European Vacation part 1

Greg got the opportunity to go to a conference for Exxon in Cannes, France. So we decided to take the European vacation that we'd always talked about. While Greg attended his conference, I dropped Luke off at Grandma Gessel's house in Sandy, UT. Luke had so many fun people to play with, I'm pretty sure that he hardly noticed I was gone.










Since Greg's conference was in the South of France that's where we started. We went to Cannes and Nice then to Florence and Venice, Italy; Geneva, Switzerland to Lyon, France and finishing in Paris. The whole trip was a series of train voyages besides of course the long flights to and from the States.

quilt happened

Luke is into some of the whiny terrible two stuff.


But he is a cutie.




My friend recently requested help with her quilt. She was making it for her daughter due in a week and some odd days but actually born yesterday. More on that later. So I thought she was interested in sewing it herself for the experience but she was at the point that when I offered to finish it, she accepted. I figured out later why she was having such a difficult time. Most quilts have squares or rectangles that all fit together nicely, but this one had some crazy stuff going on in the middle.
So yesterday she was going to come to my house and drop the fabric off. She called around 5 and instead of talking about fabric she asked me to watch her boys while she went to the hospital and checked to see if she was in labor. She was and like 3 hours later, her baby girl was born.

I went home and waited til Luke's nap and then frantically started to get the quilt done. I have a vacation coming up and I really wanted to have it done before I left. Then I got a text that Leslie would accept visitors in the evening so my new goal was to finish by then and give it to her in the hospital. I got it finished and drove to the hospital before visiting hours were closed. I think it turned out pretty well.

Weekend Fun

Last weekend we went to San Antonio. Greg has a friend from growing up who is stationed there with the air force. So we went and hung out with them and went to Sea World. They were so nice to us. Not only did we stay at their house but they gave us the insider's tour through the park. Meaning we missed the lines and still got to see all the shows we wanted, like Shamu. If that wasn't enough they traded off going on the rides while the other one watched Luke. How nice is that?! They live really close and have the year pass and that's one of the reasons why, but still, it was the best. So thanks to the Livseys for an awesome weekend trip.

This weekend was the cub scout camp out. Greg is a webelos leader and so we packed up our stuff and hoped Luke would do well.(He did.) The camp area was in the state park about an hour away. It was about a five minute walk from the lake. The site was a little small for our big group, but it was fun. The camp site was several inches of silt or loose dirt so everyone was pretty dirty. The scouts were constantly looking like dirty ruffians. The boys also participated in a raingutter rigatta (boat race). They then had a raingutter sundae. We had left by then, but I can only imagine those filthy boys digging in.







Happy Easter! We put six eggs with candy on the lawn for Luke. He wasn't super interested until we opened the first egg and he saw the treat inside. Then, he basically went to the other eggs and opened them immediately. I did get him to eat his candy in two sittings because some of his candy was wrapped. He enjoyed himself.



That's about it.

My little helper

Luke loves to play in water. So he recently decided he really likes to help with the dishes. He will pull a chair over to the sink and just play/drink in the dirty water. He really loves it when his mother kindly turns on the water in the smallest stream imaginable. I know it is not terribly eco-friendly. He always pulls out the water plug and watches it drain. This can keep his attention for an hour, no joke. He normally hates wearing bibs, but will put on an apron for this activity. He sometimes pitches a fit when I try to take the apron off.




Taking a sip (I swear I don't encourage the dish water sipping)

The zoo

Last weekend we went to the zoo because we had some free passes that were about to expire. We had fun, but Luke still doesn't emote much, when it comes to animals. The funniest part was watching him pet the goats. He would give the goat one pat and then move on.







Then Greg went to the shooting range with a friend and Luke and I went to the open house of the our new church building. A friend needed me to translate the tour into french for her neighbors. It was hard to remember some of the words that would have been so easy five years ago, but whatever. Don't ask me which words, it's embarrassing. Fine, "sin" and "restoration".
But all in all, it was a good experience. Much thanks to the Spencers for helping with Luke.

Spring Break

Just a week after returning from Arizona, my family came for spring break. My Mom and two brothers came. Dad didn't come because he was coming down with a nasty flu that was going around his school and didn't want to pass it along. Thanks Dad but we missed you.

They came Saturday night and we had pizza ready for them. Through the next week we played games, watched Dollhouse and other movies and shows courtesy of netflix instant watch, and ate food. My mom also brought lots of crafts. She is always working on at least one craft. We did designs to go on personalized plates, Christmas aprons for the granddaughters, Christmas themed busy books and nativities. Can you tell where we're going to Christmas this year?

Greg took Wednesday and Friday off to play games and enjoy the company. We didn't forget St. Patrick's Day to have corn beef and cabbage, it's a tradition. Friday was also my birthday and so we had to have a huge celebration which mostly consisted of Little Ceasar's for lunch and Chinese take out for dinner. I'm now 29 years old.

Greg got me some flowers, Ticket to Ride USA(to go along with TTR Europe), a hello kitty pez dispenser and disney princess crazy bracelets. Mom got me a Christmas songbook for piano, and some delicious honey.

Mom and the boys left Saturday morning super early. How fun is it to have a Spring Break birthday!?!

The Girl Cousin's Reunion

I recently returned from a trip to the Phoenix area for a cousin's reunion with Greg's cousins. Greg's Mom came early for the sister's reunion and watched Luke and some of the other kids while the cousins played. Only the girl cousins 18+ are invited. It was super fun!
Luke and I flew there Wednesday and then took a nap while we waited at (Great)Aunt Donnie's house for Grandma Debbie and Emilee to arrive. Because we had gotten there early in the day, Luke was done with his nap not too long after they got there.

Thursday night we went to Stefani's for our cousin reunion. We ate ice cream, talked, watched movies. The next day we got on our black, red and turquoise for our photo shoot. We went to a pecan grove and got some shots and then to a nice man's yard. Our timer wasn't working so we had to recruit a friendly neighbor. He took lots of photos and then asked if we'd like to take some pictures by his swing set. We were all a little wary of it and then saw his huge self-built swing set. It was awesome.

We returned to Stef's for lunch and then went to the mall. We ate at a burger place and then returned home. Bree showed us how to make cute flower broaches. They had sent an itinerary about the reunion that just said what we were doing and the whole time I prayed that Bree was teaching it since she always does such cute things. We ate more ice cream, talked, watched movies and went hot tubbing.

We went to a stake women's conference with excellent classes and a delicious soup bar and mint brownies. It was very uplifting. We went back and lied around Stef's house. For dinner we got some delicious pasta takeout.

Luke turned 18 months that week so we sent him to nursery. He did well and then threw up in the last 5 minutes. He hadn't seemed sick before or after so we attributed it to the fact that we feed him to keep him quiet in church and then he had more snacks in nursery. He is usually ok about stopping except when the food is too good to resist. Remember vacation last year(muffins, yogurt, snacks in the car, fries and frosty) and the vomit all over me.

The next few days I spent mostly at Aunt Donnie's house having fun. We didn't play as many games as in previous times, but the addition of children decreases free time. Megan, Stefani and Allison all came over during our stay and made it more fun.

Wednesday we went to Annie's and watched Dina make up some delicious cupcakes. She knows how to make them real fancy and has such a gift.

Thursday through Saturday was the sister's reunion for Debbie and so it was a little quieter in the house. Thursday night we went to Aunt Heather's shower. Saturday morning we had a shower at Grandma Darger's house for Christina and Spencer's baby.

We left Sunday morning. It is so fun to visit Arizona where so many of the cousins live. Even after our reunion was officially over we still were doing stuff together. They have really accepted me into their family and I had so much fun there. I realized on the trip that I have known them for five years already. The time has flown. Greg was a great husband to let me go have fun with his relatives while he stayed home alone.