Summer Travels

I apologize for the lack in posting but Justin, Grace, and I have been busy so far this summer. In June, the morning Grace and I were getting ready to head off to Oregon to visit my parents for a week (Justin was at a welding seminar/conference in Georgia) my dad called and told me that my 16 year old brother was in a skateboarding accident and was sent by air ambulance to the University Hospital in Portland. We ended up spending the week in Portland taking turns visiting Spencer in the ICU. He suffered severe head trauma and had to undergo surgery. This accident totally changed our plans for the rest of the summer. We had originally planned a trip to Turlock for the week of July 4th, but with Spencer in the hospital we changed our plans and the whole family met up in Portland for the week. We had such a great time visiting with each other and Justin and I had the chance to meet Nathan's wife and new baby, Courtney and Karly as well as Sarah's newest baby, Brianna. Just before we left for Portland Justin found out that he was going to be traveling for work for the 3 weeks after our trip, so Grace and I decided to stay a little longer. Justin had to go to Montana for a week, then to Mexico for 2 weeks. Grace and I stayed with my parents for 2 weeks, then my mom drove us to Boise where we met up with Justin's mom and headed down to Utah for a week with the Nessen's. We had so much fun but it's good to be home and back together as a family. Below are a few of the pictures from our trip. I will post more when I get them downloaded from Justin's camera.

On the 4th of July we took some family photos. This is a 4 generation photo of my Grandma Ames, my mom, me, and Grace
Grace's first trip to the Pacific Ocean and first time putting her toes in the sand.
Grace's first time swimming. She had so much fun. She kicked and splashed and laughed the whole time. I can't wait until she is big enough for swim lessons!
The town Justin grew up in had their founder's celebration the weekend we were there. They had all kinds of activities. This was during the rodeo. As you can see Grace is thrilled to be there :)
This is a picture of me playing second base during the championship game in our softball tournament. Our entire team was made up of Nessen family members. We had a blast

I will continue to post pictures of our summer activities and hopefully it will get done in a more timely manner.

P.S. Spencer is doing really well for the extent of his injuries. He is home now pretty much for good. He will have to go back to Portland for surgery sometime soon, but he has truly been blessed and has had a miraculous recovery. We have seen the Lord's hand in our lives and answers to prayers and know that we are very blessed.

Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Mormon Mommy

I wish there was a holiday or an occasion in which to receive gifts coming up soon, but there isn't. My birthday has passed, and so has Mother's Day. Christmas is still 6 months away and so is our anniversary. I have been secretly coveting programs such as this one below:

Now I'm not much of a scrapbooker. Never have been. I'm not creative and I can always think of a thousand other things to spend my money on. I also don't know where I would store all the supplies if I had them. I know I would get tired of taking everything out and then cleaning up the mess afterwards until I would just give up on the whole thing. Living outside of Utah it's not that big of a deal if you don't scrapbook. I don't feel as though I'm left out of some Mormon Mom club, but secretly I have always wanted to do the scrapbooking thing. I think they're adorable and a great way to preserve your memories for your posterity. With this whole blog craze I have found something recently that has peaked my interest: Digital Scrapbooking. Some of you are probably wondering where in the world I have been if I just discovered this, but that's okay. You have probably been scrapbooking for years and therefore are in the know about this stuff. I really want to start doing this for several reasons: 1)There are a lot of kits out there in cyber space that can be downloaded for free. 2) My pictures are all on the computer, therefore I wouldn't have to be running off to the store to print them out in order to work on pages. 3) I can be creative and try different layouts without wasting any supplies because I can just delete it and start over if I need to. 4) Everything would be on the computer and not scattered all over my house.

Now that I have convinced myself, and all of you who have gotten this far in this post, I just might have to buy myself a present.

Are any of you out there digi-scrappers? What programs do you use? What are some of your favorite websites for kits?

Another Milestone

Grace is rolling over now. She's becoming mobile.

Grandma's are Great

Grace received a package in the mail today from her Grandma Nessen. This is what was inside:

Grandma's are wonderful! Grace is so lucky to have such wonderful grandparents and great-grandparents. We just wish we lived closer to all of them. We are looking forward to spending a week in Oregon with my parents and hope that Justin's mom will be able to make it to Texas this summer for a visit. Thanks Cindy for the cute clothes and hair bows. We love them!

To my friend

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DALLAS!!

Today my old roommate and one of my best friends turns 26. I just wanted to wish her a happy birthday and tell her that I miss her like crazy. I thought I'd post some pictures from all the fun we had at BYU-I. (Sorry for the poor quality, but our scanner doesn't work so I had to take a picture of a picture.)

Dallas and I in front of Bridget's house

Roomies and best buds

Baptism excursion at Idaho Falls Temple

Our first trip to Dallas' hometown of Gooding, Idaho

Getting ready for the Weezer concert in Boise (Dallas, you look hot in this picture)

Why are we eating in the bathroom?

Last picture with Bridget before she left for Orlando

Yahoo for Shelby and Dallas

Visitng Bridget in Orlando

I am so lucky to have had such a great roommate and friend. There are so many things that I love and admire about Dallas. She always wears her heart, and her emotions, on her sleeve. I love that she cries when she's happy, sad, angry, touched, or just about anytime she feels like it. She loves chocolate like a real woman should! She has a deep and lasting relationship with Pepsi, as do I. She is the most self-disciplined person I know. She is a wonderful mother and a great example to me of a Christ-like person. Dallas, I love you to death and I'm so glad that we found out we're related :) I hope you have a great birthday and tell Shelby that he better do something superb for you, or else!

I can't wait to see you in Vegas!