3ish months of catch up!!

OH MY!!! It has seriously been forever since I've done anything on the blog:( I feel terrible. It's basically the same ole story about being INSANELY busy. I guess that's just my life right now:) Not complaining though, it's been SO MUCH fun lately. We've been all over the country (more on that later) celebrating, working, and just day to day life. Gosh I think it was spring last time I posted! So the other night Brandon and I were laying in bed and I could tell by the tone in his voice he was nervous even asking but it went something like, "so since you're not doing the blog anymore......" I felt terrible. It has been on my mind a lot lately but again, the busyness:) So where do I start?

Ummm, WAYYY back in March we went to Dubois, Wyoming on a little snowmobiling trip with Brandon's family. It was delightful! His Aunt, Uncle and Grandmother from Washington came up as well as James, Amy and Leila from Cheyenne. We rented a cabin and all stayed for several days and snowmobiled. Our cabin was the simplest but cutest thing. There were wildlife that came right up to the porch, it was incredible. There was a mama moose that let us get super close to her. It was crazy! After that, we continued to Colorado. Brandon had some work to do with ConocoPhillips but we were able to hang out with some really good friends that we hadn't seen in a while and it was SO nice.

my studmuffin

linda, stuck?? surprise?? hehe

gabby and madison at the aquarium

denver aquarium

at the denver aquarium

the girls with patrick and whitney

I guess some other BIG news is that Hannah and Devin are officially moved here!! I am so excited, I love having her here. Lunch, coffee, working out, it's the best!! I think she agrees:) lol The girls love that Auntie Hannah and Uncle Devin are here now too. One day last week was the first day that we went to work out and Auntie Hannah didn't come. As soon as we pulled up Madison asks "Where's Auntie Hannah?":-)
 

dying eggs at nama and papa's for easter

ta da!! madison at gymnastics!

planting flowers on mother's day

planting flowers on mother's day

 In May we went to see my parents in Alabama. We were there the 15-22, Hannah and Devin came too! We flew into Pensacola, Florida and went straight to Grayton Beach, Florida for several days. It was so much fun, little bit of camera drama that, of course "rocked my world" and a couple shark encounters but hey, overall...FANTASTIC!! Nobody was eaten so that's a plus in my book :-) We actually stayed at the Grayton Beach State Park in a cabin and it was B.E.A.U. tiful!! It was literally a three minute walk to the beach. It wasn't crowded at all! It was like having a private beach since it's a state park and only people that are staying in the cabins have access to that part of the beach. The cabins were in a "wooded" area so we saw it all, one morning we had a deer right off of our porch!! It was so pretty! The girls loved the beach, Allie learned to say it really well!! Madison played in the sand the whole time. She occasionally got in the water but was much more comfortable in the sand :-) Allie liked it all. The weather was PERFECT! Not too hot at all.  As for the shark drama... on the second morning my dad, Hannah and I went out in the water to jump the waves, we were out for a little while and had gone a good ways out when we looked back to see Brandon, Devin and Mama standing and waving us in like crazy people. So, what do we do, we wave back like stupid people, then we notice the other people on the beach waving at us. Next thing I know Dad says, girls turn around and walk to the beach there's a shark... ummmm walk, are you nuts?! There will be NO walking for this girl so what do we do, you can only imagine right? I'm flailing about trying to run as quick as I can in the water (yeah you know what trying to run in the water is like), I'm sure it was quite the sight and I'm quite confident that my top came down about half way but at that point didn't really give a flip what people saw, I was getting away from this shark. Obviously we made it to shore and sure enough looked out to see what were TWO 5-6 ft sharks less than five feet from where we were. Good thing they weren't hungry!! Talk about adrenaline rush.... In all the years I have spent on the beach that is the first time (not the last though) I have come that close to a shark. We stayed out of the water for a little while but it was our last day at the beach and we weren't going to be back for a while so I'll be darned if we're going to not get back in the water. So...... Dad, Hannah, Brandon and I went back out sometime later to jump the waves again and I'll be damned if it didn't happen again!!! This time Hannah and I were a little timid and looking everywhere and joking about the whole thing. The boys didn't seem to be too concerned. Well, sure enough Hannah says guys, I'm not joking but it's right there, seriously. The boys see it and say yep it's there, go in.  Of course, Devin and Mama are on shore again waving like crazy!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! I'm thinking okay, once we made it I think we're going to die this time. I think this is when I might have possibly... just a little.. tried to drown Hannah to get to shore (that's what she says anyway:). I couldn't move so she grabbed me and shoved me to get me to go. Turns out they were right at our feet. So, that's our shark drama, kind of cool to talk about now, but in the moment, not so cool. As for the camera drama. I was able to take pictures, beautiful pictures the whole time we were there but then the last day as we were leaving I wanted to take some of the cabins, that's when my card corrupted:( I was SO not a happy camper, ask my family. All of the pictures I took (over 500) the last two days were gone. It's not too often that we're all 8 together, and it was Allie's first time at the beach and they were gone.... I cried, I got mad, etc. On our way back to my parents house we stopped in to Best Buy to see if there was something they could do and at the time there wasn't but when I got home I dropped the card off and Best Buy came through and were able to recover ALL of the pictures and videos we took. Thank you Best Buy!!

Once we left the beach we went to my parents house in Alabama. It was about an hour and a half away. We had such a great time, their house is beautiful! We even got to see some of our cousins while we were there! Brad and his family drove up and had lunch with us one day so our kids were finally able to meet and hang out:) They had a good time. It was so nice seeing Brad and Ashley! It had been too long:)

The pictures are actually backwards in order, sorry. The beach should come first but I'm being lazy and refusing to copy and paste each and every picture individually:)

my parent's gorgeous house!

making home made ice cream

cousins, you can see how thrilled they were for the picture:)

brad, ashley, shawn and callie

cousins, allie would not let me take a picture without clinging to my leg...

the men, ready to go golfing:)

the crew:)

our cabin at the beach

 

devin's sand castle

gran gran and allie

silly devin with one of our friends from the cabins:)

poor brandon got a gnarly sunburn where we missed with sunscreen, oops...

We left the 22nd and were home for a day then turned around and flew to Arizona for Brandon's cousin Erin's high school graduation. We had a really good time! It was really nice to see Aunt Lisa and her family. All the aunts and uncles were there except Rocky and Linda (they had to stay back because Levi and Maria's baby was due). We played pool a lot! I like that game:) And had some good visits. Graduation was great, it was so pretty there. We flew back on the 27th. The girls did great, again:) They love flying!

getting ready for trip #2 to Arizona

on the plane to arizona

cousins, chloe and madison

uncle reggie

We were home for a little while longer this time. While we were home we decided it was time to put Allie in her big girl bed! She had gotten into the habit of crawling in and out of the crib so rather risk her getting hurt we took down the crib and set up the big girl bed:) She loves it! It was so sad for this mama though. Kind of emotional knowing we won't set up a crib again until we have grandkids:( My girls aren't babies anymore. No more binkies, bottles, cribs, all I've got left is diapers which will come soon enough. Poor Allie may never get potty trained since that will mean I'm officially not a mama of babies:) I'll live... it is crazy to think though that we are 29 and 27 and pretty much out of the baby stage. We were talking about it though and it's so great though because the girls are at the age where they can do a lot with us now. Traveling, playing, etc. They are so much fun! Do I complain, yeah, it's hard sometimes but if it's not hard sometimes it's not worth it, right? They play so well together and Allie is starting to talk a lot now. Her little voice just melts my heart :-) I'm going to miss these days, so I'm really starting to try and slow down and soak it up. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day stuff that can take up so much time, meanwhile your kids are growing up so fast! I can't believe Madison will start school in August. That's an eye opener.

allie's bed girl bed

 

Brandon and I went to San Fransisco for our 7th anniversary, the 3-7 of June. It was WONDERFUL!! I lucked out, I have a pretty amazing husband who treats me so good! Linda came up and stayed with the girls while we were gone. We were nervous, not because she was with them but because it was the first time ever that we had left them overnight. Heck, I'm never away from them for more than a couple of hours. They did fantastic though. I'm SO happy! Brandon and I had such an amazing time, we did most everything that San Fransisco had to offer! I forgot what it was like to be just the two of us. I told him he had messed up doing that because now I'm craving "just the two of us time" :-). It was a whole different feeling to only have to worry about me and Brandon. I didn't have to change diapers, feed anybody, bathe anybody, get anybody dressed, ahhh it was nice:) Don't get me wrong I did miss the girls, I LOVE them to death but I really needed that.

Our first day there we ate at the Stinkin Rose, which was amazing! We had crab cooked in a garlic concoction. Seriously, how is that not good? After we finished eating we made our way through Chinatown. So, I'm going to share something with you that is seriously only something Lesley Grace would do. Some of you will probably judge but honestly I didn't mean it in a mean way (I'm a mom and I'm used to having to talk like this so the girls don't catch on) it just kind of came out but we are standing on the corner and I looked up and realized that Chinatown was right across the street. So I look at Brandon and say "Hey there is C-H-I-N-A town!" Brandon's response as he's trying not to laugh "Cause they can't spell Lesley Grace." I felt so dumb but I'm so used to spelling out ice cream and stuff when we are in front of the girls so they don't know what we are talking about?! Oh well, that's my funny:) After we walked C-H-I-N-A town we checked into our hotel then walked down to Pier 39. It was beautiful!! You could see Alcatraz from the Pier and get some pretty good pictures. We ate at a really nice restaurant and had some shrimp then walked around and checked out all the shops.

Monday was our anniversary, we woke up and had some breakfast then drove to the Golden Gate Bridge, through the Presidio and Golden Gate National Park and then to the Baker Beach for a little while. It was so gorgeous! Unlike the beach where we were a couple weeks before that this one was COLD!! This girl is used to warm water and this WAS NOT. It was really pretty though. That afternoon we went to the San Fransisco Giants baseball game. They won and we had such a good time. The weather ended up being perfect so we drove back to the bridge and watched some people surf, it was pretty neat. We also drove around and found the "Full House" scene of houses and actually found the house they used for Full House.

Tuesday we took the F Line to the Ferry's Plaza Farmer's Market Building. It was SO neat, there was so much food to get! After the market we took the 2nd most beautiful ferry ride in the world to the island of Sausalito. It was seriously beautiful. We saw the city of San Francisco, Sausalito, Alcatraz, Treasure Island, Oakland Bay Bridge, and Golden Gate Bridge. Wow! While we were at Sausalito we walked a lot! We looked in the shops and had some pizza and lasagna at the neatest little place. Then we walked to the house boats that were so cool! The ride back was just as gorgeous! We ended the night with In N Out Burgers!!

Wednesday we took the Powell-Mason cable car to downtown and did some shopping then the Powell-Hyde line back to Fisherman's Wharf where we were staying. I'm sure Forever 21 is my new favorite store:) I was like a little kid in a candy store downtown shopping! I could have stayed all day but it probably would have bankrupted us! HA! We were supposed to go to Alcatraz after this but they were sold out of tickets for several days and we had to leave the next day so we ended up walking back to Chinatown and getting us some Boba Tea and stopping at Coit Tower on the way back, it was a magnificent view!! We ended the night at the most amazing restaurant where I devoured an entire crab by myself, Alioto's. They had the best clam chowder too, it was perfect!

Thursday morning before we left we went to the Cliff House to have breakfast. The view was breathtaking. Thank you Hannah!! You could see Seal Rock and up and down the coast. It was a perfect way to end the trip!

chinatown

on the cable cars

view from coit tower

at the giant's game

having some lunch at the market

sausalito

"full house" scene

house boat

house boats

my man:)

alcatraz and a bird:)

pier 39

pier 39

baker beach

good grief this is cold

farmer's market at ferry plaza

the f line

ferry plaza and oakland bay bridge

at the cliff house

view from the cliff house while we were having breakfast

We got back to Billings on the 7th and Brandon turned around the next morning and flew to Ontario, California for a Wired HDH show for the weekend. Allie turned two on the 10th!!! The girls and I went to see Madagascar 3 in 3D for Allie's birthday and let me tell you, they LOVED it!! It was so much fun. I had never been to a movie in 3D before other than I guess a couple of IMax theaters. They did so great, we got popcorn and candy and all that fun stuff. I was nervous because this was the first time they had been to a movie before but I thought they were old enough and it turns out they did great! We can do this more often now and that excites me! We filled the house with balloons and the girls had a ball. Monday evening we had a birthday party for Allie with the neighborhood kids. I LOVE our neighborhood, the kids have the best time together. We had cupcakes and ice cream :-) They all had such a good time!

birthday girl!! 2 years old!!

blurry and half torn down, but here's the party aftermath

 

singing happy birthday

all the kiddos

backpack and lunchboxes from gran gran and tetty

Brandon had to do some work in Riverton so we spent several days there and celebrated Nama's birthday on the 15th. After the auction for Brandon's Grandmother on Saturday we went up to Sinks Canyon with Nama, Papa and Aunt Jessica and had hot dogs and s'mores over the fire:) It was perfect. Sunday was Father's Day. We went to breakfast at the Trailhead with everyone that morning. The girls got daddy a new grill for Father's Day this year :)

With camping season here we are so anxious to camp! But we are still roughing it in tents:) We just can't justify a camper just quite yet. That being said we had been wanting to get a gun to have with us camping in case of any run ins with the animals. We ended up getting "our" first gun, a Smith and Wesson 9mm SD, Brandon has his two guns but this is something I can handle and we can keep on us camping. I'm not too familiar with guns so the last Friday night we went to the shooting range with Hannah and Devin and let me tell you I had a ball!! I might be a little addicted:) Not to toot my own horn but I did pretty dang good. I have never gone shooting before and had several bulls eyes and good groupings. We went took our first camping trip to Sunlight Basin in Wyoming that weekend and we had a ball. It was hot though! Our campsite was perfect, right on the river!

 This year for the 4th we had planned on going camping with Rocky and Linda over the weekend but ended up staying at the house because of all of the fire bans. We wouldn't have been able to have a campfire and that kind of put the stop to camping this weekend. Rocky, Linda and Jessica did come up and we went to the parade in Laurel and then had a BBQ with our wonderful neighborhood then went back to Laurel and watched the fireworks. They have the best display ever. It was an hour and a half and it was seriously incredible! The only drawback this year was the showering of the remnants of the fireworks. They fell right on us and unfortunately fell in Madison's eye and burned her cornea (sounds worse than it is). We took her to the doctor and they gave us some medicine for it and she has to wear a patch for a couple of days, poor girl. She's so cute though!

my handsome husband waiting for the parade

putt putt

after the doctor's visit :(

 mama shooting:)

two cute girls!!

So, Brandon pointed out that... In less than 30 days we've:

Flown over nearly 50% of states in the US;

Slept in 6 different states;

Been within 220 miles / 115 miles of the Canadian border;

Been within 300 miles of the Atlantic Ocean;

Been on the Gulf Coast;

Been within 125 miles of Mexico; and

Been on the Pacific Coast …all as the crow flies;

Been on 14 different flights (connections included)

Also, to date, the girls... (Allie-2) has now been on 12 flights and (Madison-4) has now been on 21 flights, they are quite the travelers and they do amazing!! Just the other day, Madison asked me when we were going to fly again? :-)