Trip to the Santos Home

LaRee a.k.a. Lury ( isn't that just the cutest thing you have ever seen) and I took a quick and last minute trip to SLC to the Christening of Jaxson and Jakeb Santos and the farewell party for Jesse Santos, he is in the Army and heading to Iraq soon. Yvette Santos was my co-worker in San Diego and she has treated me like family since day one of coming into her life. I love her first boy Jarad, he is such a shining star and he loves LaRee which thrills me to death. Yvette and Jesse have adopted Jaxson and Jakeb and they are two of the sweetest boys I have ever come across. This trip was like going to see family.

On our Houston to Salt Lake, Salt Lake to Houston portions of the flight, I kid you not, we got the last two seats on both flights. What a relief and a blessing.

LaRee was DYING to see out the window and after many attempts this super nice stranger let LaRee sit on her lap while she slept. How nice is that?! I love thoughtful people! I wish I was more like them.

This is part of the family and guests working on the gift bags.

At one point all of the children sat down to watch a movie.

The night before the Christening Nana put the girls hair up in rollers and LaRee decided she needed a few too. Crazy kid - more curls on her head is the last thing she needed but Nana graciously obliged .

I didn't get many pictures of the Christening since I was put in charge of another persons camera but this is one of my favorites because it has most of my favorite people in it (minus Robert :) ) and of course Nana, who was home watching the little crazies.


My Friend Melissa, whom I also met in San Diego, was in Utah visiting her in-laws and Yvette had her come take pictures at the Christening. Afterward Melissa invited LaRee and me to have lunch with her and Brooklyn at one of the restaurants on top of the Joseph Smith Building. It was a lot of fun having "just girls time" and I always enjoy my time with Melissa. She is so talented and full of good ideas. I picked her brain a lot on our outing.

Brooklyn and LaRee on Temple Square

OMGosh - the food is always amazing, ALWAYS!!

What a patient dog. Thor let LaRee love on him all she wanted.

Jarad had a constant shadow

While I was in Salt Lake I didn't have a car so I really thought I would only see the Santos Family but after I posted on Facebook that I was there and I was totally blown away by many of my friends that wanted to see me and were willing to come to me - LOVE THAT!

Gwen, she and I attended travel school together in Orem, she drove up from Payson. LaRee got really sick right before the party started so due to all of that craziness, we did not get a picture taken (sad).

My friend and neighbor from college same over Sunday evening. We just re-found each other on Facebook. I think the last time I saw her was, oh - about 15 years ago. It was so good to see her again after all of these years and the best part (well, best parts) were that she brought her family so I could drill them and ask them a million questions about her and we were just able to pick up as if we hadn't even missed a beat. She brought her college scrapbook which was a riot to go through. Oh, to be young again...

Andrea and her family

LaRee got super sick after the Christening which was a huge bummer. I was very touched because everyone was so helpful and concerned. How sad is this picture?

Soon after Andrea and her family left Jen and Dan showed up (yea!) They are part of the Provo "Loop", a group of us from the Connecticut Mission that got together on a regular basis while living in Provo/Salt Lake. Back then, we felt we were special enough to call ourselves "The Loop"once again, oh, to be young again...

Summer fun

Busy, busy, busy!! Some of our latest summer adventures...

One of LaRee's favorite summer activities is swimming with her friend Trey a.k.a Fray and his two brothers Parker and Zander. She asks more times then not if we can go swimming with them and when she is tired of asking she just goes and gets her swimming suit.

If it were up to LaRee we would live in the backyard and just come inside to get food, drink and cool off and then back out we would go. Here are a few shots of her and her Grandpa Berg tending to the garden. Grandpa has to pay close attention so he does not get a shower!

Our 4th of July was pretty low key. Our ward (church congregation) had a breakfast and pool party at the local pool. Our scouts did a flag raising, the Makua's sang a few patriotic songs which I really liked. Music seems to really touch my heart. LaRee enjoyed swinging until we headed over to the pool. We didn't swim long because little misses was obsessed with getting up on the lifeguard chair and she could not understand why she was not allowed. We topped off our swim with a McDonald's cone and George Foreman burgers because it was way too hot to grill.



On the second of July we celebrated 4 years of marriage. It's fun to reminisce with Sione about all the happenings in these last four years. Our first date was in San Francisco. Sione took me out to dinner and then we decided to get together again for breakfast and both places were next to the airport which is soooo Sione, he knows what he knows and he sticks with that. This is a pictures from our first date - it soo makes me laugh.... oh young love :) After dinner I said that I wished I had a piece of dental floss and Sione said he had some in the glovebox and at the very moment I knew it was TRUE LOVE!!!