JULY

 

Why is July the craziest? In a good way…

Grandma and Grandpa left on the 1st and then Alayna, Elias, Tanner, Hyrum & Navy came to stay for the 4th of July weekend. We had a such a good, relaxing time with the sweet Dahlins. We shopped a little bit, ordered in, found some fireworks to watch from Osmond Lane, did some face painting and Eli taught us all how to play Kuub! Good moments with all of these babies. 

 

Legaljuice shooting 

Jet & Tom came to stay for a day with their new baby Maine Coon 

(first named Bingo) Simba! 

Jet helped us finish the stitch puzzle, played kuub, did some water gunning with the girls, ate too many nerds with us & decided on pizza for dinner! He also LOVED playing with Sia’s little claw machine:)  

Me & Sia finished Harry Potter (last 2 movies) together this month. 

So much truth spoken in those. 

A new one in part 2 of movie 8…Lily comes to see Harry right before he has to be killed & he asks “why are you here? All of you?” She responds “we never left.” Truth. The Spirit world is right here, among us. 

This was Noelle’s mini half birthday celebration day. Out for FRO YO @ Menchies:) 

GWINNA turns 13!!!! So WILD to have a teenager. 

I love my Gwinna girl. She often teaches me how to be a better person. She has wise thoughts that I could never even come up with at my age. She is still such a curious cat, loves to chat & is often sitting on the counter for our conversations now. I appreciate her bravery. She does things that I still have fear about with such ease. This both baffles & inspires me. Poor girl has been finishing school even in summer time, just extremely spread out because we do not want overwhelm. It works for her & it works for us. She reads for fun & loves to socialize with all of her young women class & lately, especially, her cousin Asher. Little bestie at the moment:) 

Noelle let us all buy copy-cat sweatshirts at Lonely Ghost so we could match on the beach! 

As a part of Gwinna’s birthday celebration we took a family trip to San Diego. 

San Diego 
Day one- Phil’s bbq right from the airport. Of course Michael Joe immediately has regrets & says let’s do better but YUM! Worth it. Hotel- we love, MJ hates. So much fun and family friendly though. Of course Noelle immediately discovered there is free strawberry lemonade in the lobby! Ha. We played ping pong while we waited for our room to be ready (free valet parking all weekend for the delay! Free water bottles all weekend too, which was nice!) pool time. Waterslides!? Girls loved it! Slid down as many times as they could before they shut them down at 7. MJ got us 2nd desserts bobboi gelato…dragonfruit lemon!? SO good. 
Day two- girls got breakfast & while we waited for the Uber to take us to Seaworld we played cornhole, jenga and ping pong. 
Funny note: girls (especially Noelle) kept referring to all the tubbier looking birds as Boo throughout this trip. 
Seaworld. First venture was a swing ride. Ugg kind of made me sick. Girls loved it. Penguins! Cutest little waddler babies. Orca show was so amaze. I got emotional!? I’m getting old. Just incredible, massive creatures. Noelle was smiling the whole show. Magic. Sea otters, massive walrus, & beluga ..sweet, smiley guy! Then we waited in a terrible long line for shipwreck rapids while poor MJ got totally sunburnt! Not quite worth that but we did get soaked and cooled off then the girls rode the swing ride again while we enjoyed our monsters & watched the harry litigator that has the brainstorming session as part of it. So funny & great. Hmm we never could find the blending in octopus… flamingos were cutie and so many! Mj kept trying to convince me to go on the Manta ride by myself..would not be worth it if I got sick for half hour. 
Went to Mitch’s for dinner. Fun Waterfront spot but the food wasn’t worth it. Except Gwinna did love her fish and chips. A little large bird was sitting across from us and Noelle kept calling him Boo.
Sunburnt faces this first day for all of us. When we came back to the hotel it was back to the pool for a couple hours and MJ loves me so he got me more of my gelato…oh and poor Gwinna Jo hung out poolside because of reasons & had desserts with me & we shopped at the gift store for Funsie. Good little talker she is, so I’m never bored.
3rd dia- ping pong and photo shoot with Noelle while we waited for Nutella waffles. Seaport village shopping. Ridiculous lafufu purchases. Christmas store is one of our favorite…got a Coca Cola nutcracker for me & MJ. A combo of us. Checked out the sweet ducks in the pond. Urban girl store was a favorite; got Gwinna a good mood ring & Noelle a favorite bracelet because it cinches tight. 
Ubered back to hotel for poke bowls. Yum. Took half hour break and then headed to the beach. Within half hour there (overcast & really packed) we were all done. Got a ride with a wild guy (called himself very liberal and said if ICE is on any corner he will be getting out to yell at them and we’d have to find a new ride. Then proceeded to give us parenting advice & drove us the very wrong way down to Seaworld entrance. We started wjtb the shipwreck ride because mj said he’d do it tidy because he was in sandals! Yay!!! So glad. Twas a good little time getting wet together.
Shark encounter, more monsters(the drink), sea turtle viewings (they have such sweet faces) and then we did the dolphin show! Also got emo again in this one. They are just the sweetest & so fun to watch all playful. 
After headed to an Italian place to redeem our dinner from the night before. Pezzi del Mio Cuore. Redeemed. We all loved what we got. I had a risotto with seafood, girls had variations of pasta. Then I ordered strawberry gelato..not sure what I was thinking. I’ve never loved strawberry ice cream. MJ wanted to me have something I loved..panna cotta. So good! Who even knew this!? Yum. 
Pool one more time. Noelle actually told me about the hot tub & me and Gwinna stuck our feet in & chatted about future visits to California, whether Tia Sophia will have a girl & our crazy Tesla driver from earlier in the day. I was slightly afraid of him..told us not to shut any doors and I shut the front one! He also entered where he wasn’t allowed to get us close to the entrance and went the opposite direction of traffic. Funny man. 
Twas a good end to the evening. Girls favorite pool by far during a trip. 
Note: falling asleep to seagull sounds is kinda sweet & summery feeling
Another note: Noelle is a good sport, always sleeps on the crappy, springy couch bed! 

My amazing young women. “Talking to God is a solution for our fears” Macy Heyman 

THIS happened this month. Getting it taken care of as I write this. 

😍Went to both Homegoods (once with the girls and another time alone), (note to self: one in Spanish fork is better than American!), At Home with MJ (he doesn’t have endurance for shopping lately) 

Sia had a s’more making activity so me and olders did our go-to broiler s’mores! YUM. Sia told us she caught her marshmallow on fire that night 😂 Thought of Dennis the Menace, of course!

Cleared out some bins by decorating our storage room. 

IN LOVE. Thank you Tia Sophia! 

Jessica offered us her pool to play in this summer so we took her up on it for a couple hours one day! 

Got some fun hand me downs from Ant Lili & a couple more calendars!!! 

“JUST AMAZING to me, absolutely amazing.” 

Priesthood in my life:

Baby blessing

 Baptism

 Confirmation

Patriarchal blessing 

 Dad blessings for school and health  

Set apart for many callings 

Set apart for my mission  

Blessings from MJ for healing and comfort  

Always felt SEEN, loved and talked to BY father in Heaven through those who blessed me.

I’m just looking at things to help Sia with her talk this week… Such a special thing happens when Priesthood is being exercised. The men giving the blessings are able to SEE us & talk to & about us as God would if he were here. They feel what Father feels about us. I was reading the law of love book wherein Steve Young talked about a general conference talk that was given. This general authority said he was rebuked by the spirit as soon as he set his hands on his sisters head to give her a priesthood blessing. He had judged her. She lived a hard life & made many poor choices but had also helped so many along the way & patiently cared for their mother at the end of her life. He suddenly saw her just as Heavenly Father did…as a precious, worthy daughter of Him who was doing the best she could.  Such a beautiful thing to have a worthy dad (a little crazy yes! ) who can exercise the Priesthood and bless us all when we need or even want an extra dose of comfort and light in our lives!