I've been tagged!

So, Candice tagged me like a week ago and I'm just getting around to doing this. Here goes...

Three of my...

Joys:
1- My family. Just like everyone else in the world, I feel like I have the best family ever- immediate and extended.
2- Food. I love to eat and I love to cook.
3- Holidays. I love parties, traditions, and getting together with family.

Fears:
1- My kids getting kidnapped.
2- That I'm going to get Alzheimers. I think I might be in the early stages now. I do Sudoku every morning and night because I heard it might prevent getting it.
3- Crazy drivers. I got hit last fall and now I'm a nervous Nelly, especially when I'm the pasenger and Sara is the driver.

Goals:
1- Finish the backyard.
2- Lose 10 pounds. This has been a goal since I gave birth to Jace. He's 11- how am I doing so far?
3- Take my family to Africa. Someday.

Obsessions:
This is funny. I couldn't think of any and I asked my kids what they thought my obsessions were and they came up with a whole slew of them in about 30 seconds. They feel strongly about the first one.
1- Cleanliness. I really don't think so, but I'm sure it seems like it to my kids. I think "organization" is a more accurate word. I don't like the way it feels to be unorganized.
2- Light. I love light. The first thing I do when I wake up is open all the blinds. All of the lights in our home are bright. I hate dim lighting.
3- Right now I'm a bit obsessed with the Food Network. I think this is just a stage that will pass though because it used to be the Game Show Network, but not so much anymore.

Random Facts:
1- I hate fruit flies and cold sores.
2- I have to have ice in all of my drinks except for water. I even put it in my milk if it's not super cold.
3- I love surprises.

I know, I'm not too interesting. I now tag: Sara, Sadie, and Caitlin

Rockin' out with Journey!

Wade and I (and most people our age) grew up listening to Journey. They are classic! So when my sister Denise called and asked if we wanted to go with her and Shayne, we were all over it. We hesitated when we heard that Steve Perry wasn't the lead singer anymore, but after viewing the new lead singer on the internet we decided to go. Journey was awesome but my favorite part of the concert was "people watching". I don't have enough time to get into all the interesting things I saw, but I will say that I find it very comical how many people cannot dance or even clap on beat.
The concert was at the USANA amphitheatre. Cheap Trick and Heart both opened the concert. This is when most of the "people watching" took place. Shayne is almost as excited as Wade!

Wade and Shayne rockin out to "Anyway you want it".

Denise doing some serious rockin out. She nearly rocked Shayne right off the blanket!

Me rockin out. Denise and I were a bit confused with the "Rock On" sign. We get it mixed up with "I love you" and "Hang Loose". Check out the next picture and let us know which one of us is right!

What's not to like?

Aside from Christmas, the 4th of July is my favorite holiday! I think I love it so much because it's kind of lazy. We always start the day by letting the kids be in Bammys neighborhood parade. It's a pretty piddly parade, about 10 minutes long from start to finish. But the kids love it- I actually do too, it's a tradition! After the parade we go to my moms and eat, play in the water, watch movies, eat, play games, do fireworks, and eat, eat, eat. (I'm remembering now why I like it so much). This is Livvy & Jace in the parade.

Chris and his lovey aerobesque on the scooter. Somebody call "So You Think You Can Dance"!
My mom rented a huge blow up water jungle gym thingy. The kids loved it and got very sunburned. This is Sadie, Austin, Jace, and Makenna. I think Denny is behind them somewhere.
So, another tradition we have recently added to our 4th of July festivities is making homemade icecream. We recently got a new recipe-burnt almond fudge- from the Petty's. (Matt & Mark are the homemade icecream gurus, thanks you guys!). It was fabulous. We also had our standard strawberry-banana.
This picture is supposed to be of Sara and I enjoying our yummy icecream. But Sara was enjoying hers a little too much and her "Mmmm" sound effects were too much for me and I lost my composure.

Fantastic Fireworks

I need to figure out how to put my pictures on the way I want. They came up backwards and I don't know how to fix it. Anyway, we went to Wades parents in the evening to eat again (can you even believe it?) and to do fireworks. We usually spend the 4th with my family and the 24th with Wades, but Cade and Candice were here from Oregon so we did some rescheduling. We are so excited to see them!!

My in-laws Wayne and Vickie had some neighbors who had gotten some fireworks from Wyoming. They were much cooler than ours. We had so many fireworks we didn't get to do them all.
Makenna and Caitlin. They have so much fun together. We love it when they come to visit!
The Meier clan. It is not very often that we are all together, so we wanted to get a picture of the whole family while we had the chance. You can tell who the pranksters are in the family!
Yes, more eating! Does anyone have the number to Weight Watchers?

Jackson Hole & Yellowstone

We took the fam on a little vacation to Jackson Hole. It was a blast. Neither Wade or I had been since we were kids and our kids have never been. We did the Alpine Slide while we were there. Makenna was a little nervous to go by herself so we were telling her that if she felt like she was going too fast all she had to do was pull the brake back and it would slow her down. So Wade and I went first and Makenna was after me. Well we waited and waited and waited. When she finally came down we asked her if she liked it and she said "Yeah, I didn't put my brake on the whole way down!" (Yeah right!) I'm sure it felt like it.

So we thought we could do Yellowstone in one day. (Those of you who are familiar with Yellowstone are laughing right now). I had no idea it was sooooo huge. But we at least made it to Old Faithful and were able to see some wildlife on our way...bears, elk, deer,and buffalo- but not a moose-wah, we were sad about that. Old Faithful was pretty cool!

One of the funnest things we did was go to dinner at a place called Bar J Chuckwagon Suppers. The dinner was okay, but the entertainment was awesome. There was a group of men that sang and did some comedy and it was hilarious.

The highlight of the trip had to be our river trip. If you are having a hard time picking us out, Jace is towards the front with a red bandana on. Wade is behind him in his red Utah hat. I'm right behind Wade looking terrified. Makenna & Marquie are next to me, and Jordan is next to Marquie, kind of hidden. So the funniest thing about this picture is that I swear I was not scared at all. I thought it was so much fun, so I was surprised when we looked at the pictures and I have that horrified look on my face. So funny. This picture was taken just before we went through some rapids called "Lunch Counter".