girls camp 2011.

gosh i love girls camp.  it's funny because the whole month before it seems like the most stressful time on earth.  and then you get up there, do everything you've planned and more, and come home and miss it. i crave my girls.  this year me and the other leader had to tag team.  she went up half of the time, and i went up the last half. i brought up a helper.  she's insanely cool.  she's 9 months pregnant and literally begged to come with me to help out.  i wouldn't have wanted to spoon with anyone else in that tent! although i do wish suzanne, the other leader, could have been there with us!

there's not a better experience than sitting around a camp fire, and listening to the sweet and beautiful testimonies of these teenage girls. each one of them have such hard backgrounds. it kills me to think of the some of the things they have to go through. i love them so much.

it was a blast, minus one incident that has to do with my sleeping bag and cheese whiz. let's not talk about it. i'm still butt-hurt. but i did manage to get some pictures, and these ones are my absolutely favorite. here's for hoping there's a girls camp 2012!

holding reese.

girls camp was a success! i'll post more on that later.  for now, i want to devour myself in reese. reese and her perfect little self.

it's that time of year again:)

i'm off to girls camp! i truly cannot wait.

no sleep, no showers, no problem.

fathers day fire.

ok, so i think it's healthy to admit that i am obsessed with fires. i'm paranoid that for some reason the rain won't stop and we won't get a summer.  so when the weather is right, we jump all over it.

we thought we would celebrate fathers day with a little fire in the mountains. rob invited his girlfriend and i'm sure we offended her with how many jokes there were about hot dog "weiners". i've never heard so many in my life. i think my dad was even offended at one point when he walked away laughing and took a hike to get away from us, literally. my mom was sure laughing at us though, ha. and could you die at coop and reese with their root beer? heaven help me. sorry my pictures are fuzzy, my camera is on it's last leg. breaks my heart.

our italian friend.

we have this italian woman, with a very thick accent, in our ward.  she gives us kisses every time we see her.  she pinches brads cheeks and always holds on to my arm when we walk down the hall.  she can't see out of one eye, but she has more love in one greeting than some may feel in a lifetime.

she always asked us to come over so she could cook for us.  i think deep down we felt bad having her cook for us because she's old in age.  she begged one sunday and we (another cute couple) finally gave in and set a date. 

2 months went by and to be honest we kind of forgot about it.  but the date finally came and our calendar reminded us that the dinner was the next night.  so saturday night we walked over to her apartment building and the smell immediately had us stopped in our tracks.

i'm so mad i didn't take pictures of the food....it....was....extravagant! come to find out, this little 100 pound italian woman was a gourmet chef and had previously owned a restaurant in not only in italy, but in los angelas too. the food was INCREDIBLE! fresh, home cooked, right from scratch, food make from professional italian hands.  we were floored....the whole night.

she made us an 8 course meal (literally not joking) that had our heads shaking with disbelief the whole evening. it was truly a night me and brad will never, ever forget for the rest of our lives.

country fest carnival

we hit up the country fest friday night and to our fantastic surprise our friend, caitlin, has never been to a carnival before in her life. man i'll tell you what, i sure dont remember south jordan having so many hicks.  the best of the best were coming out of the wood works that night.  i'm sure caitlin and james thought we were raised in horse crap spending our free time slappin cows butts.

our first mistake was riding the gravitron right when we got there.  we honestly felt so sick the rest of the night! but i can't remember a time i've laughed so hard.  using all my strength to look over at caitlin and seeing her face not even knowing how to handle what was going on. (she has never even heard of a gravitron before). so watching her reaction made the sickness 100% worth it.

fathers tribute.

 2 dads who are so young at heart. 

2 dads who want only the best for their children. 

2 dads who i've seen cry over their kids. 

2 dads who have spent countless nights praying that their kids will be comforted.

2 dads who probably never thought of the kind of father they would be, but through time have perfected the term "dad" with the utmost dedication.

i love you both so much, and i feel so lucky to call both of you my dad.

and to my dad who "helped" bring me into this world.... i thank the high heavens every day that somehow i was lucky enough to get my card drawn when they were deciding upstairs who gets to be a part of the weidner fiasco. i still feel like that little girl that wants to climb on your lap when life gets hard. there's something about your tight hugs that bring so much security, and i'm so thankful that i have those for the rest of my life. i love you pops.

fire #4.

we had 4 camp fires in one week.  our apartment wreaks, all of our blankets wreak, my hair wreaked, and most of our clothes wreak. aside from wreaking-nothing makes me more giddy and says summer like a good, wholesome fire.  and smore's of course. saturday night we made gourment tin foil dinners and they were supreme with a classy side dish of doritos.

me and brad got a new desk so we took apart the old one and thought the only way to pay tribute to it was watching it burn baby burn.  and that's what we did.  it made for a perfect fire.

we also got a huge kick out of old "put grapes under your upper lip and try and talk" thing. it had us laughing pretty hard for longer than i'd like to admit.

jackie's friends.

 last night jackie and her friends came up to salt lake to come hang.  we took them to get some gelato.

 i saw this and liked it, so i took a picture. it has nothing to do with anything.

then we took some blankets, went to this huge field of grass, and talked till midnight.  i can say without a single hesitation that i think i laughed more last night than i have in an entire month combined. my jaw and stomach were in pain.  the stories and comments from jax and her friends were more than me and brad could handle.  thank you jaclyn, mike, ian, and richy from the bottom of our hearts for making us laugh till our hearts were content.

stace and her fam also came up for a bit to chat after they hit up some pizza! nothing brought more happiness to me than my sistas coming to my place! i loved last night.  every bit of it.

and to help get your friday started off right-i'll let my gal pal rebecca say it like it is.

i just want to pinch his little buttcheeks...

awww. i found these pictures from our honeymoon. i honestly didn't even know i had these. looking through them made me feel like it's been ages since our wedding.  it really hasn't.  just feels like it. i'm actually surprised we even left our honeymoon room to take these, ha. eww melissa, that's sick, don't be gross. ok sorry.

it made me think of the person brad is.  gosh he's such a good person. a genuinely good person. if you know him, you know what i'm talking about. i'm probably just feeling sentimental because there's a love song that's playing on pandora right now.  but really, little did i know how important that day really was. it was a perfect decision made by 2 immature people.

it's freaking hilarious.

some things are hilarious to me.  i'll name a few that i found fantastic.

a rather large woman came into the clinic today and i heard a little boy say, "she has the biggest muscles i've ever seen in my life mom".

tonight's activity we wore pj's and i was laying on my stomach and one of the young women was laughing so hard at how much my butt was jiggling while i laughed.

we ate lunch at chuck-o-rama.  the soul purpose of that fact alone is hilarious just in itself.

this commercial.  couldn't get enough of it.

last night we were at a camp fire, and our friends 2 year old threw 2 sippy cups and a water bottle in the fire. he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. his parents didn't. i did.

brad confessed to me that he does different accents every time he answers the phone at work. i'm still rolling about this.

happy birthday cooper!

we hit up pizza planet for coops birthday-and i think me and brad were more excited than he was.

stace out did herself with one of the best buttercream cakes i've ever tasted.

i don't know why im still shocked when her food tastes like celestial glory. i should know by now that no matter what she makes, i will devour.

it was an awesome night, thanks so much stace and dave!!

i hope you had a good birthday coop!

one of my all time favorite memories of cooper was christmas 2009. coop is painfully shy and christmas morning my dad came running out with the video camera to tape the kids on christmas morning.  coop stopped dead in his tracks and pretended he was asleep standing up thinking that my dad would leave him alone. oh man, i laugh so hard just thinking about it.  he even started snoring.

ann arbor via iphone.

 my favorites from the trip.

my favorite picture that i took is shay with that heart on her cheek. it does something to me.  it's beautiful.  her grimace face with that cute little heart and purse.

my favorite quote was when collin told brad he needs to go to the dentist because his teeth are yellow.

my favorite night was when we ate the worlds best churros with ryan and liz.  we were all so hyper and everything was hilarious.  did i mention that ryan and liz are ridiculously cool? i'm obsessed with them, and the idea of them moving to utah.

my favorite surprise was hanging out with pres. bednar's son.  him and his wife are insanely fantastic. and hearing stories of his dad growing up were really intriguing.

my favorite saying of the trip was, "i can't wait to get type 2 diabetes". we really ate so much crap. it was great.

my favorite thing to wake up to was ashlyn cuddling next to me.

my favorite meal was anytime liz cooked.  her home cooked meals blew me away.

my favorite conversations were every night staying up late with ryan and liz. laughing.

my favorite laugh was during sunday school when ryan fell asleep with his head in his hands. i pushed his elbow so it slid off his knee. his head jerked forward and it abruptly woke him up. i couldn't pull myself together i was laughing so hard. his face was priceless.