A little stroll...

July 16th- I decided to take the kids on a little walk today... Keaton walked and Crayson and Aisley rode in the stroller. Here's some pics of how well it went...! Ha, ha.

Babysitting.

July 7th- I've been watching baby Crayson while Kenzlie finishes up nail school! Keaton has been such a great helper and it has been lots of fun for all of us to have Crayson with us for a few hours each morning- 4 days a week!

July 9th-

July 10th-

A final day trip to DC...

May 31st- This past weekend was our last weekend in Maryland. (I don't even want to talk about it- it is so hard to say goodbye! We have really loved our year here. We have made all kinds of friends and have loved just about everything about living on the east coast. Even the humidity has grown on me a bit.)

Bright and early Saturday morning we drove to the DC temple. (I love how the temple just peeks itself up over the tops of the trees as you round the corner on the freeway... such a beacon of beauty and light. We love the DC temple.)

Before heading over to the temple we dropped the kiddies off with Justin's great aunt, Janet Weeks (her and her husband Fred Weeks are serving a mission in DC right now)- and she so kindly offered to babysit for us! Thanks again Janet! You are the best! And, both of our children LOVE her!

After doing sealings in the temple together (which was so great, as always) we met our friends from Utah- Wade and Sara Jacobsen (who currently live in PA) at the visitors center and picked up their little boy, Lucas, so that we could watch him for them while they went into the temple. We took Lucas with us back to the Weeks apartment and were able to visit with Janet for a while, while the kids played. It was a great visit.

After the temple and visiting with Janet we went with the Jacobsen's to Cafe Rio for lunch and then headed to the National Zoo in DC. It is a super fun (and free!) zoo and we are so glad that we got to spend some time with the Jacobsen's there before moving back to Utah.

Cute little Lucas!

The National Zoo is the only zoo that has Panda bears! Our new favorite animal to see at the zoo by far! They were so cute!

Keaton also loved the monkeys!

And we saw naked mole rats for the first time ever! They are soooo weird! (Remember the show Kim Possible where the boy had a naked mole rat for a pet?! Ha ha.) I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but until you see them in real life you can't really get the full affect of how strange these blind and naked creatures are! They have long fang teeth that hang unnaturally out of their mouths and they live in these tube burrows and all snuggle up together... they were so weird, but fun to see at the same time! Ha, ha!

 Our family with the gorilla. (Who seemed to be posing just for our pictures!)

We also loved this cute and super playful orangutan who was tucking himself into his blanket and bed of straw for a late afternoon nap. He kept fluffing his blanket and tucking it in around him- it was so cute! (I don't think I've ever been to the zoo when the animals that we saw were so interactive/fun to watch! The gorillas and the pandas were also super fun to watch! It was great and so fun for Keaton and Lucas.)

This happy girl was just content to be along for the ride in her stroller. :)

Wade and Lucas with the big dinosaur bone.

Thanks Wade and Sara for such a fun day! We are so glad we had a chance to let the kids play together and catch up with you guys!

We ended our day the same way we started it- as we got another glimpse of the temple on our drive back home.

A last minute trip with our friends, the Spicer's.

We were supposed to go on a trip to Nauvoo (with our friends Ben and Kari Spicer) over the long Labor Day weekend, but hurricane Isaac was supposed to be visiting Nauvoo the same time as us so... sadly we decided it would be best to go another time. We cancelled our trip and didn't have any plans for the weekend anymore and we were a bit sad and at a loss for what to do that would be fun until... the Spicer's called around 5 pm on Friday afternoon and asked, "Crazy question, but would you guys want to come with us to Missouri instead?" So, about 2 hours later, we were on our way to Missouri. I packed so quickly I knew I was bound to forget something important, (turned out those important things were a jacket for myself and our camera battery charger, but I made it through the weekend without both fairly well...) but we were all happy to be heading somewhere that we had never been before to have a fun family adventure with our friends in tow!

Ben and Kari were nice enough to watch this crazy little boy (on Saturday afternoon, after they did a session themselves) while Justin and I did a session together in the Kansas City, Missouri Temple. It was an amazingly beautiful temple and it was so nice to be there together- it had been much too long in between our last visit and this one.

After the temple, we all went shopping together at a really fun outdoor mall and then ended our day with dinner at The Cheesecake Factory- so yummy!

On Sunday, after going to church together, we headed to the visitors center in Independence, Missouri where we watched a wonderful video about families, (I bawled through the whole entire thing, I loved it so much.) and learned a little about the pioneers, and other fun stuff like that. (We watched a bunch of "Mormonads" which I also really enjoyed and often got quite teary over.) :)

We also made another trip back to the temple on Sunday to take a picture with our whole family. Although Keaton wasn't all that cooperative... these two pictures were the best we got.

Our next stop was Liberty Jail. Where we were taken on a wonderful tour and learned a lot of Joseph's time in Liberty Jail and got to see the jail itself.

Our last stop of the day on Sunday afternoon was Adam-Ondi-Ahman. What a beautiful place!

Then on Monday morning we woke up early enough to do a little bit more shopping in the state of Kansas at the American Girl store! :) (The boys especially loved this place! Ha.)

Okay, so maybe they liked the Disney store and the Lego store a little bit better than what they called the "doll store."

Oh, yeah, and we got the chance to not only meet, but also get our picture taken with Justin Bieber!

And, then my wonderful husband let me get this super cute new cover for my Nook that I am just simply in love with and read with my Nook in it our whole drive home. :)

It was a awesome trip. We all had such a great time together and look forward to our next family adventure- hopefully in Nauvoo- sometime in October! It is just so fun visiting new places, exploring church history sites, and being together with family and great friends!

2plus2equals4

Yesterday Justin and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary. And I was thinking how our first 2 years of marriage (2 days after our anniversary) brought us our sweet baby Keaton into our lives at 2 lbs 10 oz.! And, these last 2 years (once again, 2 days after our anniversary) are about to bring us a crazy 2 year old toddler! With many, many, many wonderful memories in between. :)

We didn't do anything too crazy for our anniversary, but we did go out to dinner at Applebees (pretty much the only restaurant of its kind around here...).

And Justin brought me home these beautiful flowers and a card. Both of which I love!

And, after dinner our BFF's here- Ben and Kari Spicer- came over to our house to babysit Keaton while Justin and I went to see the Dark Knight Rises!

:) Pretending we are scared for the movie.

And, just enjoying our time together- just the two of us.

We had a great anniversary. Thanks again Ben and Kari for babysitting! Keaton loves you so, so much and I just know he had a great time. I knew it even more so when I opened up the door to his room this morning and he simply asked, "Kari?" "Ben?" :)