We had a family photo taken the other day, while Andy's family was in town.

Brit and I went to my mission (Guadalajara, Mexico) buddies wedding reception. I was happy to see good ol Burt tie the knot. His wife also went to a Spanish speaking mission to Argentina. Congrats guys!



They had come over to our house to watch a world cup game a fdew weeks back and expressed their desire to have a taco stand at their reception. Some other friends that were there told where to go and they made it happen. Great idea guys!



I took down 8 of these puppies. Soooooo good! And very authentic to what we ate during the mission.

Brit went to Carley's shower and had a good time with her friends.

We had a BBQ at our house a few weeks back and had a blast playing volleyball.

Their new addition Parker.

T.J. just chillin.

Brit, Brickelle and Benson getting down and dirty on the tube.

Cole assuring Taysons safety.

Ky on the wakeboard.

Brit and I were also able to go La Caille for dinner a few weekends ago.

Beautiful Brittany

Rack of New Zealand Lamb

"The wall"

We definitely wouldn't have been able to go if it wasn't for our great friend Brandi from our old singes ward that gave us a gift certificate. Thanks Brandi

Summer Evening Lightning Storm Photographs

The last few nights there have been off and on lightning/thunder storms around the Salt lake Valley. Tonight was no different so I grabbed my DSLR, set the mode to "S" which I believe means Shutter priority, adjusted the time for the shutter to stay open to about 1 sec and jumped on the roof. It took a long time to snap even one photo but here is what I got after about 30 mins on the roof and minutes on end of waiting patiently with my finger on the trigger.

Throttle 215

So there is this jump at a track that I have been wanting to for a while now. It's been my nemesis I guess you could say. Well, I went today and conquered it! I talked a guy there that was doing it and I followed him a time or two just get the speed down. I had a great time and was happy to put my mind to something and accomplish it.

Our Trip To Oregon

Portland/Troutdale was wonderful. I had never been there before, but have always heard how pretty it is. I was excited to go. We left on Thursday morning and we were pretty excited to see Andy, Rachel and the boys. I love how green it is there. The scenery is amazing. We first stopped at their house. The boys were pretty excited when we got there, they peeked out of the blinds upstairs then came out with big smiles on their faces. They are so cute. I was excited to meet their new addition little Parker Dee. He is so cute and I'm so sad that I didn't get any pictures of him. He is a great baby. Then we ate some lunch then headed up to Mt. Hood. Ben and Andy first had to stop and get their demo boards for riding the next day. Then we drove to this place:

So amazing! Then we set up some chairs and a table at this little site.

Andy made us a fire to roast us some hot dogs for dinner.

The boys had a blast playing in the river and playing around the fire.

Rachel is the Primary President and had a lot of bottles of crush soda that we needed to drink so she could use them for the father's day gifts. Tayson loved them and couldn't get enough. He is hilarious. And look at his poor eye. That is what brothers are for right!

Benson cooked his hot dog a little too long and was pretty sad about it, luckily we had more hot dogs to roast . Such a cute little sad face.

Then of course we had to pop some popcorn over the fire. I had only tried it once before and it wasn't that great. Andy and Ben did a great job at popping it. It was delicious.

We also roasted some marshmallows and made some smores. It was a very fun night!

Ben took this picture. I love how green it is. We definitely have to go back there again one day!

Ben Here, The next day Drew and I went snowboarding. I love going to hood every summer. This year the snow was great and the weather was right on par.

Here is Andy doing his Nose Press.



Front Board



Steezy


Drew and our kits. I decided to demo a 2011 Burton Sherlock 154. It's one of their "Flying V" decks. Which basically means it has Rocker and Camber (Peep them HERE then click on "campaigns" and then "Take a stance"). I actually liked it and would probably run one. Drew ran an Oh Eleven Easy Livin that is 100% reverse camber. We both could feel the difference and it took some getting used to.



Back to Brit.

While the boys were snowboarding I hung out with Rachel and the boys. We went to the craft store to get some stuff for Andy's Father's Day Gift. We got some frames and some ribbon. Then when we got back home the weather was nice so I blew up their pool while Rachel printed some letters off for the gift. Before the boys could get in the pool we had to take pictures. We took a picture of each boy. One held #1 the next held a D then the next held an A then we took a picture of Parker with another D. The pictures turned out great. The boys then got their swimsuits on and I filled up the pool for them. The pool was pretty cold and it took them awhile to adjust to it. Benson was pretty funny he didn't want to get his shorts wet and when they did he wanted to go get his other swim shorts on. I told him that his shorts were suppose to get wet in the pool. So he decided to keep the ones he had on.

I love his little smile!

Cute little Tayson.

They had a lot of fun in the pool. With a few here and there cries from being pinched or splashed they are some funny cute little boys.

After Rachel and I went to the grocery store to get some groceries and print off the pictures that we took. They turned out great!

The next day we took the boys to see Toy Story 3. They were pretty excited to go see it. Benson brought his Woody. He loved the movie. His eyes were glued to the screen he didn't want any candy that we would offer him, or popcorn. Ben put his hand in some and he didn't move.

Loggan brought his cheetah, he couldn't find his Buzz Lightyear. He loved the movie as well. Tayson ate most of the bag of gummy worms before the movie even started. He sure does love his sugar. The movie was excellent. They did a great job on making a third movie.

After the movie we went to Multnomah Falls. It is amazing!

We hiked up a little bit to the bridge. I loved it. You can keep hiking up to the very top. Which I would love to do some day!

That night Ben and I went down town to walk around. Ben spotted a festival going on. So we started walking towards that. Once we got closer Ben realized that it was for Gay Pride. So we turned around. We walked around for awhile and couldn't find a place we could agree on to eat. It probably doesn't help that I'm picky :) We then went home and got this picture on the drive home.

Sunday morning we woke up to Loggan sitting by our door. He was the only one awake. Ben told him to come lay with him and he said he wanted some cereal. He is so cute. We all got ready for church and while Andy was getting ready we put the pictures in the frames. I think the gift turned out great and loved the ribbon Rachel picked out to hang them with. I had so much fun and I wish we could have stayed longer. Since they live up there I didn't really know them that well, and really enjoyed getting to know them all a little bit more. We miss you a lot already and wish we were closer to you, but we will for sure come back and visit! And we can't wait to see you in a month!



Also before Portland we went and celebrated my brother's birthday at Texas Road House. For birthdays they make them sit on a saddle. Jack was pretty confused at what was going on and when they yelled YEEHAW! Jack didn't like it too much.

Poor little guy!

There was another party and once again when they yelled YEEHAW! Jack started crying. It was sad, but kind of funny. Love that little boy. We then went to their house and had cake and ice cream. We were glad we got to celebrate with him! One more year and he will be the big 30!

Also today my sister Brooke came up to Snowbird. My mom gave her a gift card for her to come up to the Bird and get some treatments from me for her Birthday. She decided to get a cut, color and a pedicure. We were pretty much the only ones in the Spa. It is pretty dead right now. So that was fun. She decided she wanted some highlights. And as we were walking out after the treatments I took a picture of her hair I didn't get a picture of her toes though.

She said she loves it and I think it turned out great. Now Brooke is the Dark Blond hair of the family. My mom will be so glad that she has a daughter with light hair again :)

The Latest Happenings...

It has been awhile since I (Brittany) have updated our blog and Ben has been wanting me to do so. So here I am. We don't have much pictures to post so I thought I would just write about our latest happenings. Last month we had a ping pong party with friends at our house. It was fun to have friends over at our house. The boys were pretty serious about ping pong and the girls didn't even play and poor little Gavin wanted to play so bad, but luckily with my Disney movie collection we distracted him with Jungle Book. It was fun to catch up with friends that we hadn't seen for awhile. Next time we have a ping pong party I will have to take some pictures and some videos. I use to be so good at taking pictures of everything and now I am horrible.

After only gone to our new ward twice we already got asked to give a talk. So three weeks later we talked in our ward. I talked on Home: A Refuge and A Sanctuary. Ben talked on Draw Near Unto Christ. It was nice to not have the same topic so we didn't have to worry about saying the same thing. I think it went pretty well. I have a hard time talking in front of a lot of people and usually talk really fast, but I think I did pretty well on talking slower. Ben did a great job. And I loved hearing his talk. We also had Ben's Mom, Mark, and Amy come listen. It was nice to have their support there. We really appreciate them.
Well Ben said within two weeks we would get a new calling. He was right, two weeks later (which was this past Sunday) we got a new calling. They came and pulled us out of Sunday School. They said they didn't want to separate us. So we are the new CTR 6 Primary teachers. We then met the Primary President and sat with our new class. They are cute kids and I am excited for this calling. I have always loved teaching Primary.

The end of May Ben's Aunt Erma (his dad's sister) passed away after having a stroke. We went and visited her at the hospital before she passed. I had only met her a couple of times, but she was a wonderful lady from what I saw. She loved her family. She seemed to be the one to get every one together for the Holidays. She will be missed by many. Ben and I were only able to make it to her viewing and rosary. I have really only been to a funeral that has been held at an LDS chapel so it was interesting to see how another religion does things. I had no idea what they did in a Rosary. Then one of her grand-daughters gave a little tribute. She did a great job. Click Here to see her Obituary.

On Memorial Day we were going to go camping so I had taken the day off. We ended up not going so we decided to do some yard work. We first painted our picnic table that was left in the backyard.
A couple weeks ago Ben's Grandpa gave us some rocks to put in as stepping stones. On the right side of the house we don't get much sun. We didn't want to put grass in so we wanted to do stepping stones. It was a lot of work putting them in. Luckily my dad had come to help with yard work and helped finish putting them in. I think it looks great. Thanks Dad for helping!

We also decided to have a BBQ at our house. It was kind of last minute thing and we were glad that we were able to get some family and some friends to come. Ben's mom is great at putting things together. She brought a volleyball net and some other games. She also brought a fun tablecloth for the picnic table. All day it was cloudy and luckily the sun came out for the BBQ and we sat under our apple tree. The food was delicious and we had a lot of fun. We played volleyball, it was boys against girls. The girls didn't do very well, but we had a blast! And the final score was pretty close, but the boys did win. Shaffer also brought his new remote control car and Ben built a jump where our garden will be. They had a blast with that. It was a fun night and hope we have more barbecues this summer. Thanks everyone for coming! We love you and are thankful for you all.

We also went to Kylee and Brickelle's Dance recital which makes me miss dancing and performing. Ben wants me to get back in it, but I don't know if I have the flexibility to do it anymore. We went to Mulligan's with Travee and Claudia and hit a bucket of balls and did the batting cages as well. Claudia and I did softballs and the boys did baseballs. I was pretty sore the next day and it was pretty hard to do some pedicures at work. For some reason my palm was extremely sore! We also had a little astrology lesson with my dad. We tried using Brickelle's telescope, but we needed a battery so we just used my dad's laser pointer. Cole was more interested in that then the stars. I love summer nights and look forward to looking through the telescope some more. We have had some fun times and can't wait to do more stuff outside with Summer finally here! I love warm weather!

Well a week from tomorrow we will be going up to Portland to visit Ben's Brother Andy, Rachel, and the boys. We are excited to go up there and hang out with them and meet the new addition Parker. Can't wait to see you all!

World Cup!

This is probably the coolest ad I have ever seen. Man I can't wait for the World Cup and the first game this Sat.

U.S. Vs England.

Click Here to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE&feature=PlayList&p=AC6BDC5B52866B11&playnext_from=PL

Minute to win it

Just a few pics and videos for a quick update. We have settled into our house nicely. We love it and are making progress every day in certain areas around the house.

Here's Betty Crocker, Oh I mean Brit whipping up some breakfast for dinner. MMmmmm

Brit made 2 pizzas on a pizza stone we bought, they both came out great. My favorite was the BBQ chicken. Mmmmm Cilantro.

I wanted to take a picture of our first flower of the spring in our yard.

My mom had us over for dinner on Sunday to celebrate Shaffer and Mark's May B-days.

She bought a cotton candy maker that was fun for the kids.

We also played minute to win it. We had a lot of fun and laughs during the games.

Me trying the blow all the cards but one. No luck.




Brit




Trav Killing it on the cards!





Brit trying to bounce out a few ping pong balls. C'mon girl where are those dance moves!




Ky blowing the cards