Catching Up

Alright, I know I'm quite behind.  I've got a really good reason that will be another post.  For now, a few pictures of what we've been up to.

Rocking Grandma's shades 

Doing "snaps" on the 4th of July

Enjoying Mom's chocolate chip cookies 

Loving the Centerville Parade 

Centerville Parade 

 We went to Red Butte Gardens to see the roses.  They were gorgeous.  And all Spencer wanted to do was play in the dirt.

Red Butte

Red Butte 

Trying on Dad's tie 

Enjoying his "pool" in our backyard 

Tickles from Dad

We did a weekend to Colorado, where Cory's sister lives.  Spencer had a blast with his cousins.

At the farm

Making Grandpa proud by driving the tractor 

He loves swings 

Swimming in the pool (another thing he loves)

Trip to Utah

Wow, I am really behind on the blogging. It's been an exciting month for us, so in my effort to catch up, I'm going to do 2 different posts.

So for this post -- we flew home to spend the 24th of July weekend with family and we had such a good time seeing everybody and eating good food (which feels like all we did was eat...)

We 2 bbq's with Cory's family and they made him a spine cake to celebrate his graduation.

They also got him some 'bling' (it says #1 Grad)

His brother Nathan got him a pass to do the I-Fly at the new Salamon Center in Ogden. It looked like so much fun! Shawn Bradley happened to be in Cory's same group. Shawn is 7'6". Cory is 5'6". Too funny!

In the wind tunnel

Watch this video -- like I said, it looked so fun!!

And what trip home in July is complete without swimming in his parents' pool? The boys decided they should have a cannon-ball contest...

Ryan

Nathan

Cory

We also spent a morning at Willard Bay, with my family, playing on the water. This is Cory wakeboarding.

And of course, we had to go to Lagoon! My dad got some good pictures of us on the Rattlesnake Rapids Ride. I love the shuffle that goes on to get out of the way of the big waterfall...

Or, in Carly's case, get to the waterfall... it was soooo hot!

And we also went with my extended family to see the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. It was gorgeous inside, I loved the color scheme and all the marble. So pretty!
So there you have it -- the highlights of our trip home. We had a great time and we are grateful for such wonderful family members. Stay tuned for pictures of Cory's graduation... that will be the next post...

Happy Independence!

Happy 4th of July everyone! Cory and I had a great holiday weekend! We saw old friends, a new (to us) part of New York, and watched fireworks over a bay off of Lake Ontario (lovely). There's nothing quite like fireworks over water. We also took in a free patriotic concert by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and saw more fireworks. The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love summer, the heat, the water, patriotism, barbecues and fireworks. Happy birthday America!!

Beautiful gardens

I wish all weekends could be like the one we just had. Really, I do. On Friday, Cory got the great news that he'd passed Part 4 of the National Boards! Part 4 is the last part, and since he's passed all the other parts, this means he's done! All he needs is a diploma (32 days!) and he can apply for a license to practice. YEA! We celebrated by seeing Transformers 2, and getting some Mexican food. Yummy!

On Saturday, we went out to a place called Sonnenberg. It's this old mansion, built in 1887, with 9 formal gardens. We went last year, but we were a week too late to see the glorious rose garden. This year, we caught them at their peak, and they were just gorgeous.

The Japanese Garden

Blue and White Garden

The Mansion

The Aviary, where they used to have over 100 species of exotic birds.

The Rock Garden

Aaah, and the Rose Garden.

This is my new favorite picture of us.

Really, the pictures don't do them justice. And they smelled soooo good!

And for your viewing pleasure, watch this video (with your volume up). It's 2 frogs, having a fight... too funny!

It was a fantastic weekend. I got to do a lot of my favorite thing, which is spending time with Cory. I can't believe that time is winding down, that's it's nearly July. July is going to be crazy at our house (hello, Hill Cumorah Pageant and visitors!) and a short trip home to Utah. Lots to look forward to!

Herb garden update

Our little garden is thriving. We weren't sure if they were even going to survive, but I'm happy to say that we only killed one plant (cilantro) -- and he had a rough day on the wine tour, so I think he might have been dead previous to us even planting him.

The herb garden started out like this:

And now it looks like this:

It was hard to get a good angled picture, since some of them are growing like crazy, and they overshadow everything else. The one in the left forefront is a dill plant, and it's gotten quite tall. The ones in the back are tomato plants - and we really need to get a couple of cages for them since they're out of control. The one in the middle is a walla-walla onion plant, and then some herbs that you can kind of see (basil, oregano, sage). I'm amazed they're growing, and I'm excited to eat what we've grown. Now we just need to figure out how to harvest some of the plants, and we'll be good!