Playing Catch-Up!

Well, we've been gone for so long that I don't even know where to start! My very cute sister, Sadie, came from Utah for  visit at the end of July. We did a bajillion different fun things, including shopping, tubing, hiking, bike rides, swimming at the lake, sight seeing, Duluth, Stillwater, ... if only we had more time! One of my favorite pics is from the sculpture garden in Minneapolis:

Sadie and I are on this side of the glass, 

Neal is on the other side of the glass. 

and then we laughed our heads off

because we are hilarious

We also ate lots of good food while Sadie was here.

Check out miss g's face! She is so funny.

"clink" those fries

We drove back to Utah since Neal finally had a break from law school

We started out our vacation with a camping trip in the mountains right by Moab, UT

Hiking, Fishing, S'mores, Dutch ovens, Tents

and

Extended family

(Food allergies, anyone?)

We had such a great time camping!

July 4th! and stuff

On Saturday we went for a long bike ride, part of it included going on the Stone Arch Bridge near down town Minneapolis. It goes over the Mississippi and we cold feel the spray from the falls where we were standing. Er, sitting. It was a gorgeous day, lots of people were out, so we had fun people watching too.

We stopped at a play ground on our ride also, and there was this little caterpillar that Genevieve almost sat on to go down the slide. Pretty cool, eh? You can click on the picture to make it bigger. He's pretty amazing.

Digging in the sand with Daddy.

Then we went home and stuck our head in the pool.

Literally.

Favorite activity: Anything to do with water.

On Sunday we (except for Neal) 

wore our Sunday dresses that I made last summer

And then we made funny faces for the camera.

4th of July morning we went with my cute cousin, Amber, and her family to the longest (may I add hottest), and oldest running parade in Minnesota. Say hello to Delano, MN. It felt just like home. It was a little old town out in the fields, lots of tractors, old cars, and horses in the parade. We loved it. We were there for a couple of hours and we only lasted for about half of the parade! Too many hot little kiddos, and adults for that matter. 

We went to a huge bbq party for lunch at a friends house, and then the evening of the 4th we also had our own little barbecue out back. I love you potato salad, watermelon, and corn on the cob. Feel free to drop by anytime.

And last but not least, we close with the epic firework show. 

When it got dark we were able to go with some friends to the roof of a tall building downtown to watch the fireworks. There were fireworks going off above all the cities around Minneapolis, so we really got the mega show to end the night. 

Happy Independence Day, Everyone!

Oh What Fun

Genevieve helped me make two delicious batches of Strawberry jam.  She was a good helper. She likes to play with the water that is in the dishes in the sink. Or the kitties water dish on the floor. Both are equally exciting. Except she gets put on time out when she touches the kitty dishes, so that's kind of  a downer.

We also got a special gift to go in our yard- a sandbox! We love it so much. Thanks to Memere's amazing deal finding skills, Genevieve has her special place to dig in while I do other yard work. She mostly loves to bury her feet int the sand over and over and over...

We've also been going to Izzy's quite a bit lately. It's a well known ice cream shop just over the Mississippi river in St. Paul. They make their ice cream in-house, and they also let their customers make up new flavors for them every other year. It's very delicious. Neal's cute little cousin just started working there, so now we get the family discount. boo ya.

And, Neal has been having a blast with his few hours of spare time he has this semester. His projects this week consisted of making three (yep, 3) batches of marmalade, building a huge wooden shelf in the basement, laying a cement sidewalk in the back yard (pics soon to come!), fixing a sweet bike I found in the alley, sewing chain stay protectors for his bro's bike shop, making pizza for dinner one, and perusing our friend Craigslist for a new little (or humongous) toy:

Meet FRANK. 

Newest member of our family. Apparently Neal got tired of shoveling all the Minnesota snowflakes this last winter, and he's already got one neighbor lined up to dig them out of the snow storms as a side job for this next winter.

It's June

I think we started off our month right with Neal's delicious chocolate chip pancakes... keep in mind that I rarely say that pancakes are delicious. These ones really were! Genevieve and I had a little fight over who got the last one. I think she won. But only because she said I was tall enough to make my own pancakes.

We've also been playing outside. ALOT. We spend almost everyday outside now that our snow drift is gone... our yard is looking so great. I've absolutely loved having some space to work in. I just put in the veggie garden (seeds) on Saturday, and  I planted tomatoes this morning. I'll put up pics soon!

Last week we attempted to go to the zoo with my cousin Amber and her cute little "squishies" as she calls them. But, we were a little late and there were 7 thousand buses there by the time we got there. Serious, I counted them. We just drove until we found a neat place to play- by a lake! There were neat little steps going down to the water. There were also some nice tables where we ate our picnic lunch.

Genevieve played with caterpillars the other night with Bala (Aunt Elisa, who we live with) They were so pretty, some of the caterpillars had that blue stripe.

Neal has been busy with a couple of classes for school, and he's been busy working in the yard as well. He helped me "bunny proof" our veggie garden, and he also fixed the steps to the deck this last weekend. Among other odds and ends.

Saturday night the youth in our ward put on a fundraiser, a spaghetti dinner, or "A Night in Italy". It was fabulous. The food was great, and the entertainment was so fun. One of the boys in our ward (center) is part of a  harmonica band. The guy closest to you in the pic is playing a double decker one (about 6 inches tall) and the guy on the other end was playing one that was over a foot long! Plus they played some really fun music. Besides this group there were also two pianists, a violinist, skits, and all the youth singing a song.

They also put on an auction for all the baked goods that ward members brought. My lemon poppy seed bumdt cake went for $12 (word) and Genevieve got herself a plate of ginormous chocolate chip cookies from the auction as well. It was such a blast.

We love our ward so much, there are so many amazing people. Genevieve also bore her testimony for the first time yesterday. She was so excited to go up and sit in the chair and wait for her turn, and then to be at the microphone. I had to help her know what to say, but I think with a little practice she'll have it down. 

I love hearing her say that "ThomasSMonson is a Pwophet" 

and that she loves her "famiwy". 

After I took her back down to sit in our pew again, she was still so excited she slapped both of my cheeks three times and then grabbed my face and gave me a HUGE kiss right on the lips. 

She was giggling the whole time too. 

What a nut.