4th of July

It's a nice quiet Sunday afternoon and I decided it was perhaps time to update my blog as I have missed way too many things happening and since this is my "journal" of sorts, I would hate to not have record of these memories. (Maybe one day I'll start scrap booking again).

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays and tradition has set in that we always attend the CSI fireworks. I love them, and I love going a little early for a picnic, Frisbee and just hanging out with everyone. Some years we have gone with Tyler's family, some years my family, and there have been a few times both families have been together. This year it turned out was the Morgan crew.; Paula and Carl, mom and dad, Jacque and Mark and us all got together for some Patriotic celebrating. It was a gorgeous day, and the kids had such a great time.



Side Note: my sister Rachel introduced me to the coolest App for my phone, Instagram, so all of these pictures are edited with Instagram, I love the antiquated look of them.

Wicked

This weekend we went to Wicked in Boise. Tyler and I went in Los Angeles a couple of years ago and promised if we got the chance we would take the kids. When we found out the show was coming to Boise this Spring we jumped all over it. Got 4 tickets so we could take Reagan and Elise, and no regrets at all. They LOVED it. Elise would randomly grab my arm and just giggle throughout the entire play. She was mesmerized. Reagan, who has been listening to the CD, was very familiar with the story through the music and loved it, and a few times, he would giggle out loud and repeat the funny line. We had to remind him he needed to whisper, but it was priceless.

We were lucky enough to get to go with some of my family as well. Mom and Dad and Jacque and Mark also got tickets and we went together. We headed up to Boise early in the afternoon so we had time to stop in and see my cute little new niece Isla, Tyler's sister Britani and her husband Garth live up there. So much fun to hold that sweet little baby.

Our plan was to then meet up with the rest of the group and head to Red Lobster for dinner, but alas with an almost 2 hour wait we nixed that idea and headed over to Fudruckers and got ourselves a burger. Not quite as fancy as we had planned, but there wasn't a wait and it was pretty good.

My little Elise who has now decided she wants to be in a play and sing and dance.

I love these guys!

What a good looking couple, if I do say so myself.

These 2 aren't so bad either. Love that both of their shirts match the flowers on the tree behind them, very metro. These are my parents, btw

And another good looking couple. My sister Jacque and her husband Mark

Another family kodak moment

..and another. Obviously this one is in the theater, kids were so excited.

She doesn't look super thrilled, but she was.

Bedroom Makeover

We have been living at my parent's house for a year and a half. When we moved in I painted the girls room because it was a light blue color, so we went with neutral. Other than that I haven't done any decorating until last week. Our bedroom was a dark green color, which was fine, but I was getting a little tired of it and needed something a bit brighter, so I went with yellow. I love the way it turned out.


Of course the girls had to jump in and help. Mollie painted with me all day long, I was so impressed with her hard work. Ashtynn didn't last as long, but that was because she wanted to paint more with her hands than her brush. Yikes.


I also made a headboard and window treatment in black and white and I love how it turned out. There are still a few things I kind of want to do with it, but we'll see if those happen. I need some throw pillows on the bed.

Bear Lake

Tyler surprised me this last weekend with a getaway, JUST THE TWO OF US, to Bear Lake. It was so much fun, so relaxing and so needed. Our lives, like so many other people, is insanely busy. So, to get 2 days, uninterrupted with Tyler was perfection! He arranged with his mom to keep the kids, packed their bags, took care of my church responsibilities, packed our luggage and made all of the plans. I had no idea.

He asked me to go to dinner with him on Friday and of course, I thought that would be great. We dropped the kids off with my MIL's and headed to dinner, or so I thought, but we just kept driving. He made up a bunch of nonsense about a restaurant in a neighboring town, but then we drove past that town and I started getting suspicious, so he fessed up.

It was AWESOME!!!

This was the view from our condo, gorgeous!

We took a drive up on the mountain and looking down we could see the resort, our building is the one, directly in the middle with the maroon trim.

I'm so sad this picture didn't work, because this was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. We took a walk down to the Marina and climbed down the rocks to the water. The water was so cold, but so beautiful. We set the camera up on a rock with the timer, but alas, not such good quality.

Look at the lake, what a gorgeous color.

There's Bear Lake

There were deer everywhere, it was cool, gotta be honest, I just don't get how people can shoot them.

We had to get this picture of the Totem pole because Reagan is building a Totem pole in school for their current literature unit.

Tyler packed our bags so well, I was very impressed, and most impressed that he brought all of my running clothes, so of course, we went running together, loved that!!!!

On our drive home, we had to stop to get a picture of the snow. Look how high the snow is, crazy!!

Such a fun weekend, definitely going to have to go away again sometime.

Happy Easter

This Easter was very special, sad, happy, emotional... you get the idea. Easter was Stake conference for us and with the recent calling of Elder Kent J. Allen as an Area Authority, it meant the reorganization of the Kimberly Idaho Stake. My dad has been serving in the Stake Presidency with President Allen for almost 8 years and he was released on Sunday. Bittersweet emotions as I know he has loved working with President Allen and the stake and will miss it very much. It has been one of the greatest blessings in my life to have my dad as my Bishop twice in my life, but also as a member of the Stake Presidency in the stake I was living in. I will miss that as well.

Another fun part of Easter was Tyler's involvement in the Stake Easter Cantata, led by Carolee Remington. They have been working on this for months and were able to perform the program twice. Last night, in the encore performance, I decided I was going to record Tyler's song with his iphone and hope it worked. It did and I put together a video with pictures of Christ from lds.org so you can hear his song and see visuals. Remember, this is recorded on a phone sitting on the back row, so forgive the quality.

I made the girls' Easter dresses this year and I am so excited how well they turned out. Reagan also got his first suit and doesn't he look dapper.

But, most important of all I know the Savior lived and died for us and I am grateful for the many, many blessings I have in my life. Happy Easter to each of you!

Twin Falls is a safer city

(I took this picture this morning after a 25 hour shift, tired and unshaven!)

Tyler started a new job as an EMT with the Magic Valley Paramedics this week. He is so excited and so far loves working with patients and driving around in an ambulance is pretty cool too. This is one of the steps in our journey toward PA school, so we are thrilled with it.

He looks like he just stepped off the set of Grey's Anatomy, McSteamy and McDreamy got nothin' on my McHottie. (OK, I recognize that was completely corny and over the top, but oh well, my blog!)

The tough part is his schedule, he is working 2-24 hours shifts each week as well as still in school full time and juggling his other part time job at the hospital in transport. Yikes. We don't see him much, so when we do, we love it.

Funny Kids

I was looking through recent pictures on my camera and came across a couple of videos that I thought I would share. I also came across, oh about 25 pictures Mollie had taken. Didn't even know she had my camera. I erased most of them since they were of every toy we own and the cartoons her sister was watching and the wall..., but I couldn't resist the ones she took of herself. So enjoy funny moments with the Larsens.

This one is a pretty normal event at our house, "attack dad" Sometimes they all gang up on him, other times they tag team. Tyler's a good sport!

Ashtynn is becoming quite a little kick in the pants, talking, dancing, hamming it up etc. Here are a couple of videos of Ashtynn and Elise