Dance Battling: A True Art Form

The scene: Vero's second wedding reception in Utah. A somewhat subdued event. The happy couple greeting their guests. Chatting and mingling at tables. Cake eating. Guests beginning to leave. And then, it happens. The DJ decides to play a few dance songs to end the night while people are beginning to take down tables and clean up.


The signal for Vero's friends to let the good times roll!


There are few rules when it comes to dancing, but here's a good one: Dance, not only with your body, but with your mouth as well.


Uh oh...here comes the challenge. Vero calls Bo out with her awesome running man move.


Bo counters with a little Vanilla Ice.


Oh no she di'in't--MC Hammer typewriter move!


A new battler on the scene with his own MC Hammer moves! Go Alex, Go Alex!


Bo's back with some sweet Michael Jackson moves!

Tough battle....but there can only be one champion.


Victory dance!


Wait...looks like we have a tie!

Good work people. It was an honor to be there with you to witness such a thing of beauty.
P.S. Vicky, you were truly missed. :)

Cute or What?

I've never been into all the girly stuff. In fact, at the time we found out I was pregnant with a girl, I didn't even like the color pink. I always said that my girl wasn't going to be into Princesses and stuff like that. Little did I know that it wasn't up to me. :) Melia absolutely LOVES all things pink, fluffy and Princess looking. And I have to say that since she has come into our lives I have softened to that kind of thing quite a bit. How could I not with this adorable little girl?


Anyway, Melia loves dancing and so do I and I have been wanting to put her in a dance class for quite a while now. After we moved here, another mom told me about this dance class that has a different Disney theme each week where the girls get to dress up like princesses. This class had Melia's name written all over it. So I called and Melia got the last opening!


We've been to 4 classes now--Cinderella, Mary Poppins, Tinkerbell and Alice in Wonderland and I have to say that this may be THE cutest thing I've ever seen! She and her friends are simply adorable dancing around in their costumes. These pics are from the Mary Poppins week.


I love being her mom!

Mar Vista Ward "Transplants"

One of the coolest things about moving here to Utah is being able to hang out with all of our old friends who have moved to Utah from So Cal. There are a bunch of us from our church who were in the Mar Vista singles ward together back in Whittier. We've decided to start getting together once a month because, well, there's nothing like old friends getting together for a good time! And we know there are more of you out there--everyone's welcome! We'll try to get the word out better for next month.


Alex and Heidi


Fawn and Dave


Brian and Austin


Me and Bo


Vero, Peter and Olivia (Peter was adopted into the gang by marrying Vero. :) )


The mini me's. That's one of the weirdest things--seeing your friends morphed into little people.


I thought this was a cool shot.


Thanks for all the laughs everyone!

More Visitors!

Have I mentioned we've been a little non-stop lately? The weekend after Caleb and Palmyra left, Bo's parents stayed with us for the weekend of his cousin, Rashel's, wedding. The weekend after that, Blake and Dani came for the weekend. Blake is Bo's buddy from his last job in Chico, CA. It was fun having them here and we packed a lot of stuff into a short time.


Here we are at Temple Square. Melia was excited to show them the big statue of Jesus. :)


Bo was looking forward to this before we even moved here I think. He couldn't wait to take Blake to a real Brazilian BBQ. Meat, meat, and more meat. I have to say that, as a non meat eater, I was wondering if this would be worth it for me. But the salad bar was delicious!!


This was right after our farewell breakfast at Mimi's Cafe. But before that, other events from the weekend included trips to several breweries (Blake loves them), trip to the Great Salt Lake (yes, the saltiness was tasted), and a mean Hand and Foot tournament. :)


Thanks for the Princess tent guys! It has definitely gotten good use already!


Large man, little tent.

Another Crazy Week!

Ok, enough procrastinating. We've had a ton of stuff going on lately and I've been taking mental notes of all the things I wanted to blog about, but had a total lack of motivation to actually do it. So last night I looked through some friends' blogs and got motivated.

So let me take you back to the week after our vacation--like mid August. That's when my brother in law, Caleb, sister in law, Palmyra, and nephews Alex and Jake came to stay with us for a week. What were we thinking having people stay with us for a week right after a week long vacation with the whole family? I'm not sure--but I'm glad we did. :) This week gave us a chance to hang out and get to know the people we love even better. Yes, we had our crazy moments--how can you not with 4 kids in a confined space?? But we had a lot of fun and we are really glad they came.


Here's their cute family plus Melia in front of the Salt Lake Temple. You would never know that we fought a huge storm just to get there!


Happy Birthday Caleb! We went to Azure's house for swimming and a BBQ.


Melia made Uncle Caleb a card. :)


We had lots of fun on the slip and slide! Thanks Grandma Carol!


This is right before Melia took Alex out!


Just chillin' with Uncle Caleb watching a movie.


Vero and Peter had their second reception and we had a ton of fun dancing! Here's us shaking our booties to the Macarena. Yes, we danced to the Macarena. Don't judge.



This was our attempt to spend the day hanging out on the "beach" at Lake Utah and get some swimming in. Can I just say that I really, really miss the beaches in So Cal? It was so dirty here and there were so many rocks that we could hardly get out in the water. Needless to say we didn't end up staying very long, but at least we got some cute pics of our families.

Thanks for a fun week guys!
P.S. We're waiting for a rematch of our Hand and Foot tournament!

Vacation!!

Two weeks ago, we took a trip to Cedar City for a family vacation with Bo's family. His parents rented a big house there and we hung out and played together all week. We had a lot of fun...


Here's Naiya--"Look Ma! No Hands!" She was standing up by herself and was pretty happy and kind of surprised by it. :)


The kids totally got addicted to Wii on this trip. They played everyday and Melia and Eden actually got really good at bowling. Wyatt and Alex were a work in progress. Maybe next year's vacation--for getting a handle on Wii...and for deciding they really want to be friends after all. :)


It was so good to see Grandma Adeline again. We missed her and I think she really had fun watching the girls play and interact.


Naiya is soooo close to walking and we thought she might do it during our vacation since she had so many people to practice with. No dice. But actually, she took her first steps today with Bo and I in the living room. She took a good 3 or 4 steps and she could totally do more, but she's still got that mental block going. 16 months old. Just taking her time. :)


We did not slack too much healthwise on this vacation. Caleb brought his P90X workout DVDs and lets just say that many were sore for most of the week.


We had a Family Home Evening outside by the fire pit. Micah did a really good job giving the lesson. Eden just got a splinter in her finger prior to this, thus she's not looking so happy here. Yeah, the house was great, but the outside was not so kid friendly. Lots of dirt and rocks. Out in the middle of nowhere. Reminded me a little of Paradise. :)


The pool at this place turned out to be freezing, so we spent a lot of time in the jacuzzi. That is, until we actually went in it during the day time and realized the water was green.


Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.


So we went to a park to have a picnic and we encountered a real live polygamist family there dressed in long dresses and bonnets and everything!! I don't know why, but I got excited to see this. :) Actually, I'm glad we didn't see this until after we had already moved to Utah and had been here for a month so we got to see that people are normal and cool here. If this would've been the first thing I saw...I might have been a little freaked out.


That night, we went to a Shakespeare festival and they had a fun show for the kids with dancing and singing.


So we planned a nice leisurely day at Zion's National Park to camp out by the water and swim all day long. Well, long story short, this is the closest we got to getting wet.


But we made the best of it.


We took a hike up to the emerald pools. We never actually saw any--emerald, that is.


We stopped for ice cream to cool down on the way home. Naiya loves feeding daddy.


We celebrated August birthdays while we were there. Happy birthday Caleb and Bo!


This is on the top of the "mountain" that the kids hiked up one morning because the one that some of the adults were hiking was a little too big.


Goodbye to Grandma Adeline, Grandma Carol and Grandpa! They left a day earlier than the rest of us.


Bo was really broken up about it.


We had a dance party on our last day there. When parents are away, the kids will play. :)


Naiya got really attached to baby Jake. She wanted to hold him in her lap and pet his head. Every time Tia tried to take him away, she got upset.

We're thankful for a great time and a great family!

When Is Father's Day Again??

Ok, so this is totally late, but I just wanted to give a shout out to Bo for being an awesome father to our girls. They are so blessed to have him and so am I. :) The girls and I went shopping at the Dollar Tree for our Father's Day gifts for daddy and they had a blast! Melia was so excited and kept telling everyone that we were getting presents for Father's Day for her daddy. She went through the store singing a Father's Day song that she made up and saying, "Oh, I think Daddy would like this!" about practically everything she saw. This is what we came up with.


From Naiya, a football to play catch with Daddy. :)


From me, a Sudoku book.


From Melia, beautiful fake flowers. :)


Happy Father's Day! We love you! You're our favorite daddy! :)