Happy Birthday!

My baby brother is no baby anymore...

On the 28th he turned 20!

Geeze, It seems like only yesterday that he was just learning to drive and THAT was freaking me out!

Now he is 20, he's MASSIVE (He is going to play football for Snow College in the Spring) and he can pick me up and spin me around before I even know what happened.

The fact that he is 20 is just freaking me out a little here. Ok freaking me out A LOT!
We decided to go out to Wingers for his birthday dinner. His friend Christian's birthday was a few days earlier so we were celebrating his too. And... This is the part I still can't believe he is old enough for (even though he's been old enough for years now) but his adorable girlfriend Jacee came too. I think this was the first time she got to meet the whole family.

She's so cute and Hey, if anyone can put up with Colter's teasing and pestering, hats off to them ;-)
See what I mean? He just HAD to start a food fight...

What happened to this little scrawny kid?


Oh yeah.... This is what happened...

haha only my brother could keep himself out of trouble by making friends with security at a concert...

I love you Colter, even if you are a pest...

Oh and also
Happy birthday Harry Potter!

Oh a (white water) pirates life is a wonderful life!

This is what I did all weekend...

(those 2 photos are from last year and I didn't get to go last year, I borrowed them from my uncles facebook, sorry Russ...)

I was a Snake River pirate all weekend!

Every year my uncle does a 10 day trip in Wyoming where we white water raft twice a day (its a 2 and 1/2 hour trip down each time, add that up to 20 times, that's a lot of river rafting) When Bryant and I first started dating he wasn't able to come with us and then last year we were newlyweds who were broke and because of the wedding and honeymoon we couldn't take any more time off work, so this year was Bryant's first time. I have many more pictures but most of them are on my dad's camera and he is still up there with my family (Bryant and I could only stay Friday night through Sunday night) or on Bryants iphone. So more to come! But I figured i'd split this up anyways because I tend to write super long blogs.


My dad made everyone these shirts. How cool are they?
Hahah nice Deliverance referance!
(and its hard to read in the pic but our "rafting rules" are there: Save your captain, save your paddle, save yourself.)
Getting into the pirate spirit while packing

Packing for Ace.

on the road
We brought Ace along for his first camping trip. The whole way there he slept with his head on the center console between our arms. Every now and then he'd wake up and try to crawl in Bryants lap. What a cuddle bug.
The first night he whined for half the night outside so we finally brought him inside and he laid down next to Bryant, then after a couple of hours he came over and laid down next to me and then in the morning when I got up to go get breakfast he snuggled up to Bryant.
I love my boys.


Saturday morning was our first run. We had a blast! It was a little cold in the morning and the water is always cold but it was still super fun! I didn't go on the second run because I was exhausted from the first one so I took a nice long nap.

Well, thats all the pics I have right now. And I desperately need a shower cause i'm covered in river guck, sweat, dirt, layers upon layers of bug spray and sun screen, and buckets of dog slobber and i'm covered in mosquito bites. But I guess thats what you get when you live like a pirate for a weekend!

More later!

Perfect days

Some days are just perfect.
Monday was one of those days.

We had what we thought was going to be our last softball game of the season, but it turns out, we won for the first time!!! We played the team from 2 weeks before who we lost too on a bad call and I was talking to one guy from their team and he said they had never won a game until they played us, so I thought it was a fair trade.

We had to play a game directly after against one of the first teams we ever played and it was not a good game at all. First, we were so tired, and it was at least 95 degrees out (I went through 4 water bottles) and the other team were all jerks. If you forfeit, the league requires you to pay the other team 30 dollars (stupid rule) and the last time we played we were losing really badly and they kept saying "you guys should give us the 30 bucks cause you suck so bad so we can go get some beers"

Jerks

Needless to say, we lost that game, but we were all still feeling really good about our win earlier. Our last game will be next Monday unless we win again. Woo!

That night we drove to the Quarry, which is an indoor rock climbing place for Bryant's work party.
I love rock climbing but I didn't this time because I have been feeling sick off and on for about 2 weeks now and I didn't want to be 30 feet in the air and have to puke or something. Also, I was still exhausted from 2 softball games in a row.Bryant learning how to do the right knots for his harness and rope.He's a fast learner.

Tuesday was a perfect day too.
First, Bryant and I took our adorable Ace for an afternoon walk.

He was having some serious attention span issues.


I love that Ace's two favorite places to drink water are the hose and the faucet in the bathtub. I think he just has fun more than he is thirsty.

We got new neighbors this week and their little girls started venturing into our backyard (it's just what happens when you are the only one with a swing set on the whole block) they were really cute and they ALL loved Ace, who just lied there, happy as a clam with his bone and Bryant, who was showing off his new iphone to them.
There was something really funny on it cause they all giggled for a good 10 minutes. (And don't you just love that youngest girls stripped dress!?)

It was nice just sitting out on the lawn during the summer sunset with my hubby, mom, sister, dog and new neighbors. I was glad Ace did so well with them, he's usually nervous when people he doesn't know pet him, especially kids who just want to tackle him, but he just sat there and watched them.

When their dad came over to tell them it was time to come home, Ace got up and growled at them. At first I was mad at him for growling, but then I realized that he had put himself in front of the girls. It's nice to know that my little wimp of a puppy is willing to protect kids. It will make me feel good to have him around when I have my own family. And he stopped growling once I told him to stop.

Last night was another perfect day but I have to go get ready for work.

Tune in next time to find out what made a normal Thursday perfect!

Hippie Girl

Sorry for the lack of blog posts

It has been a crazy couple of weeks! Bryant and I were able to go to his hometown of Mt. Shasta California for independence day weekend and we didn't bring our laptop so I wasn't able to keep everyone updated while we were there. Which means that this could quite possibly be a long one. Possibly... depending on if I can finish it. I might just split it up into a couple different posts if I get too tired (I took a 4 hour nap, woke up to watch Dr. Who and now I'm tired again... And yes, call me a geek but I love Dr. Who!)

Ok so lets start from the beginning...

Last Thursday my sister-in-law Chantel came down from Rexburg Idaho. My Brother-in-law and his wife moved to Sacramento and couldn't take their truck out, so we volunteered to drive the truck out to Mt. Shasta for them, which is about 3 hours North of Sacramento. Friday morning, we packed up and left bright and early, Chantel and I in my car and Bryant in Jacob and Sally's truck. (We had fun with walkie-talkies!) After a 13 hour drive (8 of that through Nevada... Worst. Drive. Ever.) we arrived in beautiful Mt. Shasta!!!

It was great to see Bryant's family! I got super lucky with in-laws. I even got to meet Bryant's youngest brother Tyler for the first time, who just got back from a two year mission in Argentina for the LDS church (well I had met him once before Bryant and I were ever even dating and it was only for a minute) On Saturday, Jacob and Sally and their super adorable baby Jayden came up from Sacramento and Bryant's Grandma Donna came up from Mountain Ranch. So they were able to have to whole family together for the first time in over 2 years!

Saturday we went downtown to enjoy and festivities. They shut down the whole main street every year for vendor booths and they have live music all day long. We shopped around for a while and Bryant enjoyed seeing all of his old friends.
Tyler (left) and Bryant (right) enjoying snow cones.

Bryant was a sweetheart and bought me a bright yellow wrap-around skirt! One thing I find really funny about this town is the amount of hippies that live there! But it makes for nice shopping because I love the clothes!My in-laws, Ed and Robyn enjoying the shopping too.Jayden enjoying her first 4th of July. Yeah I basically have the cutest niece ever!

Sunday, which was the fourth, we went to Bryant's old home ward for church. It was so nice being able to go to a class for the first time in over a year! I didn't have to spend 2 hours trying to calm a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds down. I also LOVED how nice everyone was to us! We have been in our ward for over a year and a very very small handful of people have acknowledged that we exist let alone talked to us. Nearly everyone in Bryant's ward was happy to see us and wanted to know how we were doing and were inviting us to go rock climbing and such. Very very nice people if you ask me.Grandma Donna with Jayden after church

That evening we all went to the golf course to watch the fireworks! THE WHOLE TOWN was there it seems like! They had bands playing and food and everyone was there hours before it got dark.
I even played a bit of football with a little kid. Well, it was more like he would toss it as high and he could above his head and I'd catch it so it wouldn't hit him in the face. Adorable nonetheless.Grandma Donna, Jacob, Jayden, Sally and Robyn

After the fireworks, we went home, had fruit pie and played a round of take two and garbage.Jacob and Sally playing take twoEd, Tyler and Bryant counting up tiles.

Monday and Tuesday Bryant took me around Mt. Shasta. I have been here a few times and it's a really small town and yet I still haven't seen it all. We went to the bookstore first which was probably the cutest little bookstore you ever did see. Just a few alcoves and a handful of tables. The fiction section in my store is huge. There it was maybe 5 or 6 shelves. Very small and I loved that it felt so homey. I would be very happy to work there. I wouldn't have a line of angry people wondering why the book Glen Beck recommended is out of print or impatient women standing over me repeatedly asking me where think and grow rich is while I'm trying to clean up a little girl who just puked all over the place (which happened today. Grrr)

After the bookstore trip, we shopped around for a bit. Most of the shops are crystal shops and hippie-type stuff (as Bryant calls it). We eventually made our way to the city park which looks more like a campground than just a city park. It was beautiful with all the trees and a river and we spent an hour or so wandering around in the woods. Bryant told me that people drink straight out of the stream cause it's the best water in the world. I didn't believe him cause I love my water at home which comes out of a spring a block away from my house, but I took his dare to drink the water at the spring at the park. There were, once again, lots of hippies there, filling up water juggs and such and so I wandered over to a different spring (I didn't want to drink where people's feet were, gross) and i'll admit it... It was pretty dang good water and extremely cold.

I have pictures from the park but I have yet to put them on my computer and this blog is too long as it is so I'll save those for another post.

I loved spending the weekend out there and I feel so blessed to have married into Bryant's family. There are all so amazing and loving. I really love Mt. Shasta too. Someday I'd really really like to live there. (Bryant says I would blend right in with the hippies...)

Bet you never would have guessed....

Bet you never would have thought that I went to the new Twilight movie...

But I did.

Yup, me.

I, Brooke went to the new twilight movie at midnight

You heard me.

As most of you who know me personally know, I am not really a twi-hard. I work at a bookstore so I have access to books that I feel are better written and I took four years of film classes to know when to spot a good movie. But I still ended up seeing it.

My neighbor rented out a whole theater, and rented out a room at a place called Noah's where she threw a party before the movie started. It was actually really fun. My mom had bought tickets for me, my little sister and herself so it was really fun to have a girls night out, which is rare now that I'm married and working and still going to school.


Sage is wearing a shirt that a friend of mine got for our last twilight movie release party at work and asked if she would like it. It says team Alice on the back. It's really big on her, but she loves it!


My mom's best friend (and my second mom) Deanna and her daughter Ashley came too!


And my friend Valinda was there with her adorable daughters too.

(sorry Mom and Valinda, I stole some of these photos from your facebook)

They had a white elephant gift exchange and I thought I was being clever with the body spray I found called "twilight woods" and what did I end up with? Bubble bath and lotion called "twilight woods" haha! I'm actually really happy I got it cause it smells really good and I could use a bubble bath for sure.

As for the movie? I was actually really surprised by it. It wasn't AS cheesy as the other two (thank goodness!) and they really lightened up the characters (double thank goodness!) People were actually smiling and not looking at the ground and mumbling the whole time.

so overall, it wasn't a waste of half a nights sleep haha!

Well, now I'm off to clean the apartment and start packing for California! We leave bright and early tomorrow!