Life Lately.

This summer has been BUSY! Over the past 10 weekends, guess how many weekends were spent at home? Only TWO! Can you believe it?! It's been pretty insanely busy, which makes the summer fly by. Here's a little list of what we've been up to lately...

Landon's dad Daren got married in Utah! It was a really cute wedding and we are so happy for them!

Handsome boys! Missed you Tanner!!! 

• The day before the wedding we spent some time in Provo and BYU. I love walking down memory lane and spending time where Landon and I fell in love... I know, I'm a cheese ball :)

We "hiked" (it's only 5 minutes so not sure if that counts as a hike...) to Bridal Veil falls. It's so pretty!!

Dawsen and I went on a little adventure and climbed really close to the waterfall! We got soaked and it was FREEZING but so fun :)

How cute are these brothers?! They're really best friends and I love watching them together :)

• The night we flew into Utah, I got to see my family for a minute. We were only in town for the weekend, and most of that time was dedicated to the wedding so I feel bad that I couldn't see everyone :( But, I'm happy I got to spend a few hours at my parents' house and see my little brother Joey. He has been serving an LDS mission for the past two years in Brazil!
  
  

  

  It was really hard to get a serious picture with him, but he finally smiled. Also, old habits die hard... I think I punched him three times in one night :)

My adorable niece Jolene who calls me "Auntie Hannah" 

I love my parents! My mom and I were both wearing Beatles shirts, so that was pretty cute 

My cute Marbear :)

• We drove to Kennewick, Washington over Labor Day to visit Landon's Grandma Ellen! We love her so much and have been wanting to visit for awhile now. We love spending time with her!!
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Her house is on over 5 acres of land... my dream!!! 

  

  On our way home we had to stop to take a dam picture and tell a few dam jokes at the Bonneville Dam ;) 

  
  

  

  The Columbia River Gorge is GORGeous...see what I did there? ;)

• Being a nanny in the summer is the BEST! It's so fun to spend my days outside at the park, the zoo, the fair, the splash pad... I'm SO happy I don't work at an office anymore. I've been a nanny to these kiddos for 2 and a half years! It's crazy how much I love them and how much they've grown since I met them.
  
  

  

  Riding the swings at the fair :)

  
  

  

  We met up with Landon for Einstein's and they were obviously having a pretty intense conversation :) I love watching Landon with the kids. They love him!!

  

  I think I love going to the zoo as much as them ;)

  

  We had a lot of nanny play dates over the summer. This one was to an airpark that was just a huge room full of trampolines. I was giddy and felt like I was 10 again. So much fun and I love hanging out with my nanny friends :)

• My car has been leaking like a sieve, as Landon likes to put it. So, he decided to take everything apart and figure out the problem. So far, it's still leaking so I spend my nights hanging out in the garage reading my book while he slaves away :) In fact, I'm sitting out here right now! He just said, "nothing is quite as beautiful as new spark plugs... except you of course!" So romantical ;) He also just dubbed himself as "Landon Fixer of Cars" because he just fixed it. Never a dull moment!! :)

• I officially reached my new goal weight (after reaching my original one) and weigh as much as I did in high school! I never thought I would be that weight again, but it feels really good to be healthy and 24 pounds lighter! Now that I'm just maintaining my weight, I'm a little more flexible with what I eat, but I still track my food on MyFitness Pal and workout 5-6 times a week. Just because you don't need to lose weight doesn't mean you shouldn't be eating healthy and exercising! I always told people what I was doing wasn't a diet... I really did change my lifestyle.
• We learned how to play bocce ball with our cute friends the Egberts. We love them so much and my cheeks always hurt from smiling when we are around them. They're such great friends! :)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Anyway, it's been a great summer! Now we are really looking forward to the fall... In fact I'm making pumpkin cookies first thing tomorrow... Yay for September! :)

Pictures of Viking.

I really don't have much to blog about right now (we took the weekend off and we are just staying HOME--sooo relaxing!!) but I did want to share some pictures.

Remember that sailing trip to Portland we took a few weekends ago? Well, someone on another boat got some amazing pictures of us sailing on Viking. It's really neat to have pictures of our boat from another boat's perspective.

Photo cred: Rich Ackerman (THANK YOU!!)

Anyway, sorry for a boring post... but I wanted to get these pictures up on my blog :) Happy Sunday!

Camping Trip to Crater Lake.

With all of our sailing trips recently, we decided it would be fun to do something different and go camping! I have always loved camping and I'm really glad that Landon loves it too, even though he didn't grow up doing it. We had the best weekend and are already planning our next trip! We definitely want to start going camping more :)

We left Saturday morning and drove 4.5 hours south to the lake. It was a really pretty drive and the boys loved all the cuddle time with mama ;)

Henry kills me! He loves the wind in his face :)

Our campsite was really cute and I was basically on cloud 9! Have I mentioned I love camping?! Landon set up the tent while I made lunch and then we headed out to check out Crater Lake.

The boys' first camping trip!

The views were unreal. So stunning! Crater Lake is basically a lake that formed from a volcano that collapsed on itself while erupting. Pretty cool huh? It's the deepest lake in the U.S. and I'm pretty sure there's nothing else like it!

They call that little rock formation the "Phantom Ship" 

It's hard to tell in this picture... but basically we were driving along the edge of a cliff for a lot of the drive. FREAKY!

There are TONS of hikes to do and even though dogs aren't allowed on any of the trails, we brought the boys with us and figured it would be okay to just carry them. I mean people carry their babies and stuff right? We were getting out of our car heading to a trail that lead down to the water when a park ranger stopped us. I was so mad I couldn't even talk. Literally our dogs are about the size of a large squirrel and we would be HOLDING them. There would be absolutely no harm done by us carrying our dogs. Oh, we were fuming!

So unfortunately, we weren't able to hike AT ALL. I was really looking forward to hiking... GRRRR! But, we didn't want it to ruin our trip, so we just made the most of it. We drove around the rim stopping at little look-outs and went on a few short "hikes" that took less than 5 minutes so we could leave the boys in the car.

That is Wizard Island which is like a little mini volcano within the volcano. I'm probably not explaining that right, but oh well :) 

I love this boy.

Pictures definitely don't do Crater Lake justice. The water is SO blue!

After exploring the lake we went back to the campsite. Landon told me that if I wanted to have a fire I was going to have to make it because he's never made a fire. I call bull crap. Obviously Landon can make a fire... but I was excited to take on the challenge so I didn't argue! I've definitely "helped" to start fires, but I've never held the complete responsibility before. So I gathered some kindling, lit it up, stacked a few logs... and MADE FIRE! Oh my gosh! I was SOOOO proud of myself. Landon called me "Fire Girl" all night ;)

I made FIRE! 

We roasted hot dogs and of course made s'mores and then read our books by the firelight. Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE CAMPING! 

Okay hot dogs roasted in the fire... SO good! 

After an okay's night sleep in our cute tent, we woke up and had some cereal, packed up camp, and did a little more exploring around the lake before heading home. It was such a fun and relaxing weekend. We can't wait to go back to Crater Lake... but next time the dogs are staying home! :)