Girls Week-end in Vegas

My sister Mariel had her birthday on August 4th and for her present her husband surprised her and sent her to Vegas to see Phantom of the Opera. We were all in on the surprise and made a girls weekend out of it. Unfortunately we were missing my mom, but everyone else came. We had a blast. We left Friday afternoon, picked up my sister-in-law Kristy in St. George and headed to Vegas.









Saturday morning we went to the Bodies Exhibit at the Luxor. It was really neat. (I just heard that the exhibit is here in Salt Lake right now. I highly recommend it).

After the exhibit it was off to the Bellagio for Pedicures! I had never had a pedicure at a nice salon before and it was enjoyable. Maybe not worth the $100 I had to spend, but definitely an experience. All of our toes looked fabulous for our next stop.....shopping.

We didn't have much time to shop so we just found some mall off of the strip. We ended up looking for gifts to bring home to the kids! Not great shopping.

After shopping we hurried back to the hotel to change. We ate at a restaurant inside the Venetian hotel. It is a sister company to the cheesecake factory and it was very delicious. Than is was show time! I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy Phatom very much since I had just seen it in May, but to my surprise I really did. I think we all did. The phantom's voice was awesome. (At least in my opinion).

Our last stop was the Bouchon Restaurant inside of the Venetian.
One of our friends is a chef at the restaurant and recommended it to us. We thought it would be fun to enjoy dessert there. It was really good. I got brownies and ice cream and it was the fanciest brownies and ice cream I have ever had.

Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast, and drove home. It was sad to leave. We all had such a great time, we are going to make a Girls Weekend a yearly tradition!

2 Years Old

I took Taeya to her 2 year well check up on August 6th. She is doing great. Here are a few things about Taeya at 2 years old:

-36 Inches Long (95%)

-24.6 Lbs. (25%)

-The doctor said she is on track to be 5'9" (much taller than her mom!)

-She finally has all of her teeth

-She loves the water still

-She is getting quite the attitude

-Sleeps from about 9:00pm to 9:00 am (as of this post, that has definitely changed, but at the time of her 2 year birthday that was her schedule)

-Loves watching Scooby Doo, Monsters Unleashed, still

-Always wants Juice to drink (I don't always give her juice)

-Loves animals, especially horses

-Talks really well in my opinion, I know what she is saying about 85% of the time

-She loves to sing, she has to have a song about everything, and if we don't know one, we have to make it up

-She had so much fun at Lake Powell, she is always talking about the House Boat

-Love to Jump still

-Loves her barbies, Mermaid, Ariel, and Cinderella (she now calls cinderella, what-a-rella)

Camping With the Bailey's

Taeya loves our neighbors, the Bailey Family. They have 2 girls, Brynn who is 8 and Kira who is 4, they give Taeya so much attention, and they have such fun girlie toys that it is hard to keep Taeya away. You can imagine how much fun she had when we all went camping together. The Bailey's have a family cabin about an hour past Manti, that was built in 1949. It is old, but really cool. No electricity or running water! Thankfully a flushing toilet was recently added to a little outhouse. The girls had a great time fishing, eating, playing, and traveling together.

The gang: Brynn, Taeya, Kira, Gordon, Seth, and Allison

The teepee the girls built!

Gordon and Taeya fishing, they didn't actually catch anything.

Taeya and Kira

Taeya and Kira in a fun swing we found on the way home.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just crash anytime we wanted to?

Chocolate Milk?

Taeya loves dirt and mud.

You'd think she was drinking chocolate milk!

Lake Powell

For the past 4 years we have gone to Lake Powell with our friend Stella Heath. She owns the boat and the houseboat and we tag along as her offical "crew." Gordon is the captain and I help cook and cleanup! We always have such a great time and this year was no exception!

The thing that made this year different from the others is the small group of people we had. We had Stella, Emily and Scott (Stella's kids), Mark and Michael (Scott's friends), and Garrick and Kelly (my brother and sister-in-law). We got into a great routine during the week. We would wake up whenever, have a nice big breakfast, take the boat expoloring, come home and play some more in the water or just relax, eat dinner, play games, then go to sleep. It was my kind of vacation!! We couldn't ever get the boys to come with us exploring, they were too busy riding the wave runners looking for girls.

We went over the 24th of July (I know I am really behind in my blogging). Taeya celebrated her 2nd birthday while we were there. We had cake and fireworks for the occasion. (Ever since the 4th of July Taeya loves fireworks). Taeya had such a great time, she really is a little fish. She is still talking about the houseboat! Below are random pictures of our great vacation.

Taeya on the drive home. She passed out real fast!!

Taeya's Birthday Party

We had a party for Taeya the Saturday before her birthday at the park by our house. We had family over for a BBQ and Cake and Ice Cream. We have such a great, supportive family. Taeya loved all of the helpers she had while she opened her presents. (I think all of her cousins surrounding her really overwhelmed her, thank goodness she didn't mind not opening her presents!) She got three barbies (2 mermaids, and 1 Cinderella), 2 cute dresses, a princess book, some sand toys, cute lacing cards, some books, and some money. Below is random pictures from the party!