I Heart Faces-Pets

The challenge over at I Heart Faces this week is Pets. Well I have enough of them! I feel bad leaving the others out but I can only choose one...so I chose my sweet brown-eyed girl, Wrinkles.
Here's a little bit of her story.  I bought her when she was about a year and a half.  I really wanted a Shar-Pei and was looking for one in the paper one day when I saw an ad that said "Wrinkles needs a new owner, her's went to jail".  Serious.  I still have it.  So I drove up to Idaho Falls to get her.  I found out the man who owned her abused her.  He beat the crap out of her and I'm assuming, threw her across linoleum floors from the way she acts to any slick surface.  I got her in June and she still had pink spray paint in her tail from her owner spray painting her from Halloween!  I tell you what, I pray there is a special place in Hell for people who abuse children and animals.  The man's wife was taking care of her since he was in jail and their little girls just loved her.   I fell in love with her and bought her.  She's been the best dog.  She was terribly scared of men, especially if they had dark hair or a hat on for a long time, but she's over that now.  Josh and my dad helped her get over that since they both have/had dark hair and Josh wears hats.  She's so sweet. I can't believe she's 10 years old. I can't imagine my life without her.  We call her "Mama" a lot.  We nicknamed her that after she had a litter of 7 puppies about 7 years ago, that's a hell I never want to relive again!  I love her squishy jowls and purple tongue.  I love watching her ears perk up and twitch when she hears a noise outside or on TV.  I love the sounds she makes when she's chasing things in her dreams.  She loves my parents more than she does me sometimes and my dad is her absolute favorite person.  She gets SO excited when she sees him!  She LOVES to be outside during the day now that it's warm. When she lies down she usually crosses her paws like a lady and I'm glad I captured a picture of her doing that. Here's my girl...

See more animals here:

Happy Father's Day

 I drove home from Salt Lake and got up to Franklin to see my Dad for Father's Day.  Josh wasn't feeling well so he didn't come with me.  We had a yummy BBQ and the weather was finally warm!  We sat around outside eating and talking.  Brittiney's parents were here so they joined us, too.  Gavin crawled all over the grass, trying to eat it as he went.  Roxy was getting everyone to throw her ball for her, even trying to get Gavin to play with her!

 We filled Roxy's pool with fresh water and Branson just wanted to play in it!

Gavin got in on the fun, too!

It was so nice and warm!  It was fun to hang out with my Dad for a day.  He's so special to me.  He would do anything for his family.  I love him so much and am so thankful he's my Dad.  Happy Father's Day Pop!

My cute parents.

Noah Plays Baseball and Elizabeth Dances

Noah had a double header and Elizabeth had a dance recital on Saturday so I went down and hung out with them for the day while Josh stayed home and worked on his never-ending home work.  I haven't watched Noah play since last year so it was awesome to see how much he's improved.  They smashed both teams!  His team is competing in Steamboat Springs at the end of July  to be a part of the Little League World Series in Philly this year and I hope I get to go watch him play.  Go Sidewinders!

I love when those 3 kids first see me, they get so happy.  I love seeing their happy smiley faces.  When DJ sees me, he just comes running and gives me a huge hug.  That little boy melts my heart.  I played with DJ and Elizabeth on the playground, pushing all the kids in a 1 mile radius on the swings, doing underdogs over and over again.  The kids thought that was so much fun!  It was so fun for them...not so much for me!

We wrapped things up at the ball park and headed back to Shannon's to get everyone cleaned up and ready for Lu's recital.  DJ is getting very independent and is into combing his own hair.  He sat in front of the mirror for about 20 minutes getting it just right.  He was getting a little crabby because it wasn't working the way he wanted it to.  He was looking a little like Alfalfa in the back so I had to help him with just that much but he did a good job.

Elizabeth's recital was really good but long to sit through, 33 dances took a long time!  I've been to most of her competitions this year so I've seen all the dances her company had.  She did great and was so cute.  I can't wait to watch her next year and see how much she improves.  Dancing is something she and I both love so it's lots of fun watching her.

Poor little DJ couldn't stay awake.  He'd been outside playing all day since noon so by the time 8 hit he was out cold.

I finally had a sleep-over with the kids since they ask every time I see them.  We went back to Shannon and Arnold's and got some dinner.  When I have a sleep-over, Lu and DJ both want me to sleep in their beds with them.  DJ won this time so we all tried to fit into his twin bed.  I eventually had to carry Lu into her own bed once she fell asleep so I could have some room.
I headed home early the next morning to get home to see my dad for Father's Day but stopped off to see Rosie and Shane real quick.  He had Lucy for the weekend for Father's Day.  She is so cute and so funny!

She just melts Shane's heart and it's so cute to see him with his baby girl!
It was great to spend some time with my family who I love so much!

Rainbows and Cotton Candy Clouds

Monday night we had a rainstorm that lasted for quite a while.  When it finally stopped I noticed the sky looked golden, I thought there must be an awesome sunset to go see.  I drove up by the temple and saw a HUGE double rainbow.  By the time I could park it had almost disappeared but here's what I got of it...

  Then the clouds turned into cotton candy...

It was so beautiful.  I love the smell of spring rain, it's so refreshing!
But it's rained every day since then, I'm really wanting warm sunshine!

I Heart Faces Photowalk

On Saturday, I Heart Faces was hosting a nation wide photowalk.  I was so happy they were having one in Salt Lake, so I signed up to go.  We met at an awesome church house at 9 am and introduced ourselves, there were 50 of us all together, 47 photographers and 3 models.  We took our group shot and then began our walk around   Sugarhouse.  It was beautiful!  The houses, the flowers the models...awesome!  It was led by Heather of Heather Nan Photography and Lyndsey of Lyndsey Fagerlund Photograpy.

Here are some of the pictures I took...

I want this at my house!

It was tons of fun!  Thank you to Heather and Lindsay for taking all of us around.  Thank  you to all the photographers who were there and for the tips I learned.  And thank you to the models, you were awesome!

Afterward, Josh and I went to lunch with his mom to Rio Grande.  It was not good, our enchiladas tasted like a bad pasta sauce, weird.

Josh and I went car shopping for a while but had no luck, I hate car shopping!

We came home and crashed for a couple of hours, we were so tired!  But it was an awesome experience and I want to do it again really soon!

Camera Lenses & In-N-Out

Since I got my new camera I haven't gotten a new lens just the kit lens it came with.  I am going to a photo event on Saturday in Salt Lake that I really want to try some different lenses.  So when I went down to Spanish Fork for my grandma's sealing in March, my Uncle Don was there and he has some FANCY camera equipment.  He told me to give him a call anytime if I have any questions about photography.  So I thought I would ask him if I could borrow one of his lenses.  He said I was welcome to any of his camera equipment so Josh and I met Uncle Don and Aunt Sally in Sandy and picked up his stuff.  I was so dang excited to get it!
We went and visited Shannon and the kids while we were down there.  Noah brought some of his school work home that he's been working on all year.  He wrote a story about a stolen iguana that had us all laughing, his creativity is hilarious!
On the way home I wanted to stop at the new In-N-Out in Draper for dinner and it was yummy except I forgot to ask for it animal style...next time!