Sunday, August 31, 2008

Summer Fun!

Well Mark had a long summer break of a total of 2 weeks. We thought we would take advantage of the time we had. First off, we went to the Jack Johnson concert. We got there a little after 5pm and the sun was out and it was a nice summer event...as you'll see in the pictures, the concert started in the dark.

This is where our seats were. We put out two blankets and then laid out in the sun waiting. We even snuck McDonalds in for some dinner. :) Sneaky us...although not really... Mark had the bag in his hand and I accidently distracted the lady with my big bag. We laughed about it later- we figure it's a blessing for being honest about our food.


Just basking in the sun, waiting for the concert to start. It definitely was a very nice break.
Well, before Jack came on...as you can see here....Neil Halstead played. We really liked him a lot! Look his stuff up. Another band played as well...not as good though. Then Jack came on...Oh how we love his music! :)
More Jack. He had some pretty cool screens behind him with fun scenes...I think, I could only see people's backs and heads most of the time.
Oh the waves...makes us miss Hawaii Nei.
Toward the end of the concert...stopping for a quick shot. :)
This was the best part of the concert! Jack did the usual exit and return as all artists do at concerts. His last song was a special treat. One, the blue lights came on- Mark's favorite color for anyone that does not know. (Ha, Robert...even Jack agrees with Mark more!) Then he began playing our song- Better Together. It was the perfect way to end the concert.

The next event was the following weekend. We went up to SLC to visit Grandma Maxwell and made some stops first. We have been wanting to go to the zoo....so we did! :)
But first we stopped at the 'This is the place' Heritage Park...or something like that. Here we are stopping for a few poses. We used their parking lot since it's across from the zoo.
I like the idea of Mark being up there with all those faithful, amazing men.
First stop, the monkeys! There was a brand new baby monkey that you can see hanging on the mom (she's on the right). The baby is all white.
Then the camels.
How Mark measures up to a gorilla. I think he could take them. This is how I measure up...not quite big enough.

...hands too small...
...but we do enjoy some of the same snacks- he's eating a box of Wheathins. Of course I like the actual crackers...but it was the closest I could relate.
Mr. Gorilla posing for the camera.
Mark took this picture. He was confused about how small of a ladder this is to use in an emergency. A bit ineffective.
Playing soccer with elephants.
Hanging out with the rhinos.
As we got to the black bear, she came out to play in the water.
I was checking out the lion's teeth- he brushes well.
Penguins!
A red panda chilling up in the tree.
Zebras...so pretty!
This llama was determined to eat his way out of the fence. He was really going at it, knawing on it.
I decided that if I were to be an animal, the last one I would be is a giraffe- they are so tall!
This is a view from the second story. You have to be there to be at the level of their heads. They are so tall that their newborn babies are even taller and bigger than both Mark and I- on average, they are 6 feet tall.
This was a fun sign..another one Mark had to get. Can't think of many things groser than having a Tiger mark you as his territory.
Here's the rhino sharpening his horn. He did a good job too...I wouldn't ever want him charging at me.
Us with the elephants.
This was kind of cool, an albino crocodile. He was white and had blue eyes. I think he was creepy looking.
A baby alligator...or crocodile. Whatever it is, it's much less creepy than the white, dead-looking one.


That was the zoo! :) Here are a couple shots from yesterday....
Mark's car, Lucy as he refers to her, is now a Washington resident. We decided to use my residency to get Lucy registered with Washington since it would be $78 as opposed to Arizona's $400. She looks pretty good, I think. We just wish it was XYZ...so close.
Yesterday was BYU Football's opening day- woohoo! We dressed accordingly. Go Cougs! :)

Well school starts on Tuesday so life will begin to get busier...but we will try to do some fun things to take pictures of and blog. :) Love you all!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Weekend at Grandma & Grandpa Brems

On Friday we headed down to Boulder, Utah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Brems. Robert, Emily, and James drove up to spend the weekend as well. I had heard so much about Boulder so I was very excited to finally be able to experience the home cooking, peacefulness, and fun small town living of Boulder. I also got to see the Garden of Eden- as Mark refers to their house.

Here's James...he was so fun to play with! Such a cutie! :)

James playing with his truck...check out the cute tongue...I think it means true concentration.

Robert playing with James. It was right before our fishing trip with grandpa, but my favorite part of the picture is Emily's hat in the background.
Grandpa took us to a reservoir to do some fishing, but first we went on an ATV ride. Here's James posing on one. He's ready to go.
Robert and James. James learned to love the ATVs and later in the weekend would go up to Robert and say "PEEEASE!"...asking for a ride. He even learned how to start it up just by watching Robert. He's so cute..and so smart.
After the ATV ride we went fishing with Grandpa. He brought an extra pole for Emily and I. He called me over immediately and said "I assume you know nothing about fishing so I will teach you." It made me laugh but I was so grateful. What a fun opportunity! He taught me how to worm the line, cast, hold the pole, and reel in the fish.
Here's my first fish! :) And it took less than a minute to catch, which I was very grateful for.
Mark decided to do some fishing while Grandpa was helping Emily. He caught a couple but they would escape before he reeled them in...
Emily's fish. She claims hers was the biggest...we'll let her continue to think that. :) My favorite part of this picture though is grandpa. I love his laugh!!! He would just start laughing...more like giggling...every once in a while. I loved it. He also had some fun little inserts to say occasionally that always made me laugh. He's a cutie.
Grandpa helping Mark cut the line from his first fish.
Mark's first caught and reeled in fish!
Me trying to cast. Emily says I look more like a ballet dancer...whatever, the line got in the water. :)
Robert's fish.
Mark's next fish.
The boys.
Grandpa had already caught four fish when we arrived and as we were getting things packed up decided to go for another. I swear he knows the place so well that he puts his line in and in no time he has another fish. It was a lot of fun to fish with him!
Scenic picture of Grandma and Grandpa's backyard at night.
Well, Mark and I brought some sparklers for James to play with. It was his first time...this is the before shot....
Robert had just lit the first one...this was James' reaction. Not too sure what to think...
"Ooh, maybe it's not so bad." He got into a little more...
The three boys and their sparklers. It was fun to see James playing with it. Emily was sure to write his name and some other words with him- a must with sparklers! :)
Mark and his favorite little buddy!
We were trying to get a picture of James smiling. Emily taught him to raise his hands and say "cheese." So here he is saying it with so much enthusiasm..."cheese!!" I should have been video taping..it was so cute!
Before we left on Monday we stopped to take some fun family shots.
These are all taken by grandma and grandpa's stream running through their yard. It was so beautiful and peaceful there!
So when we were sitting down and getting situated for the picture, grandma leaned back a little and realized grandpa was right there. She was resting on his shoulder...she snuggled in a bit and said..."ooh, this is very nice!" It was so cute. They truly love each other very much and show it in all their actions. I hope Mark and I can be like them when we're their age...all energetic and still madly in love.
A look up at the property from the side of the stream. Thanks, Emily for the picture. It's so beautiful and I know we will cherish our memories from this weekend for a long time!
Mark went off and took some scenic pictures as well...the stream.

The boys.
The girls.
The rest of these pictures are pretty much for Mark's bragging rights...he got some pretty cool pictures of the hummingbirds outside of grandma and grandpa's house. We would eat breakfast at a table just below this feeder and if you sat in the seats closest you could hear the sound of the hummingbirds' wings. It was so fun...there were swarms that would come to eat out of the feeder...they were so cute.



Well after the pictures and fun, Emily, Robert, and James headed back to Phoenix. Since Mark hadn't been feeling well we decided to stay another little while so he could take a quick nap before we drove back. So we headed in house. Grandma went out to water some plants and do some gardening. Then grandpa....well I think we pooped him out...we found him in the same spot we'd all left from, taking a little nap himself.
This was kind of neat. When we were heading down fishing we drove by this house and grandpa told us the story of their rock wall- Repentance Fence. Every time one of their boys got in trouble (I think I remember that there were a few boys in the family) they would have to go out and get so many stones- depending on what they had done. The fence went all the way down to the house...it was pretty intense. But I thought it was kind of a fun story.
Here's another view of the fence...a bit harder to see but you can see that it really did go on a ways...this was only the beginning of it...about a third. The story reminded me of my dad's story of having to pick out the stick you were going to be hit with.
This was a little building we passed in one of the small towns on our way back home. I just thought it was pretty fun.
Some scenic shots...I was getting bored in the passenger seat and we passed some really pretty areas and cool rock formations.
So that was our fun weekend in Boulder. We had a great time and look forward to future family trips like this one!!! :)