Lake Tahoe 4th of July!!

So after working for Marriott as an advisor over Lake Tahoe for 6 years, I FINALLY made it over there!!!

This is the famous Emerald Bay, and it is where some of the most famous things in Lake Tahoe are...


We had so much fun - and my favorite thing we did was to rent bikes and ride along the trails!




We thought the kids would have a ball too, but after 8 1/2 hours of car ride, I don't think they were exstatic to sit in the carrier for 3 hours.... :( oh well ;)-


I loved it, and it had been sooo long since I had ridden a bike, but it's like they say - You Never Forget!



We also took a Paddle Boat ride across the lake to Emerald Bay, which was a great way to get out on the lake and see around. The lake is really choppy, so boating can be a little crazy!Timber Lodge had this fabulous restaurant called "Fire and Ice" that was soooo good. You would select what food off the ice you wanted and then take it to the grill and stand and watch them cook it for you!

It was all you can eat so we were sooo full!!!

But the coolest thing we did was pay to be at a private beach club to watch the fireworks over the lake. The barges that set them off were right in front of us and the fireworks went off right over our heads. They also did them to music so it was really cool!

Here we are waitinig around at the beach and in the dark for them to start.

The lake is gorgeous and HUGE!

We hiked up to a waterfall - we thought we would do a lot more hiking, but NOT WITH KIDS :)-

They were done after 10 minutes,.... next time we will go alone!

There is also a lot of bordering lakes around, and they are just as pretty and more secluded. This one is a small one off the beaten path called Lake Lily.

It was great to finally see the property and lake. It was a wonderful place to visit!

Catch Up!!

We went through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house a few weeks ago with our kids, and after having been through the Draper Temple, they new what to expect.

We gave them a huge lecture on "They better be good, quite and behave... OR ELSE"

And it was so cool, they really were better, they new to be quite and not push through the line and try to run around.

McKelle still tells us almost every day that, "Mommy, we have to be quite in the Temple!"
And she tells us out of the blue, I guess we really made an impact on her! ;)

We went to the Zoo!

Always an adventure :)

Lance loves this guy, he has a picture of him as a child by the Lion water fountain, so everytime we go, we got pictures by it too!

And it has been a little while, but -

Lance and I had our 7 year anniversary! Woo Hoo, lets see if the itch goes away! J/K, no I know that this man and me fit together like a hand in a glove!

We tried out a restaurant up by the canyon called Trio, it was Italian, but with a mediteranian flare, it was really good! I would recommend it!

And of course we got 2 desserts, Creme Brulee' - My FAVORITE, and some tart thing too.

Peonies!! This is for you Nikki!

All those days in training, and now you finally no why I was obsessed with learning about how to grow these lovelies!



From the time I first started to learn about plants, I fell in love with Peonies, and have planted numerous around my house.






I love these shots and they really show you how this plant can be so powerful, I just wished they stayed longer. They come in June for about 3 weeks and then are gone until the next year :(





This was the first year I was able to really get a good show with a ton of blooms on a plant. I was soooo excited!!

Sping To Summer - My Gardening

Early May.............................................Late May

You can see my magenta creeping phlox is dying out, along with my white

Candy Toft, but isn't amazing how the other perennials are filling in and closing

in the space! This will be my first year to have the garden full, and the plants

touching, so the space flows!

This is just another angle!




This was late spring - I love the way this combination works.

It gives you bright color, right at the beginning of the season!



And this is really late (obviously these tulips are gone :) - But when they all were finally in bloom together, they really were a nice addition.

I go GAGGA for BLUE!!!

I love blue flowers, and I would have a whole garden dedicated to blue if I could find enough that were TRUE BLUE like these Forget Me Nots!



I also planted pots this year, with much more attention to detail.

I hope they last during the summer and do well... this is my 2nd attempt at

pots, but 1st year actually dedicating time to learn and plant them

correctly... So we will see what a month brings :)

So in honor of my new passion I created a blog just for my gardening

(but I will still post some on this site too ;)

The address is:

http://gardeningfeverblog.blogspot.com/

So for all you flower lovers out there... come visit, I will post about whats going on in the garden, and what I am working on, I will also post a lot of information I have learned from all of the reading and research I have done over the past few years!

He Said Yes!!

So, Have been waiting for this day to arrive for almost 3 years!

McKelle is potty trained!

So why the title you ask...

So I think this is so funny and totally fits her personality...

I had to share

So I get her to do the #1 duty just fine, and I am not kidding waiting helped because seriously in 3 days completely trained, (she only had 1 accident and that was my fault- out in the yard) She was doing AWESOME! SO then we were trying to get the 2nd duty, and of course she was waiting until nap time and doing it in her diaper, or first thing in the morning...

I would sit her on the toilet and she would say,

"He says no mommy,"

meaning the poop is not coming out ;)

Well I caught her at a good moment, and I played along and said "I see him" ( why it is a him - I don't know) ha ha.... Anyways, she looked at me and had this oh... and got this surprised look and she goes "HE SAYS YES MOMMY!!" -

And sure enough, he did say YES!

So now everytime, I get a play by play of what her poop is telling her, Yes or No!, and this might be more info then you would like, but so funny, she now says if it is a baby, or a mommy, or a daddy, based on size. ;)

SUCCESS!!

We are out of diapers for the first time in 5 years!!

Working for Marriott Has It's Perks!

SO- When we had the opporotunity to take this vacation with our family, we couldn't resist!

My brother-in law also works for Marriott, so we went with a ton of family. There were 17 of us total...


FIRST STOP: LAS VEGAS

We stayed at the JW Marriott, and it was beautiful! We went down to the Strip and walked through the major casinos, stopped at the M&M Store - the Movie there is so cute!

We had pizza at the New York - New York, saw the lions at MGM Grand, and got our Vegas bug squashed ;)




SECOND STOP: PALM SPRINGS

I had never been there, but had only booked it a million times through work, so it was really fun to finally see it! We stayed at the Marriott Timeshare Shadow Ridge. It was WONDERFUL~

It had the best pools for families, and was perfect weather, and so relaxing!

They had a splash park by the pool, and it was a lot of fun to play in! Here is Lance taking a dumping of water!






Next Stop...

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

We left Palm Springs after a few days and drove to Universal. It was about a 3 hour drive in all, not too bad. I had never been there either, so it was cool to see the park, but all in all, not planning on going back anytime soon....

Kenton really loved seeing Characters like SPONGEBOB and I know, not my favorite either, but he loves it, so what do you do!?

PARKS, PARKS, and more PARKS!

We stayed in Newport Coast, and the Marriott Timshares again, and they are about a 25 minutes drive to the one and only DISNEYLAND!!

We got a city pass so we had 3 days to play, but it was pretty crowded and it took a lot of time getting from ride to ride with 17 people!

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL!!!

They reopened Small World... and it was sooo cute... You can see that we were able to always get a full cart where ever we went, so getting the front, back or where ever, was just a matter of fighting over it with our group ;) ( Space Mountain anyone?)

McKelle had been talking about going to "The Castle" for a month! She thought that from the moment we left our drive way, we were going to the castle. We had to tell her that the Excaliber was the castle in Vegas to appease her, then in Palm Springs, the pool helped, but at Universal, she had had it! She wanted "The Castle"

But cool enough, they opened the Castle up and you can walk through it and see SLEEPING BEAUTY!! McKelle was in Heaven!

This is inside the castle!

The new TOY STORY RIDE was SOOO fun, but we waited for 45 minutes to get on it!

NO FAST PASSES allowed :(

Mckelle's favorite ride was the TEA CUPS!







AND THEN, there was the waiting in line for PRINCESSES!! We did Tinkerbell and the Princess Cove where you meet 3. McKelle was overwhelmed at meeting "AURORA" as she nows calls her... She was stunned - it was so funny!



Kenton was buddy buddy was his older cousins! He wanted to ride everything with them... Here he is on Peter Pan with his cousin! We Love this ride- doesn't everyone ;)

CHEESE!!

Trying to get this shot was like pulling teeth!

Taking one of just me and Lance, so much easier!

FINAL PARK: SEAWORLD

Here are the little kids together!

I was so excited to see this show, last time I was at SEAWORLD, I was very little, like 5.

So I was like a kid in a candy store here...!

No luck with getting the perfect picture here... Can you see the whale in the background?

Here was the view from our room at Newport, I hate leaving this place!

I would move in a heart beat if I could!

We stopped at the beach on our way out for a couple of hours, the water was still a little cold,

but the kids had so much fun running in and out of the waves.

FINAL STOP: THE RITZ BABY!!

We stayed over at the Ritz Carlton in Henderson on Lake Mead, on our way back to break up the drive. We were puttin on the ritz baby! It was a gorgeous property! We had the best brunch and walked around down on an inlet of the lake. It was a great way to end the trip.

The Kids were exhausted which helped on the 6 hour drive home.

We couldn't have done it without my sister's dvd player! Thank you Thank you! It was the way we measured time in driving.. "We have 2 more movies tell we are there"

It was a way fun trip, we should have stayed at Palm Springs last, because we were exhausted when we got home from all those parks! But I am not complaining...

So I shouldn't complain every morning when I wake up that I have to work.. right? Still trying to conquer that ;)