nice and relaxed

(now that's what bumper bads are really for.)

usually i find her in the morning curled up on her side with her blankie, but it's been kinda hot lately... this totally reminds me of how she slept as a newborn, with her hands up in the air.

bear lake family reunion

my folks rented us a cabin in bear lake for the weekend so we could have a proper family reunion. it was so fun!

we rented a boat and penny luuuuved it. her face was pure joy the whole time.
she loved watching the waves behind the boat.

dad driving.

doing a little jet skiing.

there were these little warm reed ponds ten feet from the shore, penny loved it.

penny and uncle derek.

penny and cousin max.

warming up from the chilly lake.

yes, i'm pale.

the view from our cabin, so purty.

kris photo-bombing our picture at the fancy bear trapper restaurant, haha.

it was such a fun weekend! i think we've all agreed that balmforth family reunion at bear lake should be our new summer tradition. thanks mom and dad!

thanksgiving point gardens

my folks and little brother brian came up from california for a family reunion, and monday evening we walked around the pretty gardens at thanksgiving point. they have a movie theatre and dinosaur museum there, but i'd never seen the gardens and they're HUGE!

me and mom and penny in the "secret garden" - it's so cute, you have to walk through a wooden door just like in the book.

the folks.

max feeding some coy fish.

penny getting a ride. (btw, i have seen that exact look on penny's face on paul's face a million times haha).

tonight we head down to bear lake to stay at a cabin for a couple nights all together. i've been going crazy packing and getting everything ready for craft lake city (which i am soooo excited about)...yay for reunions!

happy 5 years!

(on our way to our hot date)

i can't believe it's been 5 years! that seems like a VERY long time.

since we'd just been on a big trip to new york we decided to keep it low-key and just spend a night at a local hotel. i LOVE staying at hotels, something about not having to make the bed or do the laundry...

but first, paul's parents picked up penny on friday and we were off to a super tastey dinner at em's in salt lake. there's something amazing about eating at a restaurant without a baby. it's so...quiet.

this year since it's the BIG FIVE we decided to make presents for each other.

paul made me this super cute little book with drawings he did by hand:

i love it! so cute.

i made him a little book, too:

i saw this idea on a couple of blogs and thought it would be perfect for this year's anniversary. i had fun sifting through our old pics and picking ones that span our 5 years of marriage.

the next morning we went to the salt lake farmer's market, because i'd never had a chance to walk around being stuck in a booth and all. i love farmer's markets and fair and carnivals and stuff. we got some yummy lunch there and then drove on over to ikea and browsed around.

nothing exciting, i know, but it was fun because it was just the two of us. not that we don't love penny to pieces but there's something to be said about having "couple time." also, penny is kind of throwing tantrums alot lately, especially in public, so...yeah. couple time is nice. thanks debbie and glade for watching her!

here's to another amazing 5 years!

p.s. sorry about the looong blogging break...i had false hope that by not taking pictures on my camera that i could somehow retrieve them from the memory card with some software...but alas, no success. there was nothing really to blog about anyway...just enjoying the summer.

sad but true.

the rest of our new york pictures are gone...BOO! i had two more blog posts planned with our last 2 days in new york but sadly, they're gone.

why? because yesterday...

paul at best buy: (holds up windows 7 software) "so does this include the office suite, with word and excel?"

idiot employee: "yep, it sure does. gimme 200 bucks for it."

the next day...

me: (uploading windows 7 software...wondering why it's taking 45 minutes to upload the software...having a sinking feeling that something's not right...logging on and seeing that EVERYTHING on our computer has been deleted...totally empty...possibly saying some expletives. just kidding, mom...)

turns out we bought and i uploaded the windows 7 operating software which deleted and replaced the windows 7 software that was ALREADY on our new laptop. i did have everything saved on a backup drive so nothing was lost...except the brand new new york pictures that i already deleted from our camera. WAH!

to sum up, beware the idiots at best buy and double check everything you buy for your computer.

the last 2 new york days were pretty fun so i'll just giving a boring, picture-less summary:

second to last day (sunday):

we went to church with nate and claire in the morning...at the lds temple in manhatten! i thought it were very cool to go to church in the same building as the temple rather than a regular churchhouse.

[insert cute picture of me standing in front of the temple]

that evening we took a loooong stroll through central park and i loved it. there was so many people and i loved just sitting and people-watching. it was like a little amusement park, there were vendors everywhere, people and bands performing, and pretty fountains and bridges...

[insert pretty pictures of us and nate and claire in central park]

last day (monday):

we took a tour of nbc studios at rockefeller center, this was another thing that i really wanted to do in new york.

[insert pictures of me and paul standing in front of rockefeller center]

i loved the tour, we got to see inside dr. oz's studio (who cares) and inside the saturday night live studio! that was my favorite. that place is tiny! they make it look so huge on camera. it was crazy to see the place where steve martin and chris farley and will ferrell had done all their funny skits. and the pages who did the tours! ya know that guy on "30 rock", kenneth the page? that is EXACTLY what they're really like, all chipper and smiley and friendly. so funny.

that afternoon we headed out again to go to the natural history museum.

[insert cool pictures of me and paul in front of the huge t-rex skeleton.]

that place is BIG. we just wandered around for a couple hours and didn't even scratch the surface. then we grabbed some yummy shakes at the shake shack, which is right near central park. several people told us before we left for new york that we HAD to go to the shake shack. i agree, it was tastey.

[insert picture of paul in front of the shake shack holding up a shake.]

so that's it. we flew home the next morning and were reunited with penny-bug. oh, well. at least i have the first 2 days saved on the ol' blog here. i'll have to remember to be more cautious with vacation pictures next time...

new york {day 2}

last saturday was a fun day. we rode the staten island ferry (it's free!) in the morning and got to see the statue of liberty. this was pretty much the one thing i wanted to do for sure in new york. it was totally thrilling to see it in person. we didn't go on the actual island because it was super crowded, and the wait was forever, and the tickets to go up into the statue of liberty were sold out...so the ferry was our best option. i loved it!

boarding one of the ginormous ferry boats.

pulling away from the harbor.

waiting for the statue of liberty to come into view...aw, buddies.

thar she blows! it was so amazing to see in person.

(i may or may not have welled up a teeny bit...)

riding back...
i think the staten island ferry + seeing the statue of liberty was my favorite thing.
it was like seeing the effiel tower for the first time. so cool.

but! the day's not over!

for dinner we ate at a mario batali restaurant called lupa and it was SO GOOD. the prices were good, the food was so yummy - if we ever go back to new york, i'm definitely going to that place again.

we rushed through our dinner because we had tickets to see "west side story" on broadway! i don't have any pictures, too dark, too crowded - but it was so fun! we had good seats, the singing was awesome, i loved the dancing...i pretty much love all musicals.

all in all, an awesome day.

new york {day 1}

we took the red eye last thursday night and arrived in new york on friday at 6 am (4 am utah time). me and paul didn't really sleep on the 4 hour flight so we were kinda draggin when we got there. we took a taxi to nate and claire's apartment and i may or may not have been nauseous the entire cab ride. it's totally true! new york cab drivers drive like CRAZY people!

we said hi to nate and claire...and fell asleep for 5 hours.

when we got up we wanted to do something low-key but fun. on to the guggenheim museum!

walking through central park to get there.
outside...

inside...

i love the spiral format of the building. we just started at the bottom and wound our way up to the top.

after the art, the next best thing was the air conditioning! when you were outside, the humid air practically stuck to you. when we visited london and france a few summers ago, it was the same weather but none of the buildings had AC. it was so nice that all the buildings in new york had it. even the subways were air conditioned! fancy! actually, it's probably a neccessity. waiting on the subway platform was torture though. it was like literally standing in a steamy sauna + some stank. blech.

that night we hit times square. it was dang crowded!

and even though we went at night, it felt like daytime the lights were so bright.

we had so much fun and it was only the first day! i loved walking around and just people-watching. i think new york is a lot friendlier than the movies portray. i totally felt safe the whole time (even though i did keep a hand on my purse all the time just in case) and the people reminded me alot of southern california, particularly LA. i loved how there was always something to do and you just had to hop on a subway or walk and be there in 10 minutes. we really didn't even scratch the surface during our 4 days there.

we had a great time but i'm glad to be home with penny girl. i missed this little bug!

more pics to come!