Girly Giggles

They were so giggly :)

Beautiful eyes. Beautiful hair.

They came up with this little pose all on their own

So cute!

Annabelle and Liv had a great time at their sleepover! They laughed, told each other stories, tested their theory about whether toys could move went you weren't looking (Conclusion: they definitely move when you're not looking)! :) They talked and giggled well into the 10:00 hour, but they were still great little girls! And hey, what's one late night every once in a while when you get to make treasured memories with your cousin?!



Cooking Camp and a visitor

Getting dropped off for cooking camp!

So excited and looking like such a big girl!

Look who came to pick her up! Olivia came to play and stay the night with Annabelle!

So cute

They blend in well with all the beauty of Thanksgiving Point

These moments can't be beat. This melted my heart.

All I can say is I hope they are close to each other and love each other their whole lives.

We signed up Annabelle for a day camp at Thanksgiving Point. It was a cooking camp and she had loads of fun. The kids got to decorate their own aprons, tour the kitchen of the fancy restaurant, meet the head chef, then make some snacks of their own. They sent her home with a paper bag full of recipe cards and fun treats. Annabelle doesn't attend preschool, so we love taking advantage of preschool summer camps! It was so fun to choose the subjects she is most interested in, and give her some special experiences.
She was so excited to see Liv when she got done! The girls hugged and laughed, then chit-chatted their way over to the movie theatre where we met Josh for Ice Age.
I love that quote floating around Facebook and Pinterest right now relating to our cousins being our first best friends. In the case of Annabelle and all of her cousins, I truly hope with all my heart that they stay best friends forever, that they will always be there for each other no matter what.



A Moonlit Hike (aka a death wish)

Yes we were this tired

They were more in shape than us...I mean me :)

This was at about 7am...I think

Almost down!

Michelle and I. Much more happy on the way down :)

The guys. Tired of pictures

A pretty river at the bottom

Ok...this was an awesome idea and had lots of potential :) I was totally excited and really thought I could tackle it no big deal. Who cares if I haven't hiked in a couple of years, right? Who cares if I haven't worked out hard in a couple of years (other than my intense neighborhood walks, of course), right? Like Josh said: "Robs you've got this in the bag. Quit worrying about it. It's not that tough. There are a lot of flat parts! Muscle memory." Uh-huh

We met our good friends Michelle and Kyle at about 10:20 for a movie (this would be our first mistake). We planned on getting to the trailhead (of Mt. Timpanogos) around midnight or 12:30--why not hit a movie beforehand instead of sleep? Makes perfect sense to me. At any rate, we finished the movie then drove up to the trailhead and made it at about 1:00am. We wanted to try and make it to the top to see the sunrise. We started out with the masses of people old and young (ok, mostly young...ok mostly really young and attending a nearby campus). But we felt good! And I admit, I was having a really good time. It was a full moon; my legs felt good; I was keeping a pretty good pace (I thought), and we were talking and laughing. About 3 1/2 or 4 hours into it I started to get SUPER tired (this would be at about 3 or 4am, if I remember correctly). Almost all of the sudden my energy went KAPUT! We'd stop to rest for a few seconds, but within a minute my legs would be spent. I think up to that point I'd hiked on adrenaline, but when that wore off and I had to rely on muscle strength, I couldn't find any :) Lucky Michelle had just finished up Insanity not too long before this hike and she did awesome! Kyle and Josh were doing ok too, but both will admit to you they could've sat down and fallen asleep in fewer than 30 seconds! :) We hiked a long ways, probably a good 6 hours up, and still hadn't made it to the top (with no chance of getting there by sunrise). We stopped to assess the situation (and if you're me, throw up) and decided to head back down so we wouldn't get back too late in the morning/afternoon. I don't think any of us were disappointed or upset about it :) We headed back down and started to feel pretty good by the time we got down to the bottom! Josh and I headed to breakfast, then went to pick up our kids (ok we went to pick them up, then took a nap at my parents' house while my parents kept watching them) Haha. I think my mom and dad looked at us and knew it probably wasn't safe to turn the kids over just yet :)

All in all, it was still a fun time with the Stoddards, and a huge wake-up call for me. It is really true that if you don't use it, you lose it! :) It'll be a great goal for the next year or so to do the hike again (only never again overnight) and make it to the top! Of course there will need to be some training involved, but I'm pretty certain that not being sleep deprived will help out :)