If you're here, welcome! We blog for us as our journal, but we are glad to share out lives with you.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Family at Home

We were lucky enough last month to have our good friend Ali Middleton do family pictures for us. One of her passions is to have family photos at your own home so she can show the genuine interactions of your family in a comfortable environment. I'd rave about what a wonderful photographer she is, but honestly I think these pictures speak for themselves. You can check out her website at http://www.alimiddletonphoto.com/

I could only post a few of the pictures, but these are treasures to me. I love the way Shantel looks at both the kids and I with so much intense love and with such adoring eyes. I love Lydia's free spirit and adventurous attitude. I love Austin's calm presence and how he follows Lydia everywhere. My favorite part of the whole shoot was making muffins with the kids. I love seeing Lydia cook in the kitchen with Shantel and I love when she wants to help me as well. Austin has inherited this from his sister and now wants to help make dinner, or treats or anything. Without further ado....our family at home. 



















Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The Summer Range

This last weekend we were able to go up to the "Summer Range." Grandpa Great (Ramon Walker) inherited a 50% interest in the property that is now the summer range. Scott wanted to get all of his kids together for a trip up to the summer range. Spending time there we could tell what a special and important thing it is for him. Ramon's dad is the one who actually bought the property years ago. Since Ramon inherited it, he has envisioned his children and grandchildren enjoying such a beautiful property. It was definitely very special for Scott to see his children and grandchildren having a great time. 

Austin hanging out and eating lunch. 


Shantel and I got a change to take the 4-wheeler and go for a ride. We found this great spot by the river to sit and relax. Isn't Shantel so beautiful. It was really nice to just sit and chat (Shantel's family was nice to watch Lydia and Austin).




Lydia was so excited to go hiking and explore the area. One of the favorite things she found was this great log for balancing.




Everyone was excited for a change to get some shotgun shooting in and had a great time with target practice. 


We finished by celebrating Scott and Jenna's birthdays. It happened to perfectly correspond with a intense downpour of rain. It was actually perfect weather all day and then when it did start raining it really came down. We all huddled under the tent. This was honestly Shantel's favorite part of the whole day. She loved the laughing and the close quarters. Scott and Jenna opened presents and we all stayed mostly dry.


We are grateful to Ramon and Scott for sharing such a great place with our family and we had such a great time with Jenna and Kevin, Melissa and Blake and Matthew and Brooklyn.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Seven Years.

June 5th is probably my favorite day of the whole year. Not necessarily my favorite holiday, activity wise. But, the actual day itself brings such light and happiness to my heart and I just love it. 

The day that we get to celebrate our respective "me"-s turning into a forever US. 


David, honestly at this point - I can't even imagine my life without you in it. You're so much a part of me that I'm surprised you haven't been by my side through every single year of my life. (Although, I'm rather glad you missed my more awkward years.) This life that we have together, I wouldn't change it for the world. You're everything I've ever wanted and everything I never knew I needed. 
Thanks for stubbornly picking me those 8ish years ago even though I stubbornly made you work for every inch... because this thing we've got going? It's really working for me. 
Photo Credit: Ali Middleton Photography
(These photos perfectly capture my feelings about this man that I love.) 

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For our anniversary celebration David completely took the lead and planned the best anniversary I could have asked for. He arranged for us to drop our kids off Friday morning at his parents house and then we headed to Lagoon! 
We got to the park before it opened and were excited for the day! Our nephew Josh had been at Lagoon just the week before and he'd given us the inside scoop about the new roller coaster, Cannibal. Because we knew where to go, as soon as they let us in the gate we walked right over to the staging area for the line and were the first ones there. When the security guards walked the whole group over to the ride, we fell to the middle of the pack - but we were still able to ride the coaster in the first few groups! Josh said that the line got really, really long (like hours long) - and it was pretty short still so we rode it four time in the first hour. It was a blast! We spent the next couple of hours riding the coasters and eating the lunch we had packed, then we headed in to Lagoon-a-beach. Neither of us had ever been before but it was easily our favorite part of the day. We rented tubes and enjoyed the lazy river, and went on a bunch of water-slides. It was the perfect temperature for being in the water. When it started cooling back down, we changed and went back into the park for dinner and rides until the park closed at eleven. A full day, and it was perfect. We left our phones in the car - so this picture of us at the front gate before David ran his phone and the sunscreen back to the car is all we have of the day. There were a few times I regretted not having a camera to take pictures - but it was SO nice to just be together and not be worried about anything on our phone. So in that regard, I'm definitely glad we left our cameras/phones in the car. 

We had talked about maybe wanting to do something else fun (breakfast at a restaurant), but we decided that really- what we wanted to do more than anything else, was have a day when we could just sleep in and binge watch a TV show on Netflix. That's just something that isn't possible when you have kids, and so we took advantage of the time that we had while David's parents were babysitting for us. We slept in until ten (it's been years and years and years since that happened) and ate popcorn/snacks while watching The Flash all day long... until it was time to go pick up our kids. We loved it. Mostly it was just so nice to be together - to get to do something out of the ordinary - and to be able to celebrate this life that we have together. 

David, I love you. Seven years just isn't enough for me. (Although, I do feel like at seven years we've hit real-adult status.) Let's go for another 70 before we head into eternity, okay? 

You're my favorite. Happy Anniversary.