Epic

A week before Thanksgiving, along with Morgan and Amy we took a week long cruise on the Norwegian Epic cruise ship. At least 2 months before we left there were count down text messages going on between Amy and I.. "50 days until we leave!, 30 days until the party starts!", etc.. We were just little anxious and excited!

I would say it lived up to our expectations and more, we had such a blast. We first stopped at St. Martin, where we decided to just find a beach and take it easy that day. We found ourselves a nice little spot with a good view (of the nudies next door at the nude beach!) and a friendly little restaurant behind it. Little did I know that our cruise ship only served Pepsi products.. ahh man! But to my surprise this little restaurant had all the diet coke I could ask for. We had fun just reading and lounging.

Stop number two was St. Thomas, where we decided to catch a taxi and went down town to make a shopping day out of it. I'm not sure why but St. Thomas was full of Jewelry stores, I'm talkin' every other store was a jewelry store. So me and Amy had fun going in quite a few of them and trying on ring after ring while the boys just stood there and laughed at us.. we had fun dreamin. We grabbed some lunch at a fun little fish house before we got back on the ship, and were off to the the Bahamas!

In the Bahamas there is this incredible resort called the Atlantis, with probably one of the biggest water parks I have ever seen. We decided to buy tickets to the water park. With tons of crazy slides going through shark tanks, a mile long lazy river, a delicious burger joint, we made a good decision. We were all loving this resort so much. The only down fall to the day was leaving. We all wished we were actually staying at the resort, so we made a vow right then and there that we would be back to stay at the resort and make a vacation out of it in a couple of years.

Aside from all the fun stops we made, we also had a blast just being on the ship. Taking full advantage of the spa, playing games, ordering room service for breakfast pretty much everyday, spending a good 2 hrs or more at dinner just talking, and then realizing we could probably eat again so ordering another round of appetizers and desserts! I will always have such fun memories of this trip, and its mostly because of the the great friends we were with. If anyone knows Mason and Morgan when they are together it is literally one non stop comedy show! They feed off each other like you wouldn't believe, and lucky for me, I love Amy just as much as those two boys love each other. I sure did miss my little Cash man though, Mason and I always found ourselves saying things like "oh Cash would love this", or I would see a little boy about his age and start missing him like crazy. Thanks to Jem and Nana he was in good hands.

-Next stop, Atlantis resort 2013!

* And there are still text messages going on between Amy and I.. "I could really use a Pina colada right about now", or "remember when Morgan was dancing around with nothin but his speedo on"..

The Bambino-half way

I didn't really document my pregnancy at all with Cash, so I thought I would do a little this time around, just for memories sake. I am currently 21 wks and feeling great! Of course the beginning was rough, but I feel like I've got my energy back and am actually surprised at how good I have felt the past couple weeks. I remember not feeling as good with Cash, but I was also working, we were building a house, and we moved a couple times so maybe that's why. After 3 ultrasounds, he finally showed us.. all boy! We are so excited, Mason and I often talk about how much fun, but crazy two boys will be. How our Saturdays will be filled with football games, and our days will be filled with wrestling matches, Lego's, trucks and all things boys. Having Mason grow up with 4 brothers, he can't wait to see them be such good buddies like he is with his brothers.

Take this job and shove it..

There is part of me that wants to forget and part of me that doesn't. Ok thats a bit dramatic, but I really just wanted to document this for memories sake and because its a stage in our lives.

Mason is one hard working SOB. His day usually starts around 5 am, works until 5pm, and is off to school until around 9pm. Somehow he squeezes in the gym, wrestling matches with Cash, and he always seems to make me feel like with all he's got going on, he really does care how my day went. He is quick to compliment me in all my dis-shevledness at 9pm, or my dinner, or how the house looks. He really acts genuinely interested in the recent organizing kick that I've been on.. as if he has time to care about the drawer that I reorganized. Even with all the important pressures and deadlines at work and school that need to get done. When he walks in the door at night I know all he wants to do is turn his brain off. But he doesn't, he walks in with a smile and a hug, and usually has some ridiculous dance move to make me laugh. He's a catch I tell ya.

Usually about 8 o'clock, when its dark outside is when it does get a bit lonely. When Cash is I'm sure so sick of being with me all he wants is his dad. I know I will look back on this time and it will seem like a blink of an eye. I'm grateful that my boys (I'll have two soon!) will have the example of hard work, dedication, and what a real man does for his family. I am so blessed.

Labor Day splurge

We didn't have any plans for labor day, and just figured we would take it easy and have a low key weekend. Well I guess we are both a little antsy because that lasted maybe a few hours. As we started hearing of all our family and friends having all these fun plans of going here or there.. we said what the heck! That day we called the the Marriott down town and booked a room! And that was that, if everyone else was partyin' we weren't missing out!

We had lunch at Happy Sumo, walked around gateway and bought some much need maternity clothes for this expanding body of mine. What are the chances we ran into the Morgan Green family while we were there? So we joined forces and decided to do something the kids wanted to do, since this was a "family vacation"and took the kids to Build a bear. Cash picked a skate boarding hockey player bear. When the kids were done building their bears you go make a certificate for them and name them, Cash didn't have a name so I asked Amy for famous Hockey players name to which she responded Wayne Gretsky. So the rest of the trip all we heard form Cash was "wheres Waaayyynnnee?"

After shopping, Mason or I have never been to the melting pot, so Morgan and Amy talked us into it. I probably wouldn't recommend going with small children; Sharp sticks, hot pots, and 2 hrs of doing one thing and a two year old don't mix really well, but delicious none the less. The kids were just fine though when the dessert fondue came out.

After dinner, we went back to our room (not before getting pulled over of course) , Cash played in the tub, snuggled up with Wayne the bear and watched a movie on the lap top, while me and Mason rented a movie and called it a night.

It was a fun splurge of a weekend, and decided its a tradition we want to do every labor day.

Cheers to day's of No Labor!

Our summer of 2011

This summer has been crazy. Just recently have I felt like its slowed down a bit. The beginning of the summer I remember thinking that I really wanted to make the most of the summer with Mason not in school, and I kind of made mental list of some things I wanted us to do. I'm pretty sure I checked most of those things off and more. In no particular order here's a run down of our summer.

Back in July we got invited to the premiere opening of the Cinaplex in Farmington. I can't even tell you how glad I was for this to open and for this job to be over! Mason was managing all the concrete work at the theatre and there was a good couple weeks there where I maybe saw him about 20 min. a day. It was fun to go to opening though and pick any movie we wanted with free concessions!

One night I packed our dinner in a back pack and met Mason up at the Centerville Dual Creek hike. What I thought was going to just be a leisurely stroll turned into a little more intense hike than I had planned on, especially with Cash on Mason's shoulders the whole time. whoopsi. But it turned out to be really fun as we just chatted and enjoyed the scenery on the way back down..

Took a fun Cabin trip with some of the fam over the 24th. We always love the cabin for a quick getaway. Notice the winking.. for some reason on this trip he thought winking was really cool.

The end of July we went and met Mason at Lake side, he's really been getting into golfing this summer so I wanted to see him in action. We just hit a couple buckets of balls, but Cash thought it was awesome. Not so sure the people around us thought so when Cash would yell something really loud like "look out!" every time Mason hit the ball.

We went up to the alpine slide one Saturday afternoon with Morgan and Amy. Mason took Cash while I waited at the bottom. I loved that I could hear Cash cheering and yelling before I could even see them. We grabbed some dinner on our way back down at Hapa grill which was delish!

the fourth

When I heard that Centerville was doing all their fourth of July festivities on Saturday I was a little bugged. But it actually turned out to be one long party all weekend long!

Saturday started out with the Centerville 5k, followed by the parade, Hot dog BBQ at the Green's residence. After a quick nap to recharge it continued with a pool party/more BBQ at the Salmon residence. Last minute Sunday night I decided to run the Kaysville 5k Monday morning, I was trying to make up for all the food I gorged on all weekend. We then took Cash to "Cars 2" and lunch. Later that day we hung out at "Rancho". Rode horses, played with the bunnies, chickens, rode the tractor, and picked veggies. To end all the celebrating we watched Davis High's fire works.

My favorite things about this fourth of July:

*Watching Cash figure out that the candy being thrown at the parade as actually for grab and keep!

*The food. Oh my the food. Morgan and Amy did an awesome Hot dog bar complete with the Phili cheese dog , chili dog, Chicago dog, and a taco dog. Homemade ice cream, and ribs by my Mom. By far my favorite "Food Holiday".

*Cash clapping at every exciting part during "Cars"

*Cash absolutley loving Rancho. He has always liked it, but now he is at the age where is really starting to love it. He was loving the bunnies, and kept yelling "yee haa" riding the horse.

*While watching fireworks up at Davis, we could practically see all the firework shows throughout the whole valley.

Snap shots of April

2nd birthday

We had a great time ringing in Cash's second year of life, actually third but you know what I mean. The celebrating got spread among a few days due to some ear infections and what not..tis the season!

The day started with his Favorite Breakfast: French Toast with butter and powdered sugar

A few hours later a double frosted peanut butter cookie. I don't know where in the world he came up with that idea...

Corn dogs at Arctic Circle followed by running like a crazy man on the toy. Two year olds are so easy to please.

And a couple days later a little cake and present action at Nana and Pop's house.

Cash's gifts this year included: a Buzz and Woody tent, t ball set, tickle me Elmo, alligator hat, buzz gun, and cars. The kid has a serious love for any thing toy story.

He thought it was so funny to scare all the kids with his alligator hat.

Although its really freakin me out I have a two year old, I'm loving this age. I love that I can somewhat carry on a conversation with him, and he can generally understand everything I'm saying. I love seeing his little sense of humor develop. He loves to make people laugh and crack jokes (what he thinks are jokes in his head) and laugh, and laugh like he is the funniest thing ever. He has such a sweet little personality. He gets seriously stressed out seeing other kids cry and is always trying to hug them and make them feel better. At least a couple times a day out of the blue he will stop what ever he is doing and wrap his arms around me for a few seconds and then continue with whatever he was doing. Its times like that I consider this the best job in the world.