the electrician to come and redo everything he had already done.

All the yellow wires are cut and hanging down as well as the can light fixture.

This is in the garage where they did the most damage and it is annoying because they had to pull out a bunch of the insulation throughout the whole house to get to the wire out.

For some reason, they decided to cut a whole into one of our window screens even though there are no doors in the house yet and they went right through the garage.

I also just wanted to put a couple pictures of the outside of our house for those people who have not yet seen it.

Here is the back of the house.

I love the front of the house, although you cannot see it very well because of the big fence we have to try to keep it semi-safe.

I will post some before and after pictures of the inside of the house as soon as we get drywall.

Good times at the Whiting Homestead!!

This last weekend we went to the Whiting Homestead with my cousin, Collette (and her family) and then Satya and Lucia (and their families). Thanks to Lucia by the way for the pictures. . .

Richard and I

Satya and Amaron

Lucia and David

Me and Collette

Mike (Collette's husband) and baby Cole

Satya, Lucia and Collette talked me into hiking up Trego even though I am a wuss, but I did have a good time. Here are some pictures of us at the top. The wind was crazy!!

I cannot believe how awesome Lucia looks considering she just had her baby about six weeks ago!!




Brooklyn, Arwen and Cassideen

Amaron, (Satya's husband) built this wagon, from scraps of metal and wood in his backyard, then he rigged it up and attached it to a bike. The kids had a blast and the mom's got some decent exercise taking turns pulling them.

I tried giving the kids rides, but luckily no one had a camera at the time because it was not pretty. I forgot how to ride a bike and the bike was shaking all over the place.

Our 5th Anniversary getaway!!

Richard and I decided that in honor of our 5th anniversary (on the 23rd of May) we were going to take our very first trip without the kids. We left the kids with my parents for the first couple days and then they dropped them off at Richard's parent's house for the last day and a half. We are so grateful for all of the grandparents help!!

We headed up to Vegas. We had a really relaxing time and did everything without a schedule. We got to eat a lot of yummy food and we went to a magic show and we did a lot of sightseeing, but our very favorite part was when we went to the Las Vegas Temple. It is so so beautiful!! We forgot our camera most of the trip, but luckily we had our camera at the temple so we took some pictures there.

Easter Pictures!!

My sister-in-law, Andrea, had the awesome idea to have all the Hale Grandkids (Arwen, Jackson and her son Grant) pictures taken together so that we could give them to our in-laws as an Easter gift for them!! I just wanted to share some of my favorite ones! Andrea's friend, Dray, took them for us and she did an amazing job!!

Do not let the happy faces on all of these pictures fool you, it was really quite challenging getting them all to smile at the same time!! Even bribing them with candy was not enough at times!


These were our favorites of the Arwen, Jackson and Grant!!



I know that I am getting a little carried away with pictures, but I just cannot help myself, anyway here is one of my favorite pictures of Arwen!!

And then of course I have to put one of my favorite ones of Jackson!!

Okay this is the last one, I promise!! I just loved this one of Arwen and Jackson together!!

The Purple Shirt!!

For anyone who knows Richard, they probably know that he is really into making sure that his boy is very, very masculine. This is why I was a little nervous to bring home

the purple shirt that I found for Jackson to wear on Easter!

When Richard saw it, I got the reaction I expected. He did not love it, but hey at least it was not pink. Anyway I put his new Easter outfit on him just to make sure everything fit properly and I know that he is my son and that makes me biased, but he makes this shirt look dang good!! I just wanted to post a couple of pictures because I seriously love the shirt and tie combo!!!!

State Basketball Championship!

Last week my little sister, Sian, (and her team of course) played in the 2A State Championship Game. Unfortunately they lost by six points. But it was an awesome game to watch and they played so great!!

I decided it would be fun to make matching shirts for the family to wear, but I did not realize how long it was going to take me to finish making them all so Richard was so so sweet and he helped me finish them all.

Here is the finished product!!

We had a hard time getting a good picture of all of us!!

Here are the kids showing off the front and back of their shirts. . .