Always & Forever

Aug 14, 2014

Happy Birthday Dad and Mom!

My parents are both celebrating their 60th birthdays this month so my sister and I decided to throw them a surprise party. They have done and do so much for us and we wanted to give them something really special this year to show them how much they mean to us.
We told them we were going up the canyons to do a family picnic dinner to celebrate my mom's birthday, but we invited all of their close friends without them knowing. We were fortunate enough to have a lot of their friends able to join us. The party was a huge success and Dad & Mom were SO surprised! Todd did his famous flank steak and we had all the sides to go with it. We also put boston baked beans and hat tamales on all the tables (my mom has always put our favorite candy on the table when we have our family birthday dinners). After the BBQ, just the fam headed over to my sister's house for smores and Todd & Nick actually got my dad to ride a motorcycle for this first time ever...he loved it and is now saying a Harley when he turns 60 :-)
I'm so glad we were able to pull this off for them...I could never thank them enough for all they do, but I hope this showed them that I love them dearly, look up to them so much and appreciate all they do beyone words.

Making presents for Paka and Gigi

Waiting for them to arrive (we made a sign that said "Surprise Rob & Sha)

Guests beginning to arrive

Totally surprised

Got him too :-)

Cute poster from the Longs (you can click on it to make the pic bigger)

Opening gifts

Cake time

Love this family of mine

Dad getting a lesson before taking off

Into the sunset

Aug 11, 2014

School Shopping

I took McKayla out for a special date to do her "back to school" shopping and we had so much fun. I love the fact that her school does uniforms...it made it so easy. She had SO much fun trying on the clothes and modeling for me. I also took her out to dinner and she chose one of our family favorites...Paradise Bakery. I really can't believe she is starting Kindergarten in less than a month...the time truly has flown by and I feel like she is starting a whole new chapter in her life. We are very proud of her and so excited to see her learn and meet new friends.

Outfits, shoes, accessories, notebooks, pencils...this girl is set :-)

Summer Party

Every year my work does a summer party. This year it was at Boondocks again and since Todd couldn't come, we invited my mom to join us. We all had a lot of fun and couldn't stop smiling :-)

Ready to race

Looking quite serious about their video game

We of course always have to do the motorcycles

This thing was pretty cool...it was like they were on a real roller coaster...it would move and shake

He liked the ice cream sandwich ;-)

Time to get wet in the boats

Not sure why he looks pained...he loved the boats and squirt my mom right in the back

Ready to race...and we even won :-)

Aug 6, 2014

New Tradition- Preston Rodeo

After going to the Preston Rodeo again this year with Todd's sis I think we've decided it needs to be a tradition (if they still want us next year :-) ). Her husbands whole family gets together for it each year and it's so much fun. We stayed at the farm again overnight and that is just as much fun as the rodeo itself (especially for the kids). They also bought a new farm so we got to go see it, ride their new horse, 4 wheel, look for frogs and look at the farm house they are rennovating (it's so cute!). I predict some really fun cousin time throughout the years up at the farm :-). I even told John we'd start sending Bodie up to work the summers when he's older ;-)