Time with Grandma and Grandpa Morris

Cordelle's parents have been down twice to our house in about a month and we have loved having them here.  The first time they came down for Jaq's dance performance and the second time to watch our kids while we were at Youth Conference.  They are so fun and hard workers!  Cordelle's dad cant hold still and so both times he was here he did projects the whole time and Cordelle's mom did her fair share as well.  They got more accomplished in a couple of days then we did the entire summer.  They fixed Seth's window lock, designed and put together window well covers for our basement windows, planted 4 baby's breathe bushes and two fruit trees, fertilized our raspberries and trees, weeded our garden, cleaned out our garage, vacuumed our car, hung up bike hooks and tool hooks in our garage, hung blinds in a window downstairs that we never got to, and made and installed a window sill for the same window.  All on top of watching our kids and keeping them entertained which they certainly did.  My kids still crack up dancing around singing Goosey Goosey Gander, a song Grandma taught them while we were at Youth Conference!  We love our grandparents around here and we are so blessed to have them!  Here are some pics they took while we were gone.

Seth gets nervous sometimes when we're gone, so I had to leave 3 treasure hunts they could do to "distract" him when he got upset.  Here was one of his treasures (the police badges).  I hope it helped!

Brett and Tiffany's Wedding

This past weekend my older brother got remarried to his beautiful girlfriend of two years, Tiffany Mak.  We LOVE Tiffany.  We are so excited for them.  It was a long time coming for both of them and after returning back to Hong Kong after 8 years in the states it became apparent to both of them that they should get married and be together rather than trying to continue a long distance relationship.  So she got a 3 month vacation visa and came over.  He proposed and we helped her organize a wedding in about 2 months!  It was so fun!  I'm so excited that he chose her to get married in the temple with.  They will be so good for each other and I love seeing my brother just come alive because of her.  He's in love and loves taking care of her... as he should!

AT THE TEMPLE

They got married on June 22, 2012 in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple

THE RECEPTION

Our Family (and Tiffany's brother who is going to Snow and the only one from her family that could come)

Jaq and Gaven being friendly cousins

4 of my siblings!  Mark, Tallie, Scott, and Neal

The kids playing around in the Primary room.  I dont know what the poses were but I thought this was funny!

Isn't her dress beautiful?

Neal and Cordelle going all GQ

Sweet little girls in their dresses. Jaquelle Anna and Alexa

Handsome boys in their matching ties!

The Girls

The sign in book which I once again had fun putting together!

Cordelle wins GOLD in Table Tennis at the USG

Cordelle, nerd that he is, once again played Table Tennis in the Utah Summer Games.  Only this year, I had to renounce all my "ping pong is not a sport jokes" because HE ROCKED IT!  I took the kids just to watch him play a game or two but ended up staying and watching him play for like 4 hours cause it was so much fun.  I dont know where it came from but he was winning and winning and playing SO well.  He was slicing, top spinning, bottom spinning with the best of them and even though there were some really close games, he won them ALL!  He took GOLD in his division (3rd of 6) and his division was pretty dang good.  I watched him slam it down and dive all over the place.  It was really fun to watch.  Especially for not really playing recently he did amazingly well.  Good job babe!  Totally proud of you......still not sure if ping pong should be considered a sport.....perhaps a highly skilled hobby? But good job none the less.

Camera phone = bad indoor pics.  Bummer

One gold in Singles and then he and his friend Randy from work took silver in the doubles!  Not to shabby.

Jaq's first Dance Recital

Okay this was fun.  Because this is our first experience with the whole dance thing we might be over stating everything, but there was nothing greater for us than watching Jaq just eat up all this attention. This has been her first year of dance and the recital was something she had been looking forward to the whole season.  She was so dainty from the second I started to put make-up on her, it just made me laugh.  Cordelle couldn't get over the mascara on Jaq and I think it all hit him that she will grow up one day because he just couldn't get over seeing her like that.  But man, Jaq was all seriousness.  She LOVES to dance and is SO focused!  When she dances there is nothing that could distract her from her routine.  Its such a different Jaquelle but I love it.  You know, Seth has had soccer, Tball, school etc but really this was Jaquelle's first thing that was all her.  It was just a proud moment for us as parents to find something that she loves and excels at!  Anyways here some pics from the night.

She actually fell asleep on the way there...she was so tired.  So I really didn't think that the night would be as successful as it was.

Jaquelle and some girls in her dance class that live in our neighborhood.

Cordelle was sweet and bought Jaq some flowers for her hard work, which she loved and wanted to keep in her room.

Summer fun

Here was Seth's Preschool Class on their last day of school.  Their original teacher Ms. Jenny came back for the last day of class and then their fill in teacher Ms. Sharon.  Let see if we can name all these kids...Back Row: Parker, Conner C., Conner B., Seth, McKinley, Sadie, (new teacher's boy) Front Row: Lincoln, Savannah, Madi, and Kimber

Biking up the canyon Trail

Sometimes I'm glad I take pictures of things we do because otherwise I feel guilty of never doing anything fun.  This was a Saturday where Cordelle had to go into work for a couple of hours so we all went into town with him and decided to ride our bikes on the canyon trail up to the waterfall (ok, I walked).  It was a hot day, but it felt good to walk and let the kids ride their bikes.  They were ahead of me almost the whole time, but both did awesome since we pretty much went over 2 miles.

Of course we threw in rocks into the creek for awhile at the top

And then waded our feet at the park before we went to pick up Cordelle.  It was a fun Saturday outing.

These are most the kids from our neighborhood (I think there are 21 total in the little culdesac across the street) and this day we were having a dessert family home evening.  It was a cute idea from Patrice and fun to get together with everyone for a night.

Jaq throwing one of her summer fits on the road.  I don't remember why she is refusing to come inside at this point, but it helps keep my peace if I document her tantrums so that one day I can show them to her and how unreasonable she is at times. :)

The solar eclipse.  I think the last time this happened I was in 5th or 6th grade.  Its kind of a bad picture but I took the glasses thing and put it over my camera and was able to see the circle in the sun.  Cool.