Midwestern Summer

Oh my goodness!!! We have been having SO MUCH FUN!!! I won't go into details right now, but I wanted to make a short post about the fun times we've had!

We've been shopping, eating Monical's, and relaxing to the max! It has been a blast to not have to worry about working or cleaning or anything. We even got to go on a surprise tour of the Indianapolis Speedway grounds. It was a special tour that not everyone gets to take. We were really excited, and got some great pictures!

Last night, our family hosted a spectacular fire works show. It's a tradition that's been going on since before I can remember. But just like the last 7 or 8 years, it has become a ward/friend/neighborhood affair. We love having people over to celebrate our nation using FIIRRREEE!!! :) Steve even got the honor of starting the giant bonfire this year. (Which ended up not exploding as usual... but it was still cool.) And family - we did get some great videos of the fireworks which we are going to have to watch when we get back!

We've loved being with our family out here too. We haven't seen my brother's family since our wedding!! So we were excited to hang out with them and the kids. Steve has loved playing soccer and frisbee with them this whole week. We're definitely getting some good exercise... but we're eating enough that it isn't doing us any good! HAHA!

But we're glad we've been with family and enjoying everyone's company this week!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!! I certainly love my country and I'm so grateful for the freedoms I enjoy everyday. I'm so grateful for the soldiers that fought to make our country how it is. And I'm glad there are brave men and women fighting today to keep me safe. I'm glad we live in this country where we can worship freely. I love my Heavenly Father, and my brother and Savior, Jesus Christ. What a blessing to have the truthfulness of the gospel in my life!

So look forward to posts full of pictures when we get back to Utah. :)

PS. It is SO HUMID here! I forgot how wet it can feel outside!!! That is one thing I do not miss. Sometimes it's hard to stay outside for too long before you start sweating bullets just sitting there!!! But I guess that IS part of the experience! :)

Memorial Day

Well it was a great Memorial Day! Steve and I went to breakfast and it was soooo yummy!

Later that day we visited Steve's Grandpa's grave. It was cool to see all the flags they had lined up and all the flags at the graves of people that were in the service.

Here is Grandpa Harkness. :) We were going to buy a flower, but of course all the stores were clean sold out.

We spent the evening with family cooking out and talking. It was fun and relaxing! We are so blessed to have family that is so loving and supportive.

We also did this puzzle while watchng Goonies on t.v. the other day. :) We were puzzle fiends with this one. We could. not. stop.

We hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day. We are so grateful for the men and women that have served, are serving, and will serve for the pride of our country. We are also grateful to remember all those in our lives that have passed on. How grateful we are for the knowledge that we can be with our families forever!!!

We are proud to be an American!

Puzzle-mania Summer!

Well, it's that time of year again. The time where we do puzzles to make sure we don't get bored and start saying the awful words, "I'm ready for school to start again." No one wants to hear that!

So we started with an oldie but a goodie, the frogs.

After we finished that puzzle, we decided our stash wasn't fantastic. So we went got a 5 pack box of puzzles. We were pretty excited! But then we started this one and realized that these puzzles may be lame because all the pieces look the same. They don't make it challenging and make the pieces look weirdish. But it's ok, it was still fun.

We just finished our third puzzle tonight. What a cute little Bambi.

Earlier this month, we decided to go help de-stress a small part of Vickie's life by helping weed her flower garden in front of her house. She has some pretty flowers planted out front, and weeds were definitely taking over.

We forgot to take a BEFORE picture, so this is like, HALF WAY picture.

ps. That huge green one right up on the house was the devil!!! It's roots spread throughout almost the entire garden!!!

Here is an AFTER shot.

Me pretending I'm not sweating. We were lucky there was a really pleasant breeze, so we didn't fry.

Me. Remembering why I hate gardening and weeding so much and killing the weeds.

Some daisies that Vickie got for Mother's Day. Also my favorite flower because they are so friendly!

So we invited some friends over from our old ward in the Terrace. They had just gotten the game Quelf and hadn't played it yet. So we told them to bring it over and we'd have a grand old time. We'd played that game with our family before and had a pretty good time. We decided Quelf is a combination of Cranium and Curses.

One of my challenges was drinking a glass of water from the opposite side than usual. So that was fun!

No. I don't look possessed or anything. Enjoy that...

In other news:
I just started the 5th book of The Work and the Glory series today. I've been blowing through them super fast. Sadly, I've been going so fast because I'll stay up WAY too late because I don't want to put the book down. And I have another book I need to finish before our trip to IN. I'm going to be a reading fool.
Also, we are all registered for school in the fall. Steve is pretty pleased with the classes he was able to get and the times. There's one class I'd like to switch to online, but it's already full. So we'll just hope someone drops it before school starts.
My training for my job is going well. It often frustrates me beyond belief, but I'm getting close to the end. I just need to keep working hard and push through the last few lessons.
Also! WE ARE SO EXCITED TO COME VISIT OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS IN INDIANA SOON!!!!! I'm freaking out a little, can you tell?!?! I believe the countdown is 4 and 1/3 weeks. Maybe I should put a coutdown on my blog? Why yes, I think I shall. :)

Word to your mother!

We just want to give a good shout out to all the mothers in our lives! We had such a great mother's day in our ward, and I've really enjoyed reflecting on all the things my mother has done for me. And all the things that my mom-in-law has done for me since my mom is far away.

We love you!

Blueberry Muffins!

Not a lot of super exciting things are happening lately.
School is out, and we both did really well this semester! We've decided that this will be our last summer break. So starting in the fall semester, we're just going to go for it and plunge forward so we can finish as quick as possible!

So far for our summer break, we've been sleeping in and just relaxing. We've decided we need to not make sleeping in a habit, and we're trying to find things to do. Not super succesful with that yet. ha!

So, here is a picture of our summer so far. Sleeping in, and eating yummy blueberry muffins! Mm Mmmm!!!

We hope your summer break is warmer than it has been here so far! :)

Sweet Pictures

Here's some pictures that I've been meaning to put up for Kristin to steal.

One day, Kaydence pulled out my laundry basket and sat in it and wanted Brennan to sit in it with her. So I piled a bunch of blankets in there and put them in together. It's so cute that she just stares at Brennan all the time!

Steve's 26th birthday!

Here's the birthday boy!

Steven's birthday was recently, I keep forgetting to update about it. This was the first time we had the whole family over to see our new apartment. :)

This year we went all out and made a sweeeet spread of yummy treats for all to eat!
We were going to try chocolate covered strawberries too...but we went for the much cheaper alternative...pretzels.

Some chocolate cupcakes! And I tried my best at choclate covered pretzels. And they were gone by the end of the night, so I guess it was a success. We loved them, so we'll definitely be making those again!
This was a white confetti cake. The main reason we even made this was because it had edible images [ROBOTS] to put on the icing. It would have been really cool. But we thought stuff to make the icing came in the box. I guess we didn't read close enough that we had to buy it separate. Dang. So we saved the robot images for another day. And the confetti ended up turning the entire cake blue. I liked it.

And my personl favorite, PUPPY CHOW!!! [aka: muddy buddies] were a huge success as well. I could sit and eat this stuff all day. So I guess it's good that it got eaten. :)

These action shots show how severely we need a new camera. [We've had to tape the battery flap shut.]

Nice face on Steve's part.

There was only 8 candles [2 and 6 for 26...get it?] on the entire cake, but Steve needed 3 breaths and Dallin's help to get all the candles out...ridiculous!! What happened to those singing lungs??


And these are some cute nephews. :)

Bennett...even though he covered his face so you can't see his cuteness.

And little Brennan.

So Happy Birthday to Steven! :)

And we hope you all had a grand Easter weekend!