our graduate of 2012...

 We had a fabulous 4 days!!!!

Candice flew in Wednesday night, finally arriving at 3 am, 

she was a tad bit late due to those amazing thunderstorms that only Dallas can produce,

(cuz everything is bigger in Texas!)

we got three hours of sleep and were up and at 'em for a 7 am hair appt.
with the famous Pollyanna,

 she worked her magic and Candice looked just as beautiful as ever!

 Caitlyn graduation ceremony started at 10 am and I thought it was a beautiful ceremony,

we are so proud of her,

 for all of her accomplishments and the trials that she overcame being the new girl in a new school for her senior year!

Did I mention how heartwarming it was to have Cj here and for all of us to be together again as a family!

It did my heart good,

and

each night I would lay in bed and just thank Heavenly Father for the overwhelming feeling of gratitude I felt that we were all under one roof again.....

(9 months is a long time to be apart)

we were grateful for our cute Breanne and Rylee who just graduated themselves the week before,

but came to show some luv'en...

and, of course,

cuter than cute grandparents!!!!

 and Caitlyn's shoes were to die for,

with Caitlyn........ it's.all.about.the.shoes!

WE HAD A GREAT DAY!

Cardall Cousins...

One thing that I've loved about moving back to Utah is family!

these past 2 weeks I've been able to get together with cousins again,

we've lunched at Cafe' Rio,

we did the Twilight movie thing last Thursday night....

and

today we celebrated the soon-to-be-arrival of Jack!

and they are just as funny as they are cute!

(thanks Chrissy for the picture)

I've loved being able to reconnect with family and friends again.

Swiss Days...

This past weekend we went to St. George to celebrate Swiss Days

with my little brother and his family....

We rode out with my dad on Friday night, which took us an extra long time trying to get out of town, we got stuck in BYU game traffic...

( Kurt came down the next morning)

St. George is beautiful,

I'm always stunned and amazed at the beauty of the white Temple with the gorgeous red rocks behind it!

Friday night right when we arrived in town the fireworks started going off,

it was a nice warm welcome for us.... Dave said he called them in for us, what a guy!

then, Saturday morning at the crack of dawn, while Caitlyn, dad, and I slept,

the rest of them ran a 5k race,

then, we watched a parade and waved to MaCall and Ella as they threw candy to us,

they were in the parade dressed as cute little swiss kids.

then, we walked around and checked out all the cute booths,

and enjoyed Dave and Kristen's t-shirt booth, it was hard to choose a Santa Clara shirt because they were all so awesome!!!

then, we watched MaCall play soccer while Dave coached,

then, everyone went swimming, (while I rested for the holidays)

then, Kristen and I went to the Relief Society broadcast at her Stake Center where we ate a light dinner and listened to the speakers and laughed at Pres. Uchtdorf, it was nice to feel the spirit again.

then, we took our kids over to see the Temple, have I mentioned how white and beautiful it is?

wow, it was fun to go over in the dark and walk under the lights of the temple and see it glow.

then, the dad's took the kids to Zero Gravity where there are trampolines everywhere, even on the walls and so they had fun running and bouncing off the walls literally, and thats all they have talked about since we left...

Kristen showed me how to download picasa and how to make collages for my pictures so I've been playing around with that, thanks Kristen.

then, on Sunday, we went to their church and watched their wards Primary Program,

Olivia played a violin trio which was so sweet, and MaCall sang with a group of boys his age, he's a handsome young lad that one, and Ella as she was singing caught Kurt's eye and waved to him. cute!

then, we ate lunch at Cafe' Rio before hitting the dusty trail, we picked up Sadie from Red Rock doggie day care where she got a good report card for being her sweet little self and we drove home....

meanwhile, the guys drove down to Las Vegas to go to the gun show but it closed early for the day, so they drove all the way back home.

It was a nice weekend, and of course it always goes by too fast, and of course, I didn't take enough pictures and even at that, I haven't downloaded them yet...

the count down has begun....

In 12 hours,

(give or take a few minutes...)

I'll get to meet my new nephew!

.

last night Lynzie said to me,

" What's his name... I want to say Louis and Clark"

no, Lynzie...

Tanner and Clark!!!

A Fun Family Fourth

So our cute little cousin Rylee came out for a visit,

(she was suppose to come to Disney with us but stayed to try out for cheerleader,

which was a good thing, cuz she made it! g-o-r-y-l-e-e!)

So, she has a air ticket and needs to use it and she decides to use it here,

we couldn't have been happier, she's a great gal and we love anyone who likes to visit us here in the Lone Star State!

So, she was so excited to wear matching Old Navy shirts, it's a family tradition that everyone use to do in our extended family but we still do it in ours cuz traditions are so fun and hard to break...

we had a fun fourth, going to the Coppell Parade, and then going swimming and then the good ole' American barbecue, which Kurt out did himself yet again!

(a day full of family tradition.)someone got a new pair of "stud muffin" sunglasses !

(whoa baby!)
some of us where adventurous at the pool....







And some of us weren't!





We all started trying to cross the lillypads......
Lynzie and cousin Arik were the only ones to be able to get acrossed
and they made it look so easy!
I got a great little video of Kurt, after a few failed tries, he finally takes a running dive and hydroplanes all the way across the lillie pads!!!
It was awesome but of course my computer won't load it!?!

it's not as easy as it looks...

okay, so I'm just as adventurous as the next girl, right...

it's been hard to sit on the sidelines and watch

(laughing all the while)

while others have fun and look stupid, so I decided to partake, I knew if I held onto the rope that maybe, hopefully, I wouldn't screw up my already screwed up knee, and so with alittle determination and alot of rope burn, yours truly did it!

Oh,

and not to mention this

totally.adorable.funloving.conpassionate.

toa42yearoldwomen.withabrokenknee little kid,

sat on the sidelines and squirted me in the face the whole time, just for some extra fun!!!

A Fun Family Fourth!