Attack & Conquer

Monday morning my boss came into work & decided to not work today!! Very exciting to all of us in the office, don't get it wrong we all love our job but a day off is always great. Mark also had the day off so we have been thinking all week about what we wanted to do today. I think we both knew we wanted to go hiking but were afraid if we said it out loud the rain would start like it did last time we planned a day all for hiking. Joyfully enough it didn't rain today, even though we've been discussing our plans since Wed. night. The next step was deciding what trail to hike, we live in such a great place to hike it was hard to pick one. Mark has always wanted to hike Mt. Naomi, I wasn't so sure but decided I could do it. I am not gonna lie it was a challenging hike but we conquered! The view made it all worth it. At the point right before we hit the snow I was thinking to myself I am so tired, why are we doing this?!?!?! As my mind thought about this. Mark said look up & I did showing me something rather amazing. We were even with a few mountain peaks & above all the others! It made the hike all worth it & even though we still had snow to hike on and more rocks to climb over we made it to the top. The view took my breath away! I can't wait for more hiking adventures!

I have decided I am no good at titling posts so we there is no title. Sunday we decided to try grilling pineapple, it was very tasty in the end but as you can see below there were a few scary moments where I wasn't so sure this was a good idea. Of course my marvelous husband pulled it
off and it was super yummy! Just so you know no one was hurt in the making of the grilled pineapple~

Jessie & Mike joined us for dinner that night, always a fun thing to have visitors and people we can have real conversation with at dinner! After eating the awesome grilled dinner Mark made, and watching the guys play wii for awhile Jess & I voted we should go outside! We have a pretty big yard but sadly not many games to go with it, but we do have croquet!

Jessie got in a little practice for her mallet tossing talent, she is rather good!

Ah brothers trying to pound each others ball out into no mans land! I do have to post that Jessie won both games we played, all these years of her being my sister I had no idea she was such a great croquet player, maybe she could go professional!

Argh I am a troll, I live under a bridge, pay me my toll!

While most of you know I am not actually a troll, I do have something in common with trolls... that is, I don't want goats around. Unfortunately, as Emily and I finished up our dinner Wednesday evening, we discovered we had a goat on our property. One of the guys with whom we live knocked on our door and told us "there is a goat on our property." Dreading a reenactment of the cow incident from last year, I walked outside to find, fortunately, just one goat. He was very contentedly munching on our apple tree. I was happy to leave him be, as was Emily, so we went back inside to keep getting ready for grocery shopping. Of course, that wouldn't fly with the guys. Each of the other two also had to let us know that there was a goat, and one of them insisted that we call animal control.

This was a very friendly goat. I walked up to it to see if it had any identification on it, and it decided I was its friend. It was a true "It followed me home, can we keep it?" kind of situation. It had a tag on its ear, but it was just a bunch of numbers so I couldn't tell anything

from it. We tried to get the guys to just get in the car and let it wander off while we were shopping, but I'm sure memories of a bovine-trampled garden made them very reluctant to

leave this goat unsupervised. So, I did the only sensible thing I could think of and started banging a metal rod against a charcoal chimney to scare it off. Unbeknownst to me, Emily was inside calling Animal Control at the same time. Irritated with all the racket I was making, the goat started wandering down the street and

disappeared down one of the side paths. We decided it was not our problem anymore and went grocery shopping.

We thought this was the end of our goat problems...

the next day I got home from work, got out of my car and was met by one of the guys who told me that the goat was back. I looked over and, sure enough, there it was eating our apple tree. This time, I just called Animal Control to tell them that it was back. I told them I'd keep an eye on it while I waited so I could let them know if it left or anything. I walked back to the door to the garage to find it right there... guess it wanted some attention. I led it back out of the garage, set up a chair, and sat back with a book while it nibbled at our weeds. Finally, the animal control agent arrived, and decided to go ask the neighbors if they were missing a goat... something I suppose we should have done. He returned shortly with the news that the goat belongs to our next door neighbor, who was coming over shortly to pick it up. We had only ever seen horses anywhere near us, so we had no idea they had a goat. The neighbor arrived, and we learned that the goat was called Annie, and that they kept her to eat weeds. He put a tether around her neck and led her home. Now, if we get anymore visits from Annie, we know where to take her.

Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

This is an official catch up post, starting back with the 4th of July. We spent the afternoon with Matthew, Kristin & Axton playing croquet, I love having a yard! That evening Granddad & Grandma H. invited us and the guys up to their house for a BBQ. It was super yummy! After we played a couple of games of kick croquet, apparently we really like croquet. Granddad even joined us in the fun!


July 8th we met up with a bunch of my family & Mark's parents at Bear Lake, it wasn't the warmest day but it was really, really fun! Can you guess what we built out of sand?

Friday the 10th was Matthew's birthday, of course we had to celebrate with him! Apparently mini golf has become a tradition in celebrating Matthew's birthday because that is what we've done the last two years, this year my parents, Miles and Sara joined us. My parents also brought along their "grandkids" (some neighborhood kids who have adopted them), 3 toddlers made the game interesting but hearing little kids giggle is worth anything! After a game of mini golf, which I have no idea who won. We stopped off at caspers for ice cream & cake. Yes I made the cake, nothing great but it tasted good!



Saturday morning bright and early, way to early, we picked Alaina up from EFY at USU. After a nap we headed to Brigham to play with our cousins, as were all relaxing inside out of the heat we noticed Alaina missing, where could she be.....

outside playing with Rupee! After we left Brigham we headed to Provo for James & Emily's reception. We killed sometime at the mall, at a yummy dinner at Goodwood BBQ and than met my parents who were kind enough to deliver James & Emily their "new" loveseat. Okay it isn't new, in fact it is rather old. When we got married Mark's parents gave it to us, no we are handing it on since we have a new couch. It served us well and will be missed, I hope James & Emily enjoy it....best part it doesn't have to be broke in already comfy!


The reception in Provo was beautiful! It was on BYU campus, see Mom H's or James & Emily's blog for details and pictures.... I used Mom H's camera and not my own so I don't have any pictures of it. We couldn't let them not have a cute car saying Just Married, so Mom & Dad bought markers for us to decorate it. James was so excited his brothers didn't know where he parked, but don't worry we did!


After the reception we got to sleepover at Justin & Brittany's house, this was so great! We haven't got to spend much time with these two cousins since they returned from Romania so we jumped at the chance to get to spend time with them! Sunday we attended church at our friend Meredith's ward, she was my roommate before Mark & I got married. She just returned from her mission in New Jersey, so it was really great to see her!

That in short is the last few weeks of life for us! Hope I didn't typo to bad and confuse anyone!

We had an extra fun night last night as we watched the fireworks from our backyard, not only did we get to celebrate our freedom and sing along to great songs about America, but we had extra family here that we don't get to spend holidays with very often. Dad, Mom & Alaina are here from Illinois for James & Emily's reception next week & we got to have them at our house last night!!! It was a wonderful evening!


As I sat and watched the fireworks last night I was struck by how lucky we are to have our freedom, as of late I have felt slightly scared of some of the choices made by our government (that is a whole other vent session & I won't go there) thinking they have forgot the people who actually make this country great, last night it hit me..... it isn't the "big guys" who make this a great country it is the soldiers sacrificing their time & lives, the loved ones who have sent them off to protect us, the people who labor day in and day out to have enough money to barely survive. These are the things that make this country great, the Home of the Brave & the Land of the Free! So try as they might I will not let some "big guy" make me sad to be an American, I love this country and as cheesy as it sounds I will stand up next to anyone and defend it! Thanks to everyone who has sacrificed so very much so I can have the opportunity to say that!

In my blog stalking following my post I found this cake wreckers......watch it, love it & share it. I love this country and the muppets!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDA9NbPAK8o

Wedding Photos

I didn't get very many pictures on our camera at the wedding (but probably took way to many on Mom H's), but here are the few I did manage to take.






The only one I got of James & Emily their eyes are closed from the very bright sun so I didn't put it up. If you want to see some of the two of them go to Mom H's blog and there is a link to see some of the professional ones.

Road Trip

This past week we loaded up with Granddad & Grandma H in their van and headed out for Illinois. Why would we do such a silly thing? For James and Emily's wedding! We were so grateful that Granddad & Grandma let us bum a ride. Yes I complained about all the sitting, but I wouldn't change those miles of driving & the things we learned from these two amazing people for anything! I didn't do very good at taking pictures along the road, not many exciting things to see. Posting on the rest of our week & the wedding will follow when I have time! Thanks again G & G for letting us ride along, we love you!