katie, lately

 

for the 24th of july, we went up to kamas and watched the parade! i had to take a picture of this carquest float, because we order parts from carquest all the time at work, and i thought it was so funny they were in the parade! only in kamas! and we all know that i can never get enough of those three kids. they're the sweetest most hilarious kids around and i'm so proud to be their aunt!

amanda made cooper this bow tie collar for his birthday!

 

sporting his new bow tie. such a handsome boy

 

< drove to park city to take engagement photos for my sister and it was pouring rain as we left the house. i wasn't going to take any chances!

> their photos came out beautiful, though, and the weather calmed down.

 

aw, these two...

 

< devin was having a horrible day last week, and i made him chocolate chip cookies to cheer him up. it worked :)

> devin ordered me this watch for my birthday and it came last week! i had been wanting it ever since this watch shop opened! i love it!

< put it on right away as we were walking out the door to a wedding reception!
> coop got all snugly while we watched a movie with the kids this weekend! so cute.

i don't remember the last time this happened...

Today marks 1 year that I have been working for Cascade. How crazy is that?! Okay, not really. But honestly, it's pretty cool for me. I don't remember the last time I worked somewhere this long, so I'm really excited! I love the people I work with, and work for, and I love the work I do! Seriously, I may complain about being the only girl in the office, but it's like having 20 older brothers - and I mean that in both the best and worst ways ;) I love working for a family owned company, and I feel lucky to have this job. It can get pretty crazy sometimes, but at the end of the day, I still love what I do, and that's the important part, right?! Anyway, that's all.

the weekend

*first of all, i'm sorry my photos aren't showing up right now. at first, i ran out of space to upload directly from this here "write post" draft spot, and then i started using photobucket and just copying and pasting the HTML code over, and now it's telling me i have a limited amount of bandwidth per month? this doesn't even make sense to me. hopefully within the next couple of days i will have it figured out though! how do you share photos on your blog? do you do something different/easier? i would love to know! i got a flickr account, so maybe that's the way i need to go? we'll see... this is also why there aren't any photos in this post because i'm just not even gonna try.

>> we went to the wedding reception for danica and ryan's little sister, haley, who i love so dearly! she made the cutest bride and the smiles on her and chris' faces were huge! they are so happy together. loved it. the governor was there! they are sort of a big deal. plus, it was really nice to see danica and ryan, because it's been ages seeing as how i've been a horrible friend lately (see this post here.) but we've already made plans to change that, so i'm on the mend.

>> it was after that reception that we picked the babies up for a sleepover (already posted about that here.)

>> after we took them home on saturday morning, we cleaned the house and i got to work on some decorations for kayla's bridal shower

>> on sunday, we were asked to sub in a primary class. i spent most of saturday night preparing the lesson, thinking it was the same group of kids we had subbed for a few months ago (they were about 10-11 years old). the lesson was super awkward because these kids were a lot older, and my lesson was stupid to them, and we accidentally tried to make them go to primary, thinking they were still that young, when they were actually all older than 12. oops! oh well. you win some, you lose some. i just want to be called to young women already!! (bishop reddish, do you read my blog?!)

>> sunday afternoon was spent at the park, relaxing to several episodes of how i met your mother, and eventually driving back down to orem (we get so sick of that drive sometimes!) for dinner with devin's family. we've been having such a fun summer with impromptu barbecues and family outings. i love that family. i married into a crazy one, but i love it the same ;) haha

we're more than half way through 2013 and time seems like it's starting to speed up. kayla's wedding is only a month away, her shower is next weekend, and i've still got so much i want to do before the weather cools down! ah! at least we're having a good time.

sleepover

we promised our nieces and nephew months ago that we would have them over for a sleepover. the summer went by way too fast, and we realized we needed to follow through before school started! we picked them up last night and had such a great time with them! we watched all kinds of movies, they played in the backyard and entertained cooper for hours. this morning, devin took the oldest, kayla, rock climbing (it was our birthday present to her. 2 birds with 1 stone, right?!) and while they were climbing, i took the younger ones on a little drive to see the "Up" house! it was so cool and they loved it! after a quick lunch, they were back home, but it was so much fun to spend some time with them! i love these kids so much. i'm so glad i'm their aunt! 

twenty-two

my birthday was on saturday, and i had the best day! i had been pretty sick all day, but devin made sure i still had a really great time. we went to the brad paisley concert the night before, and we ended up trading our lawn tickets for some chairs, which turned out to be really awesome, because a few songs in, Brad Paisley came and stood on a small stage in the middle of all the seats, right in front of us! it was really cool. this was the second time we have seen him live (the first time was at stadium of fire in 2011), and he was so amazing! he is such a crowd pleaser. devin and i were surprised by how much we liked all the openers, too, even though we don't listen to any of their music (the henningsons, lee brice and chris young). it was such a fun concert, and i'd go again and again!

on my actual birthday, i slept in as late as i wanted (10:00am, thanks nyquil) and we went to lunch at cafe bella rue, got a cotton candy cupcake at swirly girls bakery, did a little shopping, and dropped cooper off with my sister. after that, we headed to sandy and checked into our hotel. devin had won a free night's stay at a local hotel through his work a few months ago and we thought this was a perfect time to use it! we were pleasantly surprised with how nice the room was! 

after checking in, we drove to salt lake for our dinner reservation at Pallet, a newer restaurant we had been wanting to try for awhile. it reminded us so much of communal, and they even order their meat from the same local ranch! their truffle fries were delicious, but the serving was huge! We probably only ate about half! the drinks were served in mason jars, which i love (i use mason jars instead of glasses at home, too!), and our meals were delicious, too. devin had a steak and i had trout - it was so amazing! for dessert, we got some house made strawberry sorbet for me, and then walked around the corner to bruges so devin could get a waffle, surprise surprise! 

after that we walked around city creek for awhile, and then headed back to the hotel room and fell asleep watching dumb and dumber on tv. the next morning after we checked out, we stopped at johanna's kitchen for breakfast, then headed to orem to pick up cooper and have family dinner with the ashby's! it was such a great weekend, but after our trip to grey's and all the birthday celebrations, monday was not sounding very appealing to me...

as far as this next year goes... 22 is my unlucky number. this could mean one of two things: 1. it's going to be a bad year. or, 2. i'm going to counter all the bad luck this year and turn that bad omen right around and it's going to be the best year of my life!

leeeet's go with the latter...

 

paid $8 for 2 vitamin waters, and $6 for this cotton candy. ridiculously overpriced, but we still had so much fun and it was worth it!

 

now for a bunch of awful quality concert photos! the stage set up was so cool though. and it was brad!

  

from when he moved to the smaller stage right in front of us!

that tiny person in the middle of the stage is carrie underwood. devin says it was only a hologram but it was her! i just know it!

 

birthday lunch and a cupcake, of course

 

hotel room. it was really nice!

       

this restaurant was incredible! they brought us our check in this old book. 

 

wouldn't have been such a good birthday without this sweet man of mine.

grey's river 2013

another annual trip to grey's has come and gone! we had such a good week in wyoming with our families, and can't believe how fast it went by. we spent our first two days with devin's family, and the last two days with mine.

we took cooper to murphy lake and let him swim | we played nerts with devin's parents | we ate delicious food | we slept like babies in our tent, and watched movies every night on the laptop | we sat around the campfire for hours | we rode 4-wheelers | we drank water from a natural spring | devin got to run the river in a raft with zac and kyle | we went on a hike with my dad | we drove home with 4 people 

and a dog in one car (squishy)

   

< this was a few nights before we left for wyoming. my dad had all these photo albums from past trips and a map of the area out. he spends months planning for this trip ever year!

> instead of driving up the way we usually go, through wyoming, devin and i decided to try going through idaho instead - the drive wasn't as pretty, and it didn't save us any time, so i doubt we'll do that again!

 

< 6 hour car rides... yay...

> coop was so comfy in the back seat with all the pillows and blankets. he didn't mind the ride up one bit!

 

the altima pretty much changed colors by the end of the trip, it was so dirty!

cows. everywhere. always.


murphy lake - devin and i both have a lot of childhood memories here!


our kelty tent is such a champ!


took a 4-wheeler ride up to ray's spring to fill up our water bottles


the 4-wheeler devin and i were riding may or may not have broken down on the way back to camp...


devin, my little brother, and my almost brother-in-law rafted down the river!


there she is! grey's river herself.


a hike with my dad to the warming hut


  
devin caught me a little frog!


the most beautiful place! i love grey's.