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!!! :)

July 24 - Pioneer Day - Our One Year

Well, before we start the July 24th blog...here's a fun picture from the Sunday before. Shaun was in desperate need of a hair cut so Mark ventured to help him...however Mark has only really cut Robert's hair so that is the only style he really knows how to do. So we laughed cause Shaun ended up looking like a Brems boy...but it was very handsome! Mark did a great job.

Okay...July 24th. It's a special day for us- just one year ago on July 24th was our first date. Mark took me to the Real Soccer game- they were playing Boca (Argentina team). It was lots of fun and who would have known that one year later we would be married. So much has happened in the last year for us both, but it's been a lot of fun and we are looking forward to many more fun years together!!! In the last blog Mark talked about how lucky he felt, well of course he didn't mention any of the wonderful things he does for me. On the 23rd I came home from work and had a few fun surprises for our special day. Plus I had been sick so he wanted to help cheer me up- he got some of my favorite treats from the store, a dozen roses, and sparklers. He really does do a lot to make me happy.....

Okay enough mushy stuff...here's how we spent Pioneer day....

First we decided to go to the famous SLC Aquarium. There are big ads and lots of commercials for it and we had been wanting to go. It was fun...but definitely still in the works. Below you will see about half the Aquarium....

This was a HUGE lobster...and an old one. The guy working at the Aquarium said he's 104 years old. Pretty cool...but look how bit he is- looks like he's about to eat me for lunch.

This was a typical site...just some fun scenery. The starfish is called a Chocolate Chip Starfish (sounds yummy, but I thought it just looked like it was diseased with little bumps all over) and the sea cucumber was fun looking too.

This is a decorator crab. He looked like he just had a bunch of stuff all over him. They had a big touch pool and then little tanks for touching. Since I was so sick I decided not to be spreading germs everywhere...but Mark had fun touching different fish and sting rays. They also had some fun sharks...we didn't get any good pictures of that though.

Here's Mark in one of the kids corners- I wanted a picture of him here because it had a clown fish and a really fun turtle. So cute!

This was a fake reef they had for little kids to crawl in. I just barely fit and while Mark was taking a picture a little boy was next to me, tapping my side and asking what I was doing in there. He thought I should go play in the little cave area with them. It was cute.

After the Aquarium we went to a fish store and looked at some fish and some Aquariums- we saw just as much at the store as we did at the actual Aquarium...but it was still very fun.

On our way back down to Provo we stopped off in Lehi at the cemetery where a lot of Brems have been buried. It was really fun to see them all and hear some of the stories Mark could remember about his ancestors.

Mark next to his great grandparents' headstone. I remember Frances Brems, but can't remember his great grandmother's name. (oops, sorry)

This was another really old one we found. It was pretty neat because you could see the stones were all hand carved.

Mark on a bench next to a few of the Brems' headstones. It was in memory of one of the children who had died.
The headstones and bench.

After the cemetery we headed home and I made a special dinner for Mark...or at least I attempted to do so. I had never even heard of Yorkshire Pudding but he always talked about it so I thought I would try the famous recipe his grandma gave me. They didn't turn out great...but they weren't too bad.
Oh, first here's me in the kitchen. Mark kept trying to get pictures and I would turn my back...I thought I'd add this picture so he doesn't decide to add any of the other ones. :)

Here's the table set for our dinner. To go along with the Yorkshire Pudding, I made a roast with some veggies and of course we had some gravy as well. It was pretty tasty. Also, notice the roses- they were so pretty!

Well, that was our Pioneer Day. Not the traditional Utah way of celebrating, but we had a lot of fun and definitely enjoyed the day off! :)

Being Married...

Well, I just got home from work and I have some time to kill before Jodie gets home from work herself, so I wanted to post a few pictures. Firstly, I wanted to say that being married is awesome because I always have my best friend around nearby. Secondly, I personally feel that I have the best wife in the whole wide world : ) Here's pictures of two things that Jodie did for me recently that I really appreciated.

First, she made me an apple pie. It was really good and here's a picture of the chef.

And yes, those are hearts cut into the crust, here's a better view.

The second one, this was waiting for me when I got home from work today...


These are two reasons why I think that she's the best wife in the whole wide world.