Two dozen days before dads 40!

Sofie and I took two dozen donuts to daddies work to remind him of how close he is to the big 4-0!

I was in such a hurry in getting this put together that I messed up on the saying... oops

It should have said "two" dozen days before the big 40...

Sofie was so excited about this...

Las Vegas Baby...

We got to Las Vegas at one in the morning and so the next morning we slept in and almost missed free breakfast.  We let the kids swim before going to see the M&M Factory and Coke Factory before heading home to Salt Lake.

We went around and found shirts that fit our personalities.  Mine said

"You want a piece of me"?

"Making life a little sweeter"

because he LOVES treats!!!

This was really fun in this store with Morgan.  Lets just say she really has her eyes on a boy with his first name starting with the letter M.  Her first letter in her name is also with an M so we were planning a wedding with M&M's...  we even found a cake topper and this little LOVE holder that she so willingly held up for us... She was a good sport!

This guy was so cute with the kids as daddy was sweating the cost on this small amount of chocolate scoops.  He was trying to explain that we could go to Target and they could each get a bigger bag for cheaper but they were not going for it:)

Guess who won???

Look at those smiles Daddy!!!

My new best friend...  She had my Diet Coke...

We had a great day being together as a family.  It was a nice vacation.  Now it was time to go home and endure one last week of school before SUMMER...

Last minutes photos as we had to say GoodBye to our friends...

 

          Why is it so HARD to say good bye to the Ocean water and to GOOD FRIENDS?

Speaking of friends our next stop was to see our good friends from Simi Valley California.  This is where our first two children were born and where Shannons career started.  He worked with Ivonne Torres and Laurie Stevens at the time.  He LOVED all of the great people at Axius.  So we stopped in for a lunch date with them.

 Morgan was born while we lived in Simi Valley. Ivonne and Rodney loved her like their own...

We spent many weekends having BBQ's and just visiting in their home. Rodney was, and still is a fabulous cook and Ivonne makes the best chicken and crackers:)

These last three photos are pictures from when Morgan was a baby 13 years ago.  Now look at their two beautiful kids and our five.  Time goes fast and yet you know you have true friendships when you see one another again and it feels like you were together yesterday.  I cried when I saw them and I cried saying Good Bye...

Such wonderful years!!!

Beach house with the Garbetts

So these are our dearest friends from Arizona.  

We lived in the same neighborhood and we were also in the same ward as them.

We both had young children and so we would help each other out and she was also a great listening ear when I needed to vent...  They invited us to go to a Beach House in California over Memorial weekend and we were so excited about it.  Our kids haven't been to a beach for a long time and so this was a real treat for them. Thank you Garbetts for thinking of us.  It is pretty brave with this family of 7!

Morgan was not sure about this ocean stuff.  Especially once she discovered the sand crabs.  But the second day in she was on the boogie boards and jumping the waves.

It was cold water but Preston was determined to ride a wave...

I was trying to get a photo of all the trillion million sand crabs under that sand.  

It was so creepy and gross!

Look at these two girls. They weren't so sure of the water 

but they liked the sand toys...

This was from the balcony of the beach house.  They kids had so much fun enjoying the sand.

Sand Baseball...

Morgan getting some relaxation in the Hammock...

and then there is my friend Jen.  She is getting her own relaxation with a towel over her head covering her ears and her eyes.  She has a very hard time sleeping. (obviously) 

This would drive me crazy!!!  I was laughing so hard when i found her like this that I had to snap a photo.

I am still laughing!!!

Thanks for the Memories!!!

Planting flowers is fun to do...

The kids went over to their great grandma and grandpas house and planted flowers for Mothers Day.  It was really funny because we could see them in their front window and we were trying to be really quiet so they wouldn't catch us.  Sure enough they never noticed!!!

These two worked together for about 15 minutes and then they both said they were done:)

We had fun painting flower pots, shaving Hannah the dogs fur in the wind, and planting mothers day flowers with Alissa and Taylor...

I turned 40... and went to a funeral!

So for my 40th Birthday we headed down to St.George for my cousin Brian's funeral. He was fighting severe depression and couldn't handle this life any longer and chose to take his life.  It was a very sad situation.  He had served a mission and was trying to go to school and was living with my Aunt Colette at the time.  So I knew that I couldn't miss this and so we hurried and packed and went down for a quick trip.  My sweet Sister in law offered for us to stay with them and look what she had for me when we got there...  decorations and root beer floats:)  

Thank you Jac for making my birthday extra special!

Love you

This is Colettes children and their families.

My cousins: Amber and Jason

Driving home was a quiet trip:)

Shannon made me a cookie cake.  He was so thoughtful this whole month. 

I had a top 40 countdown with different titles of songs that were stories about me 

that he could remember.  Pretty impressive.

This was the best part of my entire birthday.  Shannon took the time to reach out to as many people as he could that he knew had influenced my life and asked them to send me a note for my birthday.  For those of you who read my blog and participated in this I sincerely say THANK YOU!  This was so neat to hear from my mission Presidents, old Bishops, converts, friends, and more friends...  Even Hillary Weeks!  This just goes to show what a lucky girl I am to have Shan as my Eternal Companion.

This was the sweetest thing ever!!!