The {F} Family

Our sweet friends asked me to take their family pictures awhile ago and Angie said she wanted to find some poppies to do them in.  I had been on the look-out for a poppy field that I've heard are up here somewhere. I finally found one and we set our date up.  We will need to do them earlier next year, they were almost gone.  But I love the way these turned out.

Little Miss W was so fun, I just love her!  And I'm so thankful for this sweet family to let me practice on them.
Blogger does some weird things to the colors of photos...

Father's Day BBQ

We postponed our Father's Day dinner until our nephews could be here, the weekends got a little messed up for some reason.  Jade had the boys on Mother's Day and their mom had them on Father's Day.
So we waited to do it the next weekend.  The boys always get so excited to see all of us when they are here.
They are obsessed with dinosaurs and dragons and think my mom's hair clips are "sharp tooths", they obviously love The Land Before Time.

And they love to put all the dinosaurs in the pool together.

The food was so yummy and while we were there we celebrated my baby sister's 25th birthday.  Branson loves to blow out birthday candles and wants to help anyone who is celebrating a birthday.

Then the boys loved on their dad while they played on Grandma and Grandpa's new chairs.

And loving on Grandma.

I love spending time with family.  I love getting together to celebrate whatever occasion we can get away with.  And I love celebrating my father on Father's Day.  He deserves all the best things in life.  He always worked so hard to provide for us growing up and making sure we were taken care of.  And he does the same in our adulthood.  He loves us so much and wants to make sure we have the things we need and all the support from him.  Happy Father's Day Pop, I love you!

For Eternity Pt 2

Neither one of us slept very well Friday night.  We were so nervous.  We got up early and had to be at the temple by 7:30am.  As I was getting ready, I realized I forgot my slip to go under my dress...and it was pretty see-through.  I texted my Grandma Pat who was my escort, she suggested I wear my long slip and just tuck it in to my underwear or something at about the same time I thought of the same thing.  It was interesting, but it worked.  We met Cody outside the temple and went in to meet my Grandma and Earl.  The rest of the morning was wonderful!  We were out of the temple to meet our family at around noon.  It was quite busy out there being a Saturday in June.  We found everyone and I was so happy to see Elizabeth came with Rosie.  It really meant a lot to me to have her there.

I asked my friend Marvett to come take our pictures at the temple.  She agreed and I was so happy she would do them for us.  Her work is wonderful!  I met her a few years ago at a photowalk and we've stayed in touch ever since.  I wanted pictures by the beautiful doors...and so did everyone else.  So our sweet home teachers actually stood in line for us to get our turn.  I was so thankful for that since it was kind of crazy and I don't do well with all the craziness and trying to get everyone organized.  We finally got everyone to the doors and then got our turn up there real quick.  I only had a few images in my head of what I wanted and Marvett did awesome!  I'm so in love with these images and am so grateful to her for being part of our day.

The wind was blowing around really good and I was struggling to keep my  dress down and not let my long slip come out, it was quite comical.

Marvett's wonderful daughter took control of my camera while we were getting our pictures taken and got some really good shots.

Everyone was invited to Shannon's house afterward for a BBQ.  The food was so good and it was fun to have everyone together somewhere casual instead of sitting at a restaurant somewhere and not be able to visit with everyone.  We had so much fun. 

DJ was playing with Lucy and Bryn with the chipmunks, it was so cute.  I think it was even more cute because DJ was getting a little bit embarrassed with me taking pictures.

Then it broke out into a dance party with Lu and Lucy singing, so stinkin cute!

And DJ was content to sit on my lap and cuddle, gosh I love him.

It was such a wonderful day full of so many emotions.  I have waited so long to be able to walk in those beautiful temple doors and to finally have it be a reality was kind of surreal for a while.  I love the gospel and know it's true.  I'm so thankful for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I'm so grateful for his sacrifice and atonement, without which none of this day would be possible.  I'm so grateful to be sealed to my wonderful husband for eternity, something we've wanted for so long.  And I'm thankful to be able to have our future children sealed to us someday.  I'm so grateful for our family for helping us celebrate our day and for supporting us, and for our friends who are family and make our lives even more blessed.

For Eternity

Josh and I have worked really hard to achieve one of our goals we've had since we got married.  We are only almost 9 years shy but we finally did it.
When we went to have our temple recommend appt with our bishop in the middle of May, we each went through our records with the church.  When we left, Josh just said to me that it was weird.  I couldn't understand why, then he told me the dates of everything.  He was baptized, confirmed and given the priesthood on the 9th...the same day we were married.  Wow.  So we looked to see when the next Saturday  fell on the 9th.  June, like in 3 weeks!
I had always wanted to go through the Salt Lake Temple for my first time.  It is my very favorite temple, Josh felt the same way.  But with it being 3 weeks away and wedding season, we didn't know if we would be able to work it out.  I called the temple the next day and luckily we could do it that day!  We let all of our family know!  Then we went temple clothes shopping with Cody and Tara on the 19th of May and got all of our stuff.  It was finally becoming real and we were so excited!
We had decided we wanted to go down on the 8th to spend the night down there since our session started at 9 and we had to be there by 7:30am.  We got a hotel room at the Marriot at City Creek, which was the hotel Josh and I stayed in for our 3rd anniversary.  It was so nice!  Cody and Tara were supposed to come down and go to dinner with us but Cody got held up at work so they didn't make it in time.
So Josh and I went and walked around City Creek and then went through Brigham Young's home.

A letter written by Brigham Young

His hat and cane in his bedroom

I think this is the study

The wedding dress one of his daughters made for herself

An original drawing of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in one of the bedrooms

Brigham Young

Then we were looking for somewhere to eat dinner.  We decided on The Garden up in the Joseph Smith Memorial building.

One of the many gorgeous chandeliers in the building

Brother Joseph

The beautiful temple!

We then went and walked around the temple.  We heard that Mitt Romney was in Salt Lake and wondered if he might be at the temple.  The grounds were almost empty since it was 8:45 and I think they close at 9pm.  As we went around the back side of the temple, we saw 3 guys in suits in the corner.  One came walking past us and had an ear piece in and we totally thought they could be secret service!  I got a few pictures of my favorite features of the temple.  The door knobs are one of my very favs!

Then we headed back to the hotel to go to bed and get up really early to get ready for our big day!

I Heart Faces: All Boy

At I Heart Faces this week, their photo challenge theme is All Boy.  Well this is my nephew Gavin.  He isn't the  typical "boy" boy as he doesn't like to be outside for long but we love him so much!  And he had so much fun hiking to Poppa's boyhood cave on Little Mountain to look for dragons and dinosaurs.