The Fray Concert

On July 18th Ben and I went to The Fray concert with his boss, Jeremy. It was my very first "real" concert. (I've been to plenty Choir, Symphony, and classical concerts) I was pretty excited and we had such a fun time!

Jack's Mannequin played first and they were Awesome! I hadn't really heard them before but they were so fun to watch and I really liked their music.

We were sitting on the grass and a few songs in this little group of kids start dancing around going crazy. Before we knew it 5 kids turned into this.

Then this..... Body surfing and all. It was crazy! They ended up taking over this entire section next to us forcing out lots of people who were sitting there. Jack's Mannequin ended and everyone returned to their seat.

The Fray started and the audience wasn't quite as crazy but they were really fun to watch too!

Here we are at the end of the night. It took us an hour to get out of the parking lot, but it was a fun night and I couldn't have picked a better band for my "first"!

Spring Pictures

When Michelle was here in May we spent an afternoon taking pictures of the kids. She did a great job for how ornery they were. Thanks Shell!

I did not do this to her....

Okay well maybe I helped her zip up the boots.

Reunions

This summer has been full of reunions. Starting with Ben's 10 year High School reunion on June 22nd; which we don't have pictures of because we didn't take the camera in. Then we had 2 family reunions one with Ben's family and one with my Mom's extended family. Followed by my Seminary Council reunion which was totally fun, but again no pictures taken of any of them! The first week of July my friend Emily was up from Arizona.

We decided to meet up at a Splash Park in Herriman which was so fun, and I actually brought my camera!

Her mom and sister in law were also there and we had a wonderful time chatting and catching up on each other's families. We both moved into our houses in 4th grade. We lived kitty corner from each other and were best friends almost instantly. We would spend hours in her basement dressing up barbies and playing with her awesome Barbie House! Thanks for being such a great friend Em! I'm glad we can still talk like we always did.

The next day I arranged to meet up for lunch with two of my other best friends. Tiffany is moving across the country, so it was fun to talk to her and get the details. Tricia (on the right) is going to teach Choir at Riverton High this year! (my great almamater) It was so fun to hear how the dating world is these days. She had some great stories and I caught myself giving her dating advice when I haven't actually dated for 6 1/2 years. Don't listen to me Tricia. I don't know what I'm talking about. It was so fun to catch up with these two and we could have stayed and talked for several more hours at least! Lets do it again soon!

Swinging

We haven't made it to the park much this summer so a few weeks ago I decided to pack a picnic and take the kids. Grace loves the swings so we spent the majority of the time there and I decided Garett needed to have his first try.

He Loved it!
Until he actually started swinging.

Then decided that it really was fun!

The Chain on the swing however, was even more entertaining than actually swinging.

On the way home Grace was tired and didn't want to walk. My car was in the shop that day with my double stroller so this is how we managed. I'm grateful my stroller supported both their weight and that Garett wasn't to wiggly and fell out. We would have never made it home with me holding Garett pushing Grace and on brink of naptime.

Our little Garden

We had our first harvest from the Garden! Peas! We love peas and finally got a few of them.

My high hopes for our garden have not proven themselves yet. I was expecting a flourishing garden and the only thing that seems to be flourishing is the potatoes! Hopefully they turn out well. The broccolli has finally come in and my squash keeps flowering but there are no squash on them! I don't know what to do. I need more sun!

Here's to hoping planting this garden will be worth it in the end.

The Wall

Probably the favorite 4th of July activity we did was writing on the wall. Ben's parents are redoing their front room, and they recently sheetrocked the room. We were sitting around trying to decide what to do and the next thing I know Ben and his brother Seth are writing on the wall! They were writing dumb stuff, so I told Ben if he was going to write on the wall he ought to at least tell the world how much he loved me. So he did.... a lot!

In the midst of Ben writing the rest of the family got in on the action. Here is our little family's hands.
Grace enjoyed coloring on Grandma's wall!
Here is Ben's finished product. "The Epistle of Ben" or "Ode to Alyson my love" is what he officially named it.

Click on the picture if you want to read a cheesy sample of how much my husband loves me! It was actually really cute!

The walls were covered by the time we were done playing!

What's a fun family activity without a good game or two of hangman on the wall?

Poor Grandma had to use a special primer to cover it all up and I think 2 coats of paint. Hopefully it doesn't leak through, but the memories created that day were totally worth it!