Costa Rica

At the temple in San Jose, it was a beatiful temple and we felt really blessed to fit it in our last day right before we flew out.

This is the place where tours are given of the turtles on the beach (yes this is close to the size we saw of turtle we saw)

hanging out in the lounge area of our youth hostel in Montezuma

Eating at the "turtle hotel" the ocean is right behind those trees.

Typical rice and beans, and then their version of nachos. We also had a plate of chips with melted slices of cheese on it. It was actually really good. the white is mayo though (i didn't use that)

For the night of our anniversary we stayed in a hotel that was at the base of a volcano. sadly it wasn't active when we were there. usually you can see the lava coming down from the top.

Zip lining!!!! This was awesome. It was 8 consecutive zip lines. the longest being almost a half a mile long 600 ft. over the rainforest.

The lower view around the area we were zip lining

In our harnesses getting ready to go zip lining

This was on our sky tour. A 3 hour walking tour with suspended bridges that go over the rainforest.

One of the suspended bridges. they were kinda scary to walk across, but they were safe. But they can only hold so many people at a time.

walking tour

this was outside a Catholic church. Some guy carved all of these bushes out and kept them up beautifully. This was his gift to the church. Sadly we got there at sunset so we really couldn't get any pictures. really it was a huge garden area of beautifully carved bushes from arches to animals and just cool shapes.

They are famous for their painted ox carts. We saw this place on "Samantha Brown: Costa Rica" and had to check it out.

So this trip was for our 5 year anniversary. We found super cheap flights and had a flight and a half free from our points so we decided it was a good option. We stayed in a nice hotel the night of our anniversary (which was one of the first nights) and then bummed it by going backpacker style staying in youth hostels the rest of the time. I told ryan next time we should do it the other way around. Bum it at the beginning and stay in a nice place at the end. lol, it was fun though.

One of the things I found interesting about the country was how windy/curvy the roads were. very small, no shoulder....with a cliff on one of the sides often times. and yet they had Semi's driving around everywhere. As soon as we saw the driving there was no doubt we were gonna pay full insurance for our rental. :/ We rented a GPS (we would have been so lost without it) its not a typical freeway highway type thing. Most of the time your driving on tiny roads through a neighborhood to get where your want to go. It was a very kind GPS to alert "ding ding....dangerous bridge ahead" Once we realized all the bridges were "dangerous" (meaning going from a two lane road down to a one lane bridge so you had to take turns) it didn't scare us anymore.

For activites we went zip lining, the walking tour through the rain forest, horseback riding on the beach, to the temple, hot tubbing, but the coolest thing was the leatherback turtle. We paid for a tour to see a leatherback turtle come up on the beach and dig its hole and lay its eggs. You cant use any white lights or the turtle will leave and not come back. So no pictures, but our turtle was almost 6 ft long and 4 1/2 ft. wide. We watched her dig out the hole with her back flippers and then proceeded to lay about 90 eggs. 60 fertile, 30 infertile. (if your wondering where i got my stats from, there was a scientist there measuring and counting. 10 years ago 1500 turtles came to this beach, last year there was only 36. They are working hard to preserve them)

After she laid all the eggs, she started flipping the sand back on and then would gently pack it on. Im amazed how with even a turtle, you can see the gentle nature of a mother taking care of her babies. It was incredible. We were very lucky to even see a turtle, and we had to wait 6 hours for it to show up. It finally showed up close to midnight.

all in all it was a great trip to celebrate 5 wonderful years of marriage. Lots of adventure with a few moments of "eek" . Like the night when there was a machete outside of my door in one hotel, or when we almost drove off a cliff, or when our GPS got rained on and the voice wouldn't work: but came on magically 4 days later so we didn't have to replace it. But hey...those are the things that make great stories.

Before and After

So this is before Jaxons 1 year vaccines.

and

this

is

3 days later.

Poor little guy. This took about 2 days to get to its worst and about a few days more to go away. At first he was so happy and if you didn't know better (as in closed your eyes) you wouldn't know he had any problem. But the the high fever and itching came. His eye swelled almost shut and his hands and cheeks puffed up really bad.





So now we are going to the allergy specialist at the end of this month to see
what this poor kid is allergic to. they already tested for eggs, and luckily for us ( i L-O-V-E eggs he isn't allergic to that.



So wish us luck. :D

Life has been busy but good. Ive been busy with one word. Photography. I am of an obsessive nature. I get involved in a project and I am just that-involoved. But I also realize that I sometimes have a short attention span and like to jump around a lot. Kinda like my cake decorating phase. I did it long enough to get all the stuff needed to do quality cake decorating, made a couple wedding cakes....and then moved on. What can I say? It wasn't my love. So photography is my new love. But I have a feeling photography is a winner. Now if I can just figure out all this stuff on photoshop it would be nice. Can I just say what bummer it is that BSU doesn't offer a photography BA....but how lame-they offer a masters in it? Yeah, not much good unless youve had some undergrad training.

I remember when I first got married I knew that I wasn't going to go back to school at the time. Some people thought it was just because I figured, "im married, so im done" far from the truth. I was pursuing a Health Science Education major, then I went to teach in China for 6 months and if there was one thing I learned-I did NOT want to teach. Not that I hated it, but if push came to shove and needed to work. It wasnt my passion. I dont have the patience for it. Even before I was married I didnt really think that was what I wanted, but figured it was better than all the other options. So i just went with it.

So for the first time in my life...I know what I want to do. and there is no good school around for it. I wish I was back in rexburg for BYUI photography program. Oh well, such is life. That is enough on that. I should post some of the highlights of some of the photo sessions Ive done lately. Im by no means professional, but have a blast doing what I do.

Anywayzzzz....on to the fam. Maya is still talking a lot in dance class but I think she is learning a few things since Ive been hearing her practice in the other room "heel, toe, heel, toe." Im glad shes enjoying it. She has been working on reading with me and is making good progress. More than anything its just kind of fun to watch your kid have those "connection moments" when they learn something.

Jax is a busy little guy who we refer to (affectionately) as our puppy dog. Not in a bad way-but every time you sit down, he lays his head on your lap, looks you in the eye, and gives a big smile. You walk in from another room, he runs up to you, grabs your leg, and just smiles at you. He is a content little guy who loves to have his cuddle time.

Ryan is about as burned out in school as it gets and I dont blame him after doing 2 years straight (summers included) but he is still hanging in there and doing good. Just ready to graduate. He is doing good at work and has gotten some good golf/tennis time in this summer.

So thats pretty much it. We are just plugging along and I am SOO glad that it is finally the fall. Summer used to be my favorite season. Fall has totally trumped it. :D enjoy the beautiful colors!

uh oh...

Yes, this is my little 11 month old. I can only imagine what he will be into in the coming months. I think im in trouble.

This face says it all...

This was maya at her first dance class. Literally, this was how she looked the WHOLE time. :D She was so excited to be there, when her teacher asked for a volunteer to sing the "itsy bitsy spider" her hand shot right up and she sang it (with actions) for the whole class and about 20 parents. Where she got that bravery from....well, it certainley wasn't me.

It was kind of humorous because she just kept talking the whole class. In fact she talked so much she kinda got in trouble. So we had a good discussion on listening to the teacher and not talking so much. We will see how well it works. :)

cute cute kiddo's!

I got my backdrops in a had to give em a try. Jaxon wasn't up for being a model so I got a couple shots as he tried his hardest-and managed- to get off the set. Maya thought it was fun, though most of it was lots of crazy little faces. :) It was fun to try em out.

Salt Lake weekend

Outside the Lion House

Drew is one of Ryans mission companions, they ended up being great friends on their mission and became roomates at BYU when they were done. They've sold pest control together for two summers, so suffice it to say, they are good buddies. :) We were so excited that he was getting married and even though it was a 6 hour drive there one day- just to drive back 6 more the next day there was no doubt we were going to his wedding.

For being a really short trip it was really fun. I would probably not be able to say that if we had taken the kids with all that driving, so yes- we left them with my parents and had a fun quick little get away. We got there Friday afternoon and did a session in the SLC temple. ( a new experience for me) then walked around downtown salt lake and went to PF Changs for dinner (if you ever go...get the Szechuan asparagus, its to a-m-a-z-i-n-g) then went to the outdoor mall where we both realized how cheap we are because we would never spend that much money on one article of clothing. Im completely an outlet/clearance/stack that with a coupon kinda girl. It was still fun though.

They had a breakfast the next morning for all those going to the Sealing at the Lion House ( for those of you who dont know, it is one of Brigham Youngs old residences) and it was so yummy! I must admit I felt a little out of place when I looked down and saw all those extra forks and spoons and had to wrack my brain for those etiquette lessons from mutual. (a shout out to those leaders) From gourmet berry muffins with lemon glaze with fresh fruit arranged elegantly to quiche and ham and potatoes with some seasoning on it I couldn't identify, but it was unlike any other potato I have ever had-and thats saying something from an Idaho girl. They brought the food out in courses and it was just so fun. I wanted to take my camera out and photograph the representation of the food, but I figured that would be a little white trash so I kept it in its case. No one else at our table seemed as excited about it as me and Ryan were. ;)

We also had a member of the Seventy at our table who performed the sealing so that was also really neat. He takes tour groups over to Israel so we swapped stories. Of Israel for him, and China for us.

Concluding breakfast we headed to the temple and the Sealing was beautiful. But right afterwards we had to rush off to head home. And by "rush off" I mean we waited around the temple over an hour for them to come out and then wait for the group pic. There were 67 weddings that day so we had to wait about 10 couples for them to come out. what a busy but gorgeous temple. Its no wonder why so many people want to get married there.

Of course we HAD to make a quick stop at my favorite store Ikea then managed to make it home before midnight.

Sunday Morning...

Sunday morning while I was getting ready for church I heard maya chasing around Jaxon in the Kitchen in a "monster" voice yelling "im going to kiss you!" this is what I found....you can tell at one point he had had enough. :) Two kids together are always good for entertainment.

Mayas 3rd Bday!

I asked her what she was doing here and she said, "Im smelling it. " I guess chocolate does smell good. :D


We had a little party on her actually birthday with a girl I babysit. I love her reaction-she didn't even know what it was and she was still that excited!

I cant believe how fast it has all gone by, here I am and I have a 3 year old now. She is so much fun and adds a lot of spunk to our family. I really wanted to make her a princess cake for her birthday. (selfish of me I know, but I had found a REALLY cute one) and i tried to convince her, but what she really wanted was a dinosaur cake. I was still in the phase of trying to convince her otherwise when we had this conversation.

me: dont you want this pretty princess cake?

Maya: no, I dont think so

Me: are you sure? it will be really pretty and have sparkles and princesses on it!

Maya: Mom, lets have a deal. You get the princess cake. I get the Dino cake. Good deal?

Me: (defeated) yeah....good deal.

So the dino cake it was....it actually ended up only taking an hour to make so maybe it really was the good deal after all. :D Ha ha....she loved it, thats what made me happy. She is such a big helper and is now good at pulling Jax off things i dont want him to touch, and is Great at throwing away diapers. (except for the few times she puts them in random places and a day later my nose finds them.) Lol.

She is really into dinosaurs, horses, and any other sort of animal. She loves her brother and loves her daddy to pieces. I love my little girl!

4th of July!

The 4th of July was really fun. I am one of those people that absolutely LOVES this day. I love dressing in the colors, the fireworks, bbq's....everything. We started out going to our friends house for a brunch with several different families. The kids loved playing and having fun. As you can tell from the picture above it wiped Jaxon out. :)

Then 3 of us Moms went to JCPenney because they had put out a bunch of 10 off 25$ coupons so a shopping we did go. :D I love coupons, literally I plan my shopping trips around them.

In the evening we went to the fireworks with our friends and brought a lot of junk food and just had a good time. Both the kids loved the fireworks and it was great to spend time as a family. Ryan has been doing a summer BSU class as well as 4 other BYU classes that are due in the middle of august. He has finished almost two of them and is hacking away at the other two. Its funny how a normal semester is now going to be our break. If everything goes well he will graduate next spring. yay!

Fathers Day Pics

This year for Fathers day Ryan got some golf stuff, and a scrapbook with pics taken of the kids while he was at work. Here are just a couple of em... :)

Park City

My happy Boy! :)

At the hogle zoo....loved it there-much bigger than the Boise zoo!

Stuck in the swimsuit!

They had free classes for kids at the hotel....finger painting was one of them.

Park city. Beautiful mountains, gorgeous trees, laid back feeling, good food, amazing hotel. There- thats probably the best way for me to describe it. I loved it all. Any of you who know us, know that we LOVE to travel. However, its expensive-especially when you factor in the two little kidlets, so this year we stayed closer and went to Park City for a week.
Our friends have a time share connection so we got an awesome hotel right on the main street that had a fully furnished kitchen (that was so nice) and the master room was seperate from the kitchen and living room, fireplace, but the BEST part was the fact that it had a double soaker jetted tub-all that for an amazing price.

Its a good thing we had the tub, because the weather didn't cooperate as well as we would have liked for swimming, so this became our own "pool". Maya would get her swimsuit on and she would have a ton of room to splash around in. (hey, when your a kid you dont realize when your getting the short end of the stick)

We saw some really good friends and family and spent some time in SLC at the zoo, temple square (well just driving around it cause at that point it was raining.) Did some outlet mall shopping, toured the olympic park up there by an actual olympian. Oh and shopped at my favorite store ever- IKEA! It was just fun.

With Ryan in school and working full time what we wanted more than anything was just to spend time together and it was the perfect place. Plus with two young kids we didnt want it to be a stressful vacation. By the time we hit day 5 though i think maya was done and ready to be back in her own bed and back on a schedule.

There have been so many moments the last few months when we spend quality time together and i just think to myself... I dont think life gets better than this. And ya know what...I think im probably right. :)