J. Walk #13

I take alot of sports photos through the year. Just thought I would post a few from this summer. This is Jake doing what Jake does best. Catching, Pitching, and Batting. His team made it to the Tournament of Champions this year and won 2 out of 4 games there. Pretty good for a 1 year old team. Only good things to come. Now if we could just figure out how to keep the parents happy. The kids seem to be just fine...

Summer so far

I have been a very busy little lady so far this summer, but things are now starting to slow down so I thought I would update. Our summer has been filled with lazy Sunday afternoons at the Lake, baseball, baseball, and more baseball. For more on that check Jake's blog. We finally escaped for a quick little 3 day camping trip to Yuba Lake last week. Here's how it went...wind, torrential thunderstorm, river running through my tent, wind, wind, beached boat, wind, wind, bruise of a lifetime due to my 'Firedance' (don't ask), wind, wind, puking kid, wind, wind, trying to escape only to get rope stuck in the prop, wind, wind. I am not kidding here so don't let these happy little faces in these photo's fool you.








Hopefully our Lake Powell trip is more succesful.....

Theater Room is Done (well almost)

Why is it that remodeling projects always seem so fun when you're dreaming up the possibilities, picking out chairs, and carpet? Then it all goes to hell and you are suddenly knee deep in sawdust, electrical wire, holes in your sheet rock, and red dust EVERYWHERE! Nothing ever goes perfectly and this project was no exception. Thanks to a lot of blood, sweat, tears, heavy machinery, and good friends and family that aren't afraid of a little hard labor (Rory) we are finally enjoying our new room. This room is definitely man-tastic. It just oozes testosterone.
We still have a few small touches left like movie posters, component closet door, and one more section of countertop on the pony bar but I thought it was finished enough to post.

Here is what it has looked like for the last 10 years...

This is about midway through the construction...

This is our finished product...
wet bar
view from the back (the wall is the pony bar, it will have a black granite countertop and 4 chrome and black barstools)

view from the front, Wade and Jake are watching the Jazz Game

view from behind the front row of chairs

Although it's only a few weeks old, we have thoroughly christened our room with 4 parties so far. I'm sure there will be many to follow! If anyone wants to come watch a movie we charge a nominal fee of one Blue Ray DVD per visit. lol.

The old and The new

This week I was going through all the pictures on my laptop and ran across this photo circa 2004 and I couldn't help posting a current photo of Luke playing soccer. Can you believe how much he's grown in just 6 short years?

Sunshine Tournament

It's spring! We spent last weekend in sunny St. George at the March Madness tournament watching Jake & Wade's South County Rebels battle it out with teams from throughout the state of Utah. They went in as the underdogs because they are a new team, only been together for about 6 months, and 3 out of 10 of their players are brand new. They were pretty nervous going in because the teams from down South have the ability to practice outside year round, and the Rebels have been stuck practicing in a dance studio for months.
Game 1 was against a St.George team, and we managed to beat them 11-2! That was a pleasant surprise and gave the little guys some swagger in their step. The next team they played they won 11-1. Day 1 was a success, but we were looking forward to much tougher opponents on day 2.
Day 2 opened with a game against an Orem team that they have met up against before but have never won. They have a really excellent pitcher in their arsenal. They played tough all game but ended up losing by 1 point. Jake pitched half of this game and did a great job, even when it wasn't looking to good. He kept his cool and battled through. We saved our best pitcher for game 2 that day against the Synergy. They were the best team in our bracket by far and were undefeated for quite some time. The little guys went in with all they had and squeaked out a win of 11-9! Pandemonium. The coach on the other team is one of those 'career coaches' and could not believe that some no-name team just beat him! His sponsors are not going to be happy...
The 3 wins got us into the championship bracket for final game day. Basically 32 teams down to 8. They were the 8th seed so had to play the hardest team in the 9u division. They could not win against the giants from SLC, but were very proud to even be playing that day. They were very good sports, even in a few sticky situations with crazy score keepers and opposing coaches, and managed to have alot of fun in the mean time. Wade only lost his cool a few times, but promptly apologized to the players and restated his complaint in a calmer fashion. Jake is becoming one of the best little catchers around. His small stature makes it very easy for him to bounce and jump and basically catch anything that is thrown at him. His no fear attitude makes him throw his body in front of all pitches so that nothing gets by him. I overheard a coach of the SLC team tell his players that they were absolutely in no way supposed to try to steal bases that game because that catcher would get them for sure. Nothing like fear of a 62 lb 9 year old! That's my Jakey...






The baseball world can get a little too competitive and crazy, even at this young age, so we are constantly reminding the boys that we are the team that still has fun playing baseball. 8th place out of 32 teams is pretty darn good. Way to go Rebels!

Finally, remodel pictures

I've been a belated blogger. Our kitchen-great room remodel has been done for months now and I have failed to post the pictures on my blog. I have had several people ask, so sorry, but here it finally is. I was stupid and posted the 'after' pictures first, but it takes too long to delete and reload them all so you get what you get. As you can see it is a dramatic transformation. We went in a totally different direction than what we previously had. The old room served us well for 10 years, but it was time for an update. Thanks to Josh for all the great ideas, and for humoring me with stupid questions like "what kind of lights should I buy?", and "does the accent chair have to be the exact same height as the sectional?". The stupid things you stress about when you're dumping a huge chunk of change into something.










My favorite parts of our new space are the glass fronted cabinets with lights behind them, the double ovens, the dark new floors, the countertops Wade picked out, and finally having seating for 7 in front of the T.V. Our cabinet guy did a fantastic job also, and was patient with us wanting everything done RIGHT NOW! It's hard not having a functioning kitchen for months and months. Also, thanks to Wade for humoring me through all my little fixations and being a terrible quality control monitor while he was doing the tile backsplash. We adore the new light, airy coastal feel of our room. So much more to do on this house though. If anyone knows of a $ tree let me know. I will let you all know what our next big project is soon, and hopefully be more punctual in posting pictures of the results.

Zoetry at Paraiso de la Bonita

Time to blog about our latest adventure. Wade and I were lucky enough to spend a glorious week in Mexico last week. Thanks to our wonderful parents who are always willing to watch the boys. We went to the Zoetry Resort & Spa in Paraiso de la Bonita, which is located halfway inbetween Cancun and Playa del Carmen. Here are our favorite highlights. There are quite a few pictures so bear with me.

We spent an entire day sailing. We sailed for about 2 hours, dropped anchor on a sandbar next to a reef, then went snorkelling for about 45 min. We then hopped back aboard, sailed to shore where we got to play on a beautiful beach for about an hour, then sailed home. They staff was awesome. Food, drinks, and dry towels a plenty.

Do we look relaxed or what? They had beautiful little beach palapa's that were great during the day, and also for sunset watching in the evening as we are doing here. The sun went down really early, about 5:00 so that meant to get in enough sun time we had to hit the beach around 9 AM! What a rough life.

This was by far Wade's favorite part of the trip. (other than me in a swimsuit all day, tee hee) Fresh Pico De Gallo and Guacamole anytime he asked for it! He would have it at 10 in the morning, with lunch, and for an afternoon snack around 4 PM. It was sooooo good!

We took a cooking class one afternoon from the Dessert chef on staff at the resort. We learned how to make a bittersweet chocolate sauce to dip fresh fruit in, and Bananas Flambe'. It was pretty fun! Don't we look hot in our hair nets?

Daily walks on the beach in triplicates fulfilled our exercise needs for the week. The beach was filled with these HUGE conch shells. Yes I did manage to get one home. I'm my mothers daughter.

This was the pool. We spent alot of time here. When you would approach the pool area, you're assigned waiter would meet you at a chair, lay towels on it for us, fetch me an umbrella because I like my face shaded, and bring us our favorite drinks. I felt like Ivanka Trump! At meal times they would bring you a menu which included everything from burgers, steak, sushi, ceviche, wood grilled fish, etc. If you wanted it, they would find it.

Every morning we would roll over in bed, order room service for breakfast and it would be delivered 30 minutes later to our private lanai. Here we are having kick butt waffles and macadamia french toast. Yumsters!

Here is a pic of the other half of the lanai. I am looking out over the ocean in my bathrobe. Tough life, I know.

One of my fav's was the twice daily room cleaning. They were thorough too! At night they would come freshen up you're towels, turn down you're bed, spray you're linens with lavender spray, spread fresh tropical blooms on you're sheets, and leave you the love message for the day along with the schedule for yoga, spa treatments, sailing excursions for the next day. So many decisions...

This was our re-creation of the Corona commercial. We both love those commercials, so we thought we would make our own version and print it off to look at when home during the dreary month of January. This is now my screen saver for good reason. Beautiful!

It was bar none the best trip we have ever taken in a field of tough competition. Thanks sweetie for finding us such a beautiful place where I was treated like the queen I know I am! JK. Love ya babe... until next time...