August 2012

We had a great visit with David's family at the beginning of the month.

Dad Choules had bought these cute traditional outfits for Josh and Shannan on a business trip to Asia.  Josh and Shannan were great little buddies and played really well together!

Mom, Julie, and I took the kids to the Phoenix Zoo.

It was a really hot day, and we spent most of our time at the zoo's wonderful splash pad.  Josh stood under this little waterfall for the longest time!  

We had dinner one night at Organ Stop Pizza.  It's a fun restaurant with this massive Wurlitzer theatre organ; the organist takes requests and plays really amazing arrangements off the cuff!

Josh was more interested in his new number flash cards than he was in eating pizza or listening to the organ!  :)

Being in my first trimester of pregnancy, I was really struggling with the Arizona heat in August.  The high temperature was in the mid- to upper-110s!  Since I was feeling so bad, we told David's family our exciting news a bit earlier than we planned.  After that, we planned activities more close to home.  Josh and Shannan had a great time making play dough together.

Josh was so cute in this little apron.

Josh, Shannan, and Julie cutting out shapes.

We had a fun pool party and barbecue with all of David's family plus Uncle Bill's family.  Josh, Shannan, and Shawn were a cute bunch to watch play together!

Before David, Josh, and I left to hit the road back to Philadelphia, we celebrated Josh's 2nd birthday!  

Josh loves this book Mom and Dad Choules gave him--"The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse" by Eric Carle. 

David with his siblings before we left.

David's family.

The little cousins bid each other a fond farewell.  It was so fun getting to spend time with David's family!

Our trek back to Philadelphia went pretty smoothly.  Day 1 started in Gilbert, AZ.

Josh is such a good traveler!  We are so grateful for his easygoing personality!

We made it to Albuquerque, NM that night and spent the night at Matt and Dionne's home.  It's so fun to play with all of their kids!

The next day we drove from Albuquerque to Tulsa, OK on Day 2.  Josh loved playing in the pool with David at the hotel.

Day 3 we split a milkshake at lunchtime in Springfield, MO.  We were making great progress!

We stopped for dinner in Indianapolis and ended the day in Vandalia, Ohio.

Day 4--our last day on the road home--we drove across Ohio and Pennsylvania.  The Pennsylvania countryside is gorgeous, but we were so anxious to get home to Philadelphia.  I could hardly stand being in the car and had horrible nausea; we had to pull over for me to be sick many times.  I just wanted to get home!!

I was so happy to see the beautiful Philadelphia skyline and darling Boathouse Row--we were home!!

Josh was so happy to get back to all of his wonderful museums.  Here he is working on a car at the Please Touch Museum.

Counting swords at the Museum of Art.

Making faces by the Museum of Art. :)

We had a fabulous time spending our summer with our families in the West.   We also were grateful to get back to our own home and routine in Philadelphia!

July In Utah--Part III

After Aspen Grove, our time in Utah was quickly drawing to a close.  We did our best to enjoy the remainder of our days at my parent's home.

Josh enjoyed a chocolatey treat made by his Grandma!

My lifelong best friends and I got together to celebrate our 30th birthdays together!  I somehow hit the jackpot when it comes to friends and was lucky to literally grow up with this group.  I've known Jolie since 2nd grade, Jessica since 3rd grade, Robbie and Jacob since 4th grade, Ben since 7th grade, and Jenn since 10th grade.  We started our celebrations with a hike to the waterfall up Adam's Canyon.

Afterward we had a delicious brunch at Jacob's parent's beautiful home.

There was lots of laughter as we reminisced about the many crazy and fun times we've shared together!

We are a classy bunch, eh?  But seriously, this is a high-quality bunch.  Everyone has succeeded fabulously at life and are kind, faithful, and fun as heck too!  We spent more time together swimming at Robbie's parent's home with our kiddos and going to the park with kids in tow.

We also went out for a nice adults-only dinner with a few more lifelong friends!

I love knowing that I will always be friends with these good people.  It has never mattered how much time has passed since we last were together, we just pick right up where we left off!

Mom and Dad took Emily, me, and our boys to the George S. Eccles Dinosaur Park in Ogden.  We had a great visit.

Another day, we rode the Front Runner to SLC.  Though my pictures fail to capture their enthusiasm, Josh and Carter loved riding on the commuter rail!

I thought it was fun too!  We got lunch in SLC at City Creek and walked around the mall a bit before taking the Front Runner back home.  It was a fun little adventure!

David and I went out for a nice date to Farmington Station where we watched the water fountain for a bit and then had some great pizza from Settebello's.

When we got home from our date we thought it would be fun to have me take a pregnancy test since we were hoping to get pregnant with our second child.  It was so exciting when the test popped up with YES!  We were thrilled!

Josh enjoying drawing with sidewalk chalk and playing with the bubble machine!

On Pioneer Day, we took a little hike on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Layton.  The view was beautiful.

Josh trying to keep up with his Grandpa on the trail.

Our family at the point where we turned around on our hike.

We then decided spur-of-the-moment to drive out to Antelope Island since David had never been there before.  It was a gorgeous evening and we spotted tons of bison.

On our way home from Antelope Island we passed by The Victorian where David and I had our wedding reception.  I love this darling home!  

Before we knew it our summer at my parent's home was over.  We packed up our car and said see you later to my parents and Emily, Jay, Carter, and Tyler.  It had been so much fun to have that much time together!   Josh was, once again, an amazing little traveller as we drove to Arizona to spend time with David's family.

I love the red rock formations in Southern Utah and Arizona.

Thanks to Josh's awesome attitude and taking a good nap on the road, we made it to David's parent's home in one long day!

July in Utah--Part II Aspen Grove

We spent a week in Aspen Grove with my family from Saturday July 7th-Friday July 13th.  Everybody had a blast at Aspen Grove, it was such a beautiful and fun place to all be together at!

Before it was time to check in at Aspen Grove, David and I showed Josh some of the sites in Provo.  The grounds at the Provo temple had been updated and improved a lot.  It looked great.

View looking from the temple.   

We took Josh around BYU's campus and had fun reminiscing about our favorite professors and classes we took while we were students here.  It was also fun to talk about our courtship and where significant events from our relationship took place.

Sunday we had family pictures taken.

Josh loved all of the props the photographer had to style the shoot with! :)

Looking for wildlife on the mountain with Daddy. ❤

David, Jay, and Charles participated in the 3-on-3 basketball tourney.  They were eliminated the first round, but it was fun watching them play their one game! ;)

David had to leave Aspen Grove during the day to go down to Provo for his internship.  Aspen Grove had a wonderful kids camp program with a different groups for each age.  Josh loved going to his Rompers classes and I loved having time to myself in the mornings to enjoy the facilities available at Aspen Grove.  Doing the High Ropes course was probably the highlight of the week for me!  It was really fun!

This was exciting!  I wish David had been around to watch me do it.

Members of my family trying their luck at the fishing pond.

Em and Jay look like they know what they are doing with those rifles! :)

It was such a beautiful place to be!

My Dad on the High Ropes course.  It was fun to watch each other do this and cheer each other on!

Josh and Carter LOVED throwing rocks in the little stream that ran through the camp.

One very dirty little boy!

David on the High Ropes course.

David repelling off the High Ropes Course.

Playing a little mini golf.

A friendly round of badminton.

One of the highlights of the week was the Frontier Night where you could try your hand at archery, tomahawk throwing, and pioneer games.

Jay managed to throw an ax into the log!  Tough guy!

Josh and Carter made friends with this bear.

I LOVE this picture of Josh soaking up the attention from David and sweet Spencer.  The best part of the week was just getting to enjoy being with family and having so much fun together.

The views at this camp were so fabulous.  You can see Spencer and Josh loving their time together in the lower right corner of the picture.

We drove to Cascade Springs to go on a little family walk.  

Josh and David at Cascade Springs.

Another beautiful view.

You could get BYU creamery ice cream and mint brownies at Aspen Grove.  So yummy!

Josh loved reading the letters and numbers on the license plates.  We could spend a long time in the parking lot just letting Josh read the letters and numbers to his heart's content!  :)

Each of our families had our own little cabin to stay in.  David, Josh, and I were in this rustic A-Frame cabin.  It was really cozy and we loved having our own space to be together as a family, though the mattress was definitely ready to be upgraded!

David proposed to me at Stewart Falls back in April 2007.  The last day of the camp at Aspen Grove we took Josh on a hike to show him where the idea of our family became official!

We recreated the proposal scene.  Josh didn't seem to understand the significance of it at all! :)

I carried Josh the whole hike in this sling Jenn gave me.  It had been such a wonderful week at Aspen Grove, I was sorry to see it end!

I think everybody in my family said they would love to find a way to come back to Aspen Grove together again in the future.  We will have to make it happen!