.. tO maLoRee ..

Today Maloree passed on.

Cody had grown up with her the last 14 years. Even though she was Justin's dog, we loved her just the same. I always loved her, she would cuddle with me and was always excited to see me. When Cody and I started dating, I was kind of afraid of his dogs. They were big, and Jackson seemed really mean. Oddly enough, talking years later, his family told me I should have been afraid of Maloree since she was the protector and was more likely to attack then Jackson. I just have always loved her.

She always played hide and go seek with Cody, to the point of a high pitch whine if she couldn't find him. She always had to be in front if you went on a walk, no other dog could butt her or she would freak out and leap out to beat them. She HATED cameras. To the point of when we brought them out she would run and hide. She always hid in the bathtub, which was a fun surprise if you went in to go to the bathroom and then heard a banging against the tub as her tail would wag cause someone was there to see her. She loved Tyke. They would play for hours when we would come over, it was wonderful cause it was always wear him out and he would sleep well that night. She was very picky about treats, and didn't like peanut butter {odd I know..}. Chase always involved you running and her on your heels biting at your ankles. {so I am told, I never did it}. She was a crazy lady, but we loved her all the same.

{ you have no idea what it took to get that picture, we had to take her on a walk and then Cody had to hold her leash up so she couldn't turn and walk away from me..}

Although we will miss her dearly, she is getting her play on with Tyke and Jackson. Have fun maome, we will see you soon!

.. maTica ..

Matson + Erica = Matica.

This past weekend my little brother got hitched. He married a beautifully wonderful girl who I am very excited to have in the family. It was a day full of love and fun. I had a great time. I even danced with my husband { which is a VERY rare occurrence, he isn't much of a dancer}.

It started at 12p at the mt. timpanogos temple. It was a cooler day, compared to what had been happening around here. After a bunch of family pictures we travelled to the luncheon. It was catered by Magleby's {delicious}. We shared some tears and laughs.

Afterwards I took a nap, only like 30 minutes, but it was good. Then I got dressed up in my bridesmaid dress and Cody in his suit and went for another set of pictures. After which the party started. It was grand and a good time. Matson's favorite part was the end, he drove away in a yellow Lamborghini mercelago. Priceless.

.. bride & groom couch ..

.. the present car ..

{they had this 1936 mercedes benz parked on the lawn where people could leave the gifts for the couple. i am pretty sure i saw every man walk by, stop and drool and then be dragged off}

.. my bouquet ..

{thanks babe for modeling. erica had each of the 7 bridesmaids have a bouquet. each of ours were of one flower that was in erica's bouquet. so when we put all our bouquets together it equalled hers. neat idea.}

.. pink bow ..

{this was on the poles of the tent}

.. pretty pink cake ..

Thanks to all that came and made it such a great day.

To view more pictures from that day click here.

.. sWeeT siXteeN jAreTt ..

On friday my youngest brother turned 16. I have to admit it is creepy and odd feeling thinking that he is 16. That means I am old. What am I to do?! Since this week has been crazy with wedding planning and he and my mom going to Illinois for a shooting competition we decided to keep the party mellow. My dad's parents and sister are in town for the weddings and decided that they would throw a BBQ for him at their cabin.

The day was busy, their plane landed in Salt Lake City at 10:30a. They went straight to a DMV in Salt Lake and got his drivers license all done. When the got home around 1 my dad took him to pick up his present from my parents, his truck. They have spent the last few months having it restored and repainted. Needless to say what started out as a piece of rust turned out to be quite awesome. He was elated. I am pretty sure he put 50 miles on his truck that day.

We all met up at 6 that night at my grandparents cabin for dinner, cake and of course presents. We had hot dogs and hamburgers, potato salad and chips. It was yummy. After dinner we proceeded to open gifts. Cody and I got him a blowup girlfriend, seeing how it was his 16th we didn't want him to be girlfriend-less. We named her Gertrude. Don't worry we got him another gift.. we tinted the windows on his truck. Matson and Erica got him a car care kit, for him to clean his little truck. Kellyn and Chris got him a shirt from California.

To top it all off, I had been put in charge of making sure there was a cake for that night. I knew with everything going on that I wouldn't have time to make one myself so I went to Smiths and ordered one. I told the decorator to make it pretty pink and princesses. She just laughed and told me she would do it. Cody and I picked it up before the BBQ and couldn't help but just smile and laugh. Classic.

We ended the night with Smores and just chatting. It was a good day, hopefully for Jarett too..

.. jarett & gertrude ..

.. daisy ..

.. mom, kellyn & daisy ..

.. birthday cake ..

.. jarett's response to the cake, classic ..

.. did someone say cake? ..

Happy Birthday Jarett! I hope it was all you wished for and more. We love you!

..kelris..

I'm sure you are asking what the heck is "kelris". Well let me tell you it is kellyn & chris getting hitched.

On Friday last week my sister got married. It was a fun and long day but worth every minute. We started at the temple at 9:00 that morning. It was really warm day and needless to say within about 10 minutes of being outside we were all sporting tacos and sweat dew. We stuck it out though and took some fun family photos there. After we finished up there my family - minus the new couple - went to golden corral for lunch. We stuffed ourselves and were even treated to warm fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, thank you cookie chef! We then went back to the house and took the chance to wear comfy clothes for a few hours. I took my mom to get her hair done, cause you know she had to look great! {which she totally did!} After we got back we got dressed and travelled to the reception for the family / groomsman / bridesmaids / flower girls pictures. I had the lovely honor of being her maid of honor which was so great. After pictures the caterer made up some food for the family, yum! We ate some sliders, fries, lemonade and cupcakes. Delicious!! Then the reception was on. We talked and danced it up. We also had a photo booth there which I did make 6 trips to that night, yep 6. It was a blast, I will post those soon {when I finally scan them..}. We ended the night with cutting the cake, first dance, daddy & daughter dance, and married couple dancing. It was a nice night and we had a blast.. here are a few of the fun photos we got that night. If you want to see more photos click here.

.. sammie ..

he is a neighbor with the most beautiful blue large eyes

.. matson & the sixlet ..

aunt cindy spent time to teach matson and erica the secret to good kissing. Apparently it is learning how to purse your lips just right and blowing sixlets works out those muscles.

.. erica & the sixlet ..

.. sampling the cupcakes ..

.. joe eating a cupcake ..

.. joe ..

.. michelle - the photographer ..

.. cody ..

.. jarett ..

.. chair ..

.. the bride & emmie ..

Thanks to every one that came and those that helped out. It really made the evening great. And if that wasn't enough, we get to dress up and do it all over again on Saturday. Woot! Woot! So stay tuned for photo booth pictures, jarett's 16th birthday bash, and matson & Erica becoming matica. The blog should be exciting for at least the next few weeks.

..bOrInG..

Alright, So when I got online and looked at my blog today I realized it had been almost a month since I had updated.. so I figured I will fill you in on our boringness..

We finished up the semester June 23rd. I am officially done with school. AHH! I am a tad scared not gonna lie. I am still working on my final show, which will be in september but I no longer have classes or assignments, it is really odd. Cody is getting ready to take his final tests for his instrument license.. yikes! He will do great though I know it.

So since we have been busy with school and work we haven't done any fun trips lately.. just hang around. We have been doing a lot of movies lately. We saw A-team, highly recommend, Toy Story 3 - so funny!!, and we just saw Eclipse on Tuesday night at midnight.

.. Me, Jarett, Matson and Erica at Toy Story 3 in 3D, rocking the glasses..

In other news, we have a cram packed August coming up.. On August 6th Kellyn, my sister, is getting married in the SLC temple. Then.. August 10-13 Jarett, my younger brother is competing in a national trap shooting tournament. August 13th is also his 16th birthday, he arrives home at 10am and we have plans to immediately visit the DMV. August 14th Matson, my other brother is getting married in the Mt. Timp temple. And then.. on August 28th I turn 26. Sounds like a crazy month already and it just seems to keep on filling. Needless to say our house is covered in wedding stuff and there is all sorts of projects going on.

.. Our first Boys vs girls golfing tournament, we lost..

It should be good.. so that is all that is going on with us. Boring, I know.

..wAsHiNgToN dC..

Well after much thought and debate of how much school and work we could miss Cody and I decided to take a trip. Two weekends ago we packed up and headed for the country's capitol. We both had never been there before and figured it would be fun to try out.

We flew out there on Friday morning and stayed until Sunday night. We had a fun time full of adventures and exploring.

We arrived there late Friday afternoon and after checking into our hotel decided that we would take the time to see the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and the White House. We didn't think it would take that long so we set off. We ended up walking totally the longest route ever to get the the Washington Monument and added like 15 minutes on to our time but got there. It was really neat to see. There were huge fields all around it and from that point of view you could see just about everything.



..Cody touching the Washington Monument..

.. Me holding the Washington monument, don't worry it was light!..

.. Washington Memorial from Jefferson Memorial..

We then decided to walk to the Jefferson Memorial since it was the furthest out and then circle back to the Lincoln and the White House. So we started our journey. It was under construction on the outside, which we didn't know, that added time to our walk. It took about 30 minutes to get out to it but it was beautiful. It was open and airy and had all these amazing quotes from Jefferson.


.. Jefferson Memorial..

.. Cody at the Jefferson..

.. Me sitting in the Jefferson, reading all the quotes..

We then started our trek back to the Lincoln, we decided to use a pedometer and see how long it took, it was 1.2 miles. Wow. But we got lucky and on the way found the FDR monument and also the WW2 wall. It was really neat to see all the names of the people that had died for our country.


.. Cody and Ben Franklin..


.. Me and Ben Franklin..



.. FDR's Dog and Me..

We then walked to the Lincoln, wow. We must have come on the week where all the local schools were taking their last trips of the year. There were about a million kids all dressed the same or wearing matching backpacks. And they were all in Junior High. Ha ha, so we climbed through the fields of students and stood under Lincoln for a few. Let me just say he is HUGE in that monument. I didn't even come up to his shoe.


.. Cody and I at the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington Monument behind..


.. Lincoln Memorial..

.. Cody and I at the Lincoln Memorial..
.. The Big Man himself..

After we left there we walked up to the white house. It was pretty all lit up at night, but the secret service blocked us from getting close at all. I guess the president was in town and they close down the block next to it at nights. LAME.

The next day we decided we would spend at the National Mall. Of course we had to go to the National Air and Space Museum first ( to see the website and other cool stuff click on the link). Cody could barely contain himself. We spent a good 2-3 hours in there walking around and seeing all the planes and space stuff. Cody loved every minute of it and tried his hardest to explain stuff to me, yep I didn't understand a word but just smiled and nodded cause I knew he was having fun. We rode the flight simulators, I was the gunner and Cody of course was the pilot. We shot down 4 planes, I was impressed cause the guys before us didn't get any.. I must have good aim.


.. Cody and the Spirit of St. Louis..
.. Me and a Jet..


.. Cody at the FBI building..




.. Capitol from the National Mall..
.. Me at the Department of Justice..
.. Cody and I with the Capitol..

After the Air museum we decided to hit up the National Gallery of Art. I was pretty excited, but quickly disappointed to find out they had a TINY photography section, so we cruised through the painting section too and saw some Degas and some Monet. Beautiful I must say. After this we decided to hit up some lunch. We ran to Hard Rock, which is a tradition of ours. We always go to a hard rock when we are in a new place and get a pin. We have started a collection of sorts. After lunch we were right next door to Fords theater, so we stopped by and took a peek. Pretty cool.

.. Me at the National Gallery of Art..

We then continued on to the Museum of Natural History, ( to see the website and other cool stuff click on the link) where Night at the Museum 2 was filmed. We spent the whole afternoon in there. It was probably my favorite. We saw ocean stuff, dinosaurs, cavemen, geology and insects. We witnessed a giant squid, it was 136 ft long. GROSS. And a blue whale and some dinosaurs of course. We saw the hope diamond and a few other large gems. It was so much fun. After that we called it a day and walked back to our hotel to plan for dinner. We watched some of the Celtics game and decided on Capitol City Brewery (to check out their food, click on the link). It was fab!! I swear, the breweries I have eaten at have the BEST food. After we ate a bunch we headed back to the hotel and watched Role Models. It was pretty funny.

.. Me getting eaten by a Giant Great White Shark, thank heavens they are extinct..


.. Cody and an Elephant Leg, watch out!..
.. Me and the Elephant Leg, yep I am about the same height..
.. the Hope Diamond..

The next morning we decided to attempt going to the White House again, we were successful this time and even got to talk to some Secret Service agents. It was pretty neat, although I am surprised Cody didn't get questioned for all the questions he was asking. After this we went to Chinatown to get in some shopping and of course lunch. We ate at Potbelly's sandwich works (click to see their website), which if you are ever out there we HIGHLY recommend. It was SO good. We finished up by walking back and packing and then off to the airport. It was a great trip and we had a blast! We are already planning a return visit in August.


.. The White House..

.. Cody and I at the White House..