LDS History Museum

One of the items on our Summer To-Do list was to visit the LDS History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City. A few weeks ago we loaded up the car and headed to downtown. First stop, the beautiful, inspiring temple. I truly can't walk by the temple without taking a picture of it. Then, we were off to the museum. If you are ever in the downtown area, with or without kids, the History museum is a fun place to visit and I highly recommend it!! We head upstairs first where the children's portion is. The first thing my boys see are costumes and large screen of dance instruction.





The boys pulled a handcart filled with supplies. Gavin noticed an extremely old violin.



Brigham will be starting the cello at the end of summer and he is thrilled to do so. He found this extremely old cello and was over the moon excited about it!



Interactive computers, tortilla toss, puppets, crafts, fishing, Gold Plates replica and much, much more!!

Technology is AMAZING!!!

Technology...is Amazing!!!

We flew Will and Jackson to Santa Barbara for a week right when summer started so that they not only would have some one-on-one time with Nana and Papa, but also participate in a summer camp.
Will chose stand-up paddle boarding. One of the afternoons, while at camp, my mom was taking pictures of Will and FaceTimed me. My mom was walking on the beach, and later on the pier, capturing some great shots of Will and FaceTiming us. It was so great to be able to see Will instantly and watch him paddle board live. I was able to screen capture a couple of moments. Incredible. Simply incredible!

Suzuki Violin Camp

Earlier this summer Gavin attend the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute Violin Camp...and it was worth every penny. 50,000 pennies to be exact. There were over 500 students and several fantastic teachers that flew in from all around the world to help teach. The Suzuki Institute has camps all over the country, and world, but the one here in Salt Lake City is by far the largest in attendance. The camp was a week long and was held at Juan Diego High School here in Draper, UT. It was 6 days long from 9 in the morning to the evening. Sometimes 6pm, other times it went until 7pm. There was an hour break for lunch and several different classes throughout the day. On Saturday, was the big performance with over 500 students of violins, violas and cellos who all played a song they learned at camp. It sounded magical, so powerful it brought tears to my eyes.

The program ended with the younger students in book 1 all playing together on the stage. They sounded terrific.
Gavin (and I, for that matter) learned so much! Hours and hours of great information jammed into our heads. I took tons of notes that we are still reviewing. I would recommend this camp to all levels and ages that play the violin, viola or cello! I can't wait for next year!!

The Beach

Every time we visit Nana in California a stop at the beach is a MUST!! Tyler's favorite is skin boarding and boogy boarding. The younger boys are getting are getting into boogy boarding as well, which of course is AWESOME!!!

We sure LOVE Santa Barbara!!!

Shredded Chicken Tacos and Spanish Rice...don't mind if I do!!

Scott and I invited Brynnlee and Zak over Sunday night for dinner, games and dessert. It was fun, as always, with these two! I wanted to make something new, but didn't want to use the oven (it's so dang hot out there!) So, I tried a new recipe, two actually! Cute Brynn tried a new dessert recipe as well, and all 3 turned out delicious!!

I found the Shredded Chicken Taco recipe in my favorite cookbook,
"365 Days of Slow-Cooking".

I used two different recipes in one for the chicken tacos. They turned out really good!! (pg. 66 and pg. 70)

 I placed 2 chicken breasts into the crockpot with 1 T chili powder, 3 garlic gloves, minced, 1 tsp. oregano, 1 T oil, 1 8-oz can of tomato sauce, 1 tsp. brown sugar, 1/2 onion chopped for 2 hours on high. I also added lime juice form a large lime, salt and pepper. I shredded the breasts with forks until it was completely shredded. I then turned my crock pot onto low. (total cook time was 3 hours on high and then a short amount of time on low while I was preparing the salsa.)

I heated some corn tortillas and added the meat with cheese and fresh salsa I whipped up. Delicious!

 I have a couple of different Spanish Rice recipes but I wanted to try something new, and I'm glad I did. I liked this one better than the other two!

2 C. rice, 3/4 C. oil, 1/2 C. tomato sauce ( I used 1 can of RoTel Mexican Tomatoes instead and it brought more heat...Perfect!), 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 onion chopped, 1 tsp. garlic powder (I chopped up 2 cloves instead, I always like fresh!), 3 C. water , 1 bouillon cube, and a dash of cumin. 

Heat oil in the pan and add rice until golden brown. In a small bowl, add water and bouillon cube and place in microwave for 2 minutes. When done, add water mixture to rice. Also add tomato sauce, salt, garlic, onion and cumin. Cover. Simmer 45 minutes-1 hour.

We also put the rice into the tacos and that was yummy too!! 

1 year photo shoot

I know everyone always says this about their own kids, and it's always true, but I have the cutest little guy!! Preston is such a cutie, but his blossoming personality makes him even more cute. Seriously! All my boys have been good babies...thank goodness. And Preston is no exception!

He sleeps well, plays well, is happy and smiley all the time and is so much fun. I lay Preston down for a nap and he'll sleep 3-4 hours. Sometimes, I have to wake him up because he's sleeping too long! He lays right down and falls asleep by himself. At night, he'll sleep 10-12 hours straight! 

Preston's hair is long and stringy like Tyler's and Brigham's was. And it so blonde! My adorable, California surfer boy! He has 6 teeth and counting. He's a super fast crawler, stands whenever he can and is taking a few steps here and there.

Preston loves playing with his brothers. He's always super excited to see them. He claps, tries to snap his fingers, eats like there is no other meal coming, tryies to walk around, blows kisses, points his finger when I ask him how old he is and loves playing peek-a-boo. 

The picture above is of him clapping.



Blowing kisses...

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESTON!!! You have been such a wonderful addition to our family! I am honored and so blessed to have you in my life. To raise you and to love you. Thank you for the wonderful space you have filled in my life and in  my heart. You are such a special little soul!

I love you always!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESTON!!!!

Oh my goodness, my baby turned ONE years old!! While we were in Santa Barbara we celebrated Preston's 1st birthday. I made a small cake for him and cupcakes for everyone else. While we were singing, Preston was looking at us, like we were crazy! We FaceTime-d Scott, Will and Jackson (because they were in Salt Lake at the time).
Preston was fascinated with the cake! Once he grabbed at it, there was no going back. He dug those cute petite fingers into the moist cake and fisted it into his mouth. He started gnawing on the plate after the cake was gone. He was so cute!

He would suck it off his fingers and make cute little noises while doing that.  It was a great day! We also FaceTime-d Grandma and Grandpa so they could watch little Preston chow on his birthday cake.

           HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESTON!!!

4th of July Festivities

For the 4th of July we headed to Park City and met up with several other families from Santa Barbara. This is the second year that we've done this, and it is quickly becoming our new tradition for the 4th of July.
We meet at a great park tucked back in the area just east of Park City. It's several degrees cooler there and was so beautiful. There is a huge field, play ground, skate park, tennis courts, basketball courts, picnic area and bike trail. We bring skateboards, bikes, scooters, basketballs, football, Frisbees and lots of food. After we eat lunch, we play Crazy Ball, which is like kickball on steroids. It is the most fun game (with a large group of people). You can either kick or bat the ball, which is a volleyball. First base is super close, only 10 feet away. But second base is far, far, far off in center field. You can have any amount of people on the base at the same time, but once you leave you can't come back. You get a ton of people on first or second base and then a big hitter comes and gets all the players home. You can either catch the ball for an out, touch the base or tag someone.

 There is second base, waaaaaaay out there!!

After the BBQ, we went to Midway and met up at my friend's house. The kids went swimming and the adults had fun catching up. After swimming, we ordered pizza and headed into town. We found this cute area with a gazebo and bleachers and decided it was the perfect place for fireworks. The boys had fun taking turns lighting them off. Several other families were around us and we were all setting them off. It was awesome!