lots to blog about

Where to start? It seems like Summer time happens so fast, that all of a sudden, it's been a couple weeks and we've had all sorts of fun stuff happening. A few weeks ago, one of Scott's clinics was in the Springville parade. We got to go down and help hand out candy and little sunscreen packets. The boys loved it! Will was a great candy-passer-outer, and Eli had a ball riding in the truck and on Dad's shoulders.
They also enjoyed playing around in the back of the truck and watching all the people go by. They were really cute to wave at people, it was a fun morning. After the parade, we went to eat at Joe Bandidos. It was tasty!

Like you saw in my last post, Will has been doing lots of swimming this summer. Here are some shots of him at his lessons. He was so brave to do everything his teachers asked him to do and I was so impressed at his improvement in just two weeks. This lady is amazing and we will for sure be going back for more lessons next summer and probably the next few summers after that.
Me and Eli did a "mommy and me" class and it was a blast. Eli is a crazy man in the water, but we had so much fun. It was great to see him learn to hold his breath and enjoy swimming around with mom!
After dinner last week, my brother Mark (at who's house we currently reside) took Will, two of his kids, and Scott up to some water falls in the canyon behind their house. I love this about Utah. Just footsteps out your door and you're in the mountains! They had a great time, and it was so fun for them to do a little hike and enjoy a nice summer evening. Will has been having a ball his older cousins Zebbie (Rebekah) and Denver. They are so sweet to him and play with and entertain him pretty much all day long. It's awesome. :)
"The Bear Cave" on their hike. Grrrrrrr.
Cool shot of the water fall.
Will looks up to Denver in a lot of ways, but he loves that Denver plays baseball. So, Denver gave him one of his old hats that doesn't fit anymore. Now Will, loves to wear his hat! He looks so cute it in it, I love his ears.

Last week, we headed to my sisters house in Grand Junction. We left after swimming on Thursday. My parents came with us, which was great, since I could ride with them and not have to drive the 4 hours by myself. The boys loved being at Aunt Lisa's. She's always up for fun, snacks, lots of pool time, and her kids are so sweet. When I was younger, I used to take care of all my nieces and nephews all the time. When I got a little older, I used to wonder who would take care of and play with MY kids, since I was the youngest. Well I have soon found out that these older cousins are awesome entertainers and babysitters for my boys! They love them and the boys love their "BIG" cousins. :) Will had a blast at Lisa's and cried when he had to leave. He also cried most of the way home saying "I don't want to visit any more people, I just want to have our own house....." Me too, Will! Me too! Soon.......

Popsicles by the pool.
Yes, Eli is still in PJ's.... we were going swimming, I didn't want to change him twice!

We took a hike on Saturday and it was awesome. Great weather and the kids had a lot of fun, until Will got stung by a fire ant! It was pretty traumatic. In fact, he insisted on being carried the whole rest of the hike.
My sweet little boys. Will is probably the kindest, most watchful big brother I've ever seen. Eli is lucky to have him! He is always willing to take his hand and help him out and show him the way. I love that Will is headed straight up the trail pulling Eli behind him and Eli is not watching where he's going, just checking things out.
Stopped for a rest. This was after the ant incident. We had to re-group and calm a certain 5 year old down a little bit. The hike was cool though, we saw lots of lizards and we saw dinosaur bones and learned about some of the mesa's and the formations from a nice hiker man who showed up and gave us a tour. It was a lot of fun, and especially fun to get nice and hot and then go jump in the pool when we got home!
My little swimmer boys. Gotta love the goggles Will has on! Eli kept wearing a pair too but every time I tried to take a picture he would rip them off. It was pretty hilarious to see him with purple goggles on though! Will loved his googles and LOVED swimming. Eli loved the Cheetos, and I think he stood right there on the pool deck and ate most of the bag while the grown ups were there chatting.
The day after we got home from Grand Junction, we headed up to SLC to This is the Place. THIS time it was open and such a great day to visit the park. It wasn't too hot, not too crowded and everything was OPEN! We met my sister GayLynn + her daughter McKenzie and her baby Carver + her other daughter Callie, my sister in-law Kari + her daughter Jenna (who's birthday it was!), my sister Krista + her four kiddos, and we brought Zebbie with us. It was a group, but we had a lot of fun! Here are the kids: (Will did NOT want to take a picture)
Here we are, my sister GayLynn and I with Will and Eli on the train. Eli LOVES trains, cars, trucks, you name it. The trains were his favorite part. Everytime he heard the "choo choo!" he would stop and point and get really big eyes and say "Whoa. Choo!"

This is a fun replica boat that the kids loved playing on. I love how Will can barely see over the edge in the picture below. Right here by the boat, there is a little stream and two mountain men show the kids how to pan for gold. Once they find a gold nugget, they get to trade it in for candy. The kids had a lot of fun searching for gold, and Eli had fun throwing rocks in the stream.
There is also a smaller train that goes around a little pond and through a tunnel. Eli loved this train even more than the other one. Will was a great "seat belt" for Eli and they went around and around and around. It was cute to see them, and watch them laugh with each other.

They also got to ride horses. It made us really excited to go visit Aunt GayLynn and ride her horses and see her farm! Can't wait!!
See? I told you Will was a great big brother, he was willing to do everything to help Eli all day and he enjoyed riding the horse with Eli too. Eli liked the horse a lot and kept saying "hi" to the horse, it was cute.
A couple days ago, we headed to my sisters house to play in the water. We had a great time. This is our new pool! The kids played outside ALL day long. It was so relaxing, and so fun to just sit and chit chat with my sister while our kids played endlessly. I'm reminded more and more of the wonderful benefits that come with living near family. What a blessing, and how special for my boys to get to know and love their cousins and Aunt and Uncles. They have amazing people to care for them and love and adore them. I'm feeling so blessed.

Whew, caught up! That was just two weeks! I LOVE Summer, so many calm and relaxing nights, and so many fun and busy days. We're still eating popsicles to our hearts content and trying to spend lots of time outside before it gets unbearably hot.

This weekend, Scott is running his half marathon, so more pictures to come! Good luck Scott!

my little swimmer

What a little swimmer I have! I am so proud of Will, he took swimming lessons for two weeks and by the end of those two weeks, I was totally amazed at how much he had learned. We are so happy for him, what is Summer without swimming? After swimming lessons, we took a trip to visit my sister in CO, she has a pool, and we spent about 80% of our time in it. The rest of the time we were eating good food, or sleeping. :) haha. More to come on our trip..... for now, enjoy this little video of Will jumping in!

my birthday vacation

I was spoiled this year. We took a little trip back to Cleveland and I got to spend by birthday there! We dropped the kids off at Grandma's and headed East. It was a little weird to be there at first. Our move West was pretty sudden, and after only a short time living in OH, made it feel crazy to be back and realize how many memories we had made there in such a short time. It felt like a dream, like "did that part of my life really happen?" And yet, that was a HUGE part of our life, and we did so many things, traveled to so many places, and made some wonderful friends.

Our purpose to going was to get things in order with our house, meet our renters, do some cleaning, and enjoy a day or two just Scott and I. We had a great time. Scott got to play golf with some friends, we enjoyed an awesome meal with some of our best friends, and we got to see lots of familiar faces at church. My sweet friend Elyse even made me one of my most favorite cakes, Chocolate Sheet cake. It was divine.
Above: after our delicious meal at Lola's. What a "vibrant" street..... this is what Grant was calling it. A little sarcastic, since the rest of Cleveland doesn't look this "up and coming." Poor Cleveland, they have struggled for so long. We had a great night, and we loved the food we had at Lola. It was amazing.
We called our dinner to Lola's my birthday dinner. They were even nice enough to put a candle in our lemony dessert. It was fantastic.

We missed our boys, but had a great weekend. We have a lot of great memories of Cleveland and our time there, I guess that is why it was kind of hard and sad to be back there for a few short days. Especially to see our empty, quiet house. I'm not used to that, and i'm glad that's not how I remember it most of the time. I remember being filled with chatter from my two sweet boys, full of friends, Thursday night pizza night, a warm cozy winter time, and enjoying having our own back yard. I know we will have all those things again some day, and I'm looking forward to that.

Thanks to everyone who helped us have such a great weekend! And special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for taking great care of our boys!

summer is here!!

We've made it! Just like it always done, Summer just happens, suddenly, with no warning. We go from colder temps, rain, cloudy skies, to beautiful, warm sunny days in a matter of hours it seems. I'm not complaining. The weather has been gorgeous. The boys and I have spent several hours outside, enjoying the summer sights and sounds. I absolutely love this time of year. I love everything about it. The sunshine, the heat of the day so hot you have to either go swimming or run through the sprinklers, anything but go inside....., the green grass, running barefoot, boating, swimming, going for walks in the evening when it doesn't get dark early, the summer holidays (4th of July is my favorite!), summer salads that qualify as "dinner," color on my cheeks.... the list could go on and on. Today our most favorite was POPSICLES!
We had to kick off our summer vacation with popsicles. Of course. We thoroughly enjoyed them, and since we've had colds and nasty fevers around here, the popsicles were just exactly what we needed.
We had to try each flavor in the bag, of course. They were yummy, and our favorite was unanimous, root beer. Out of this bag anyways, next bag has the icy blue kind, orange, and something I can't remember..... we'll have to have two favorites I guess.

Cheers to Summer!!

Gami Mokki

Our first get-away for summer was our "Grand Opening" of the Mortensen Cabin. Grand it was. Pretty awe inspiring, actually. Gami Mokki (Glenn and Martha's Idaho Cabin- in Finnish) is located near Ashton ID. It is beautiful. Above, the view from their amazing windows. They are one of only 4 cabins here. It is remote, quiet, beautiful, and purely amazing. Below, the view out the back of the cabin. The cabin property is right against Targhee National Forest. Yes, we've seen lots of animal life, including bear tracks! eeeek!
Glenn and Martha have worked so hard on this cabin. It has been years in the making, and a life long dream for them. It was great to see that dream come to life for them. We were all able to come to the cabin, all six of the Mortensen kids and their families. We had a great time! Will adores his cousins and had a blast playing endlessly with them. Just like Grandma's feather bed, "we didn't get much sleep, but we had a lot of fun!"

I love this porch. It is beautiful and the red is my absolute favorite. You know me, a little splash of color!
Upstairs, loft, and hall way to bedrooms and kids bunk rooms. If you know Martha, you know she is excellent at planning and carrying out the amazing details of ANY project. Her cabin is no different. You can see her little touches throughout the whole place. From the bedroom with a little sleeping loft, to the "girls" bunkroom vs. "boys" bunkroom, game room, unique and wonderfully efficient bathrooms, to the great kitchen. The cabin sleeps 14 in beds, and provides so much fun entertainment for the kids. They moved the ping pong table up to the cabin, so we had to have a family tournament!
Part of the entry way/living room. Not quite all the furniture is moved in yet, so we had plenty of open spaces for everyone. The wood and the wood floors in the cabin is amazing.

Meal time!!

I love this kitchen, most of all the gray cabinets. Martha said the builders and everyone looked at her funny when she said she wanted them gray, but I'm SO glad she did, they are beautiful. The pictures don't do them justice at all! The windows in the cabin are awesome too, everywhere you look you can see out a window. The light in the cabin is great, and reminds you that you are out in nature and how beautiful it is.
The most amazing part of the cabin is Glenn and Martha's generosity. They built this cabin for them, but more so for their kids. They are so generous and giving, and told us numerous times that they want the cabin to be used and enjoyed by everyone. So.... pack your bags and give us a call, let's go to the cabin!!