Picture Perfect Life...okay maybe not...But its a Dang Good Life

The past few weeks have been full of activities, holidays, parties, family events, summer lazy days (not many of those but a few), busy work filled days, etc. Instead of writing all about everything I decided to just upload a few pictures from all of these things and make little comments along the way instead of writing a novel about what we've been up to. So be prepared for a lot of pictures ahead... Here we go:

Sunday evening puzzle and ice cream after Sunday Family Dinner. 

We had my baby shower on the 20th and we had a lot of fun. Thanks for all of you who were able to make it and come support us in that. This was the wreath we had on the front door. I thought it turned out cute. If you can't see what the banner says on the bear it says Keatons name. 

Just some random decor at the shower (included is baby pictures of Derek and I all around the house)

The yummy food spread that we had. It was all sooo good. 

Some of my great friends/family that were able to come to the shower.

Some of the guesses of when/weight/height of Keaton when he comes. I hope some of these guess are off... but I would accept many of them. :)

More snap shots of some of the people at the shower

This was one of the only pictures I got of anyone alone with at the shower. It was so good to see so many friends and family that I haven't seen in a long time. I have been so blessed to have such great people in my life. 

I got so many nice gifts that were great! Thank you everyone!

We have had some crazy crazy rain here in Cedar City lately. This is after a big storm. All the streets were flooded. It was breaking records of rain at over 2 inches in just an hour. I love thunder/lightening/rain storms when they happen here in Cedar. :) They are so fun to watch.

Derek went yesterday on the Subway hike in Zion for the 2nd time this month. I think he is done hiking it for a bit. It gets a bit wearing when you do it more than once in a month. He had a lot of fun both times once with friends and once with family. Here are a few pictures from that hike. 

Because of all the rain here in Southern Utah the two days before Derek and the guys went to do the hike there were some flash floods in the canyon. They were totally fine and safe when they went yesterday but there was a lot of water that was there that wasn't there 3 weeks before. They had a lot of fun on the hike. 

Crafting time! Amanda and I are both expecting our babies in just over a month (crazy!) so we thought we would get crafty and make a few carseat covers for our babies coming. We had a lot of fun while doing it. :)

This is one of the ones I made for Keaton it has a bit lighter material for the warmer months...

And this one is a bit warmer with minky on the inside for colder months. Minky is one of the most frustrating materials to sew on and I'm not sure I want to do it ever again. But I did think they both turned out great. 

We started out the 24th of July by waking up early and going to my parents ward's breakfast. It was delicious and then we headed to the parade. Right before the parade started they kicked off the main street mile that most of my family ran. It was fun to watch all my nieces and nephews run it and they all had a lot of fun. Since I can't run that great right now at this point I was the picture gal.

After a LONG 24th of July parade (and it was very very hot and long) we headed over to the park to see what games were going on there. Dave was in front of a few of the kids races that were going on...here he is with his megaphone making sure everything is going smoothly.

As soon as we got home from a LONG AND HOT morning I just crashed when we got home. Derek took this picture of me all tuckered out after a long morning. After a good nap (which I've been needing a lot lately in this last trimester of pregnancy) we had the rest of the day to go to dinner with my parents and do some things around the house.

Deek got a new remote for his camera and he was practicing taking pictures with it as shown above in this picture. Silly guy. I thought this picture was funny. It looks like he is going to set off something very important that could maybe put the world in some serious danger. I just had to add this picture...

On the 25th of July started our 3 day reunion up the mountain at Deer Haven. We had a lot of fun. We didn't actually camp out this year because of me being really pregnant and all I needed a soft warm bed with my big large body pillow. But we drove up each morning early and home late each night. We had a lot of fun with family and extended family. Here are a few pictures from that. 

The above three pictures is pictures of the Candy Cannon that they put off several times a day. The kids loved it...and actually so did the adults. They stuff a bunch of candy/toys/etc. down the cannon and shot it off. And it went really high. All the kids caught the candy and it was a lot of fun.

Cute family that we got to spend the weekend with. 

On Sunday we were down in St George celebrating my niece/nephew birthday. We had a big dinner with a Ice Cream Sunday Bar and cupcakes. It was fun to be down there with everyone.

Other than all those many things listed above we have also been organizing and cleaning our house trying to get ready for this baby to come (less than 6 weeks now!) and Derek has been busy mowing lawns and keeping very very busy at work. In our spare time we also have been hanging out with friends and trying to do some quality bonding time with us as well on dates, etc. Until next time...

4th of July and Nesting Continued...

For the Fourth of July we spent the afternoon and evening with my family having a family BBQ with lots of yummy food and a few fireworks. Mark and Krista were still on their cruise this day so we had all their girls at my parents house as we celebrated the fourth. Joe and Beth's family came up as well and we had a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures from the celebrations:

 Derek making homemade root-beer... yummy!

 Dad doing the grilling

 Just some snapshots

And the day ended with lots and lots and lots and lots of rain and thunderstorms and lightnings. This picture doesn't do it justice for how much it rained that night. 

As for those of you who haven't seen the pictures from the continuation of my nesting in preparing for little Keaton to come here are some pictures of what our Nursery is looking like: 

We are so excited for Keaton to come. Only about 7 more weeks! It is coming so fast...can't believe it!

Derek is working hard and long hours at work and then comes home to work on more projects that he has going on the side. He only has about a month of summer left and then on into his last semester ever! Woohoo! Life is moving fast and we are having fun and staying busy. Until next time. :)

Birthday Boy and Missing Man

On June 20th we celebrated Dereks 25th birthday! It was a pretty typical day: he went to work, he mowed a lawn, and then after that it was time to party. :) We went to dinner with his parents and my parents at Applebees. We had a lot of fun visiting and the food was delicious. After dinner with the parents Derek and I came home and we had a bunch of friends over for cake and ice cream. It was fun to get together with anyone. Here Derek is with his birthday cake that I made him...(nothing fancy). But he sure does look cute.

I know there is a picture of him when he is little when he turned 8 holding his 8 birthday cake. I gotta get a copy and put them side by side...so cute. He got a lot of generous gifts from everyone and he had a great day. 

Two days later was a day I will probably never forget. My dad went out hiking with the scouts in his ward and a few of the young men leaders. They did a pretty demanding hike with several repels (pretty big ones) and hiking in between. After the last repel my dad wanted to get ahead a little bit and he needed to use the bathroom so he told one of the priests he was going to start and they could catch up to him. Well, my dad ended up going down the wrong path. There were two choices and he thought he heard he was supposed to go left when in reality he was supposed to go right. He was very weak from the long hike and strenuous day. He had given his lunch to someone who forgot theirs and he had also given his last water to one of the boys who was out of water. So he had a backpack with a few granola bars but that was it. He hiked quite a ways and realized he had gone the wrong way but he was too weak to back track at that point. So he figured he would keep going and it would probably eventually lead out to a place where he could get help. Well he got to a point where the only choice to go was a repel. And he couldn't do it alone. So he had no other choice but to back track now. As he was back tracking it started getting dark to the point where he couldn't see anything anymore so he just thought, "well I can't do anything now" So he found a rock and just rested for awhile knowing that he was probably going to just have to try in the morning. He was very dehydrated and had nothing with him that he could eat. It was very cold and he tried to keep warm the best he could. He tried to keep the circulation going in his legs the best he could as well. Search and rescue had been out looking for him now and they finally found him around 2 in the morning. 

That is his side of the story. On our side it was a little different.   Here at home we were worried sick. All we knew (and we only heard things every 2 or more hours from a leader that was there or dispatch unit with very spotty reception and signal) all we knew was that he had been separated from the group, they tried finding him and yelling for him, no answers, and that search and rescue were looking for him. He was missing for several hours and it was so scary. We didn't know if he had passed out of exhaustion, hurt himself, had a heart attack, etc. Even when we heard they found him we didn't know his condition or if they found him dead or alive; they wouldn't give any details. Well in those hours our family (along with the Stake President and some others from the ward and stake that had come over)  knelt down many times in prayer just putting everything we had out there to pray for my dad and those looking for him. We were planning search parties for morning, etc and it was very stressful and scary. But at the same time we were all comforted that whatever happened he was in the Lord's hands. 

We finally got the good news that he was okay and waited for him to get home. When he got home we quickly gave hugs and talked for just a minute because he needed rest and sleep and so did we. Derek and I finally got home to our apartment around 6:30 in the morning and both of us weren't doing too good. It was a lot of stress on my body and that is not good when you are pregnant. I felt really sick and tired but after sleeping it off I got up and felt fine. Derek felt a lot better after some sleep too but was still very tired. 

I have learned a lot from this experience. Its sad how sometimes it takes tragedies or experiences like this in your life to bring to realization the things that matter most and the relationships that you have in your life and how important they are to you. My family was able to unite in prayer and faith and I know prayers and miracles happen. My dad is doing great and my family has all recovered fine. Moral of the story: Never separate from your group when hiking or anything else.