Update!!

Alright, I guess it's time for another update as I have fallen behind.. again ha ha! And I apologize as all these pictures are out of order so bare with me and I hope you can catch up. Ha ha! Enjoy!

While James and I were in Utah to welcome home Brandon we were able to get some family pictures done! We were lucky enough to have my wonderful cousin and photographer Elisabeth take our pictures! We LOVE them all so much! She did a fantastic job. The one above is my absolute favorite though! You can find her page here so you can see all of her work and if you are in Utah County I highly recommend her!! 

James' Grandma has been so kind to me teaching me how to can lately and juice lately! I am so blessed to have her close by to teach me all these great habits that will help me out in the long run and to also build up our much needed food storage ha!

Our recent juicing project was Apple Juice and Spiced Apple Juice! MMMM. It smelt soo good and just like fall it was AMAZING! The juice also tasted very delightful. But it was a lot of work for not very much juice.. but at least after we were done juicing we were able to make A LOT of apple sauce. Yummy! We will all be set for awhile ha!

Our Post Office recently was in need of a makeover when someone accidentally ran into it. Thankfully nobody was hurt and there wasn't too much damage! One thing I love most about living in a small town is how many people came to help clean up and we sure did get the job done quickly! And yes, the Post Office is MOSTLY put back together ha ha.

Also while down in Utah welcoming home Brandon and visiting family James and I were able to pay off our car!! WHOOP, WHOOP! Best. Feeling. EVER! 

James and I are very lucky! We had our wonderful friend and his father stop by to cut down a HUGE tree that was leaning over our home, half dead and just scary! Once the tree was gone it way opened up the space and made it look so lovely. Don't worry eventually we will have green grass and a nice looking front yard.. but that will be next summers project!

SEE HOW TALL THAT SUCKER WAS?! Oh I am so glad it is down now. And we got it down just in time too! Whew!

Speaking of cutting down tree's.. We had James' dad (Chris) come up to help us cut down the giant tree but we decided too scary we would let the professionals do it ha! So we went ahead and cut down all the trees in the back that were trash tree's. 

And again.. it surely opened up the space just nicely! Now James and I can plant the tree's we want and how many we want! Yippee! 

And lastly! Miss Maggie got herself a haircut the other day! Now she is freezing all the time since the weather is cooling down. Good thing for sweaters and her very own blanket right? Maggie LOVES sweaters.. no joke. I pull it out and her whole bum gets to shaking and wiggling and she definitely loves having her very one fleece blanket to help keep her warm and to lay on. Spoiled dog. She is lucky she is pretty darn cute! We sure do love her and we are so glad she is apart of our family! 

Well that is it for the updates so far! Hope you enjoyed getting to see what we have been up to this last month! And as always.. I promise I am trying to do better.. maybe when Winter comes around I will be the best at this ha ha! Until next time!

The Brother Is Home.

As many of you know James and I are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and for the last two years The Mr's brother has been serving a mission for our church in the Philippines! We have both missed him dearly and are so proud of him and extremely excited that he is home safe and sound!! James and I were lucky enough to get to go down to the airport and welcome him home along with also being able to spend a decent amount of time with Brandon (the returned missionary aka the RM) and James' wonderful family! It was so nice to have some quality time and make lots of fun new memories! But enough chit-chat.. I know you are here to see some pictures. 

 Isn't he such a cutie? And super tall... man it sometimes stinks being short ha!

 Meet my siblings!! (from left to right..) Kate, Halee, Nick, Natalie, Me (Chelsey), James, Brandon (aka the Elder) and Ryan! Are we such a cute bunch of little rascals?

And of course! Meet the parents Chris and Terri. As you can tell we were all beaming with excitement that Brandon was home! Yippee!!

Mini Vacation Woo-hoo!

While down celebrating my Grandma's 80th birthday we also made it a fun mini family vacation! We packed it full of fun adventures!

My brother and his wife, James, and my cousins all went on a hike while my sister and her family went to explore glitter mountain which left myself, mom and dad behind. My mom and I decided to head over to my grandmas house to visit while we waited for everyone else to get back. I absolutely love being in my grandmas house. The picture above is of her craft room isn't it so cute?

After everyone got back we headed off to a watering hole that was up a mountain. We were all excited to explore a new place and go for a nice dip in the water!

Well... needless to say.. the comments and the information we had on the place was pretty false and we weren't able to make it up unless we wanted to break our cars. It was a pretty scary ride up and I am glad we finally decided to turn around ha ha.

So we went back and just went for a dip in the condos pool! It was nice. And of course.. I got a piggy back ride from my cute niece Nico. They think it's pretty neat that they can pick me up in the water.

On the last day we said goodbye to everyone and went our separate ways. But before we headed home we stopped by the St. George LDS temple so I could snap some pictures. You can view the others here. 

It was hard to say goodbye to all the family but we were so lucky to have such a wonderful time with them. I love them all very much!!

Grandma Turns 80!

Over Labor Day weekend my entire family headed down, up and towards St. George, Utah to go and celebrate a special lady. My Grandma and best friend turns 80 this month!! Needless to say.. I hope I age like she does because she does NOT look 80. (even others have told me this..) I love my grandmother very much and I am so glad that we were able to go down and be with her and the rest of my family. 

Meet my Grandma Jean! (When I was younger I always wanted my name to be Jean instead of Lynne.. but, it never happened.) Isn't she so pretty? As soon as she arrived to her party my mom decked her out with a fancy birthday headband and lovely blue birthday necklaces that matched very well with her outfit! 

I was in charge of making a birthday banner (thank goodness for cutting machines..) and after we put up the things my sister and mother brought my sister in law (Crystal) and I decided they didn't have enough decorations and went and bought some balloons. streamers and whatever else we could get our hands on. We thought you only get ONE 80th birthday party right? 

After getting to our place where we were staying for the weekend we realized the ceilings were a lot taller than we were expecting so we had to figure out new ways to decorate. Good job mom on the dental floss. Ha! After we got it all decked out we were ready to...

PARTY!! Miss Nico was being silly and wanted her picture taken while I was going around taking pictures of the decorations ha ha. She is so cute, sure do love my niece! 

Once everyone arrived including the guest of honor we quickly took a bunch of pictures of everyone with grammy! (You'll see why in a little bit..) 

Meet my family! (from left to right..) Uncle Vince, Uncle Jim, My mom Tammy, Grandma Jean, *birthday girl!* Grandpa Jerry and my Uncle Eric! This was the first time in a really, really long time that my grandma and her kids were all in the same room! So it was pretty darn neat.

AND meet some more of my family.. (again left from right..) Cousin Isaac, Sister Whitney, Grandma Jean, *birthday girl!* Cousin Jeppa, Me..Chelsey and my my Brother Phillip. We don't all get together very much is it is always nice when we are together in one room! It was so lovely.

After pictures the kiddos with the help of Isaac, Jeppa and her husband Eli put on some awesome shows for Grandma. They were hilarious and very well thought. So much fun!

After the shows there was a special performance by my niece Chloe, Jeppa and Eli. They wrote and performed a lovely song all about my Grandma! They did a wonderful job and I wish I had a recording of the song. It was very cute. And boy does Chloe got some guts!! She did so well.

After the shows and song it was time for gifts! Remember when I said we could get to why we took a billion and a half pictures? Well, truly after the shows everyone visited for a little bit and me and my sister hurried and sneaked off to Walmart to pick up all of the pictures that we had previously took and sent there so we could hurry and paste them into a book of memories that my sister had put together for my grandma! It was so special. My sister gave it t her first and she read all of the memories from everyone which was such a delight. After that is was time for all the fun gifts and then...

CAKE AND ICE CREAM! We purchased the cake from Costco and boy was it delicious. Isn't is such a pretty cake too? Hope you liked it grandma!

We sang a quick song (no joke) of Happy Birthday and then grandma made a wish and blew out the candles! This party was such a lovely time but it was kind of tiring too.. good thing after all was done we had plenty of time to relax and go swimming of course. But before swimming the kiddos of course had to..

Play hot balloon... and

make them into Minnie and Mickey Mouse! And the best part.. on the other side it could be something totally different. I loved seeing these kiddos imaginations! (PS. That is my cousin Jeppa's daughter and my niece Nico!)

James and I were very lucky to be able to go and spend some time with my grandma and rest of my family! I love my family very much and family time is so special to me. We are very blessed with so many wonderful family members. Love you all and miss you already!!