Happy Birthday America!

For the 4th of July, Preston and I had a few friends over for a BBQ, games and fun times!

The Grill Masters

Love this kid.

Megan made everybody delicious Funnel Cakes! Thanks Meg!

Typical face smashed on the window picture! haha

Arm wrestle.. for Lachlan.. full body wrestle. But it worked! He won!

The Colton's! Sorry Tyler, I snapped the picture before you smiled

Sometimes I really think I might kidnap her! In a non-creepy way!

Since we got a HUGE monsoon storm the morning of the 4th, our backyard was pretty much a swamp so we kept the playing inside.

Best place in the house!

We were able to see the city fireworks from our street. I got sparklers and poppers since Surprise was lame and we couldn't do other LEGAL fireworks! Sheesh. It was fun anyway!

Blurry but cute!

This last week, Preston and I had an awesome opportunity to go as "Pack-In Leaders" for girls camp. We just went from Wednesday to Thursday while the 4th year girls did their own overnight hike/camp. It was a great experience. The girls were awesome. The theme of this year's girl's camp was "Shine Like The Son" we focused a lot on letting the "Light of Christ" shine on them. The spirit was really strong throughout the camp. We did about a 6 mile round trip hike that took us to a cave, we pretty much camped with cow's, Preston and I drove a 14 passenger van so that was fun having it packed with girls, laughing, making jokes, singing their camp songs and some of the time, I was wondering if I was at girls camp or scout camp when they started relieving gas in the back and started talking about who farted more... boy's or girls. Good times. At night, we went to "the rim" that overlooked miles and miles. The stars were so bright and there were so many of them. Preston was in charge of the star gazing part. Each girl had to point out 2 star constellations. It was really cool! Preston and I LOVE hiking, camping, eating camp food, the stars you see when camping.. all of it! Even when there were sighting's of a bear that was near our camp and we had about 7-8 girls sleeping in cars (out of about 20).

The next day we took the girls to the next part of camp where they joined up with all of the other leaders and girls. As we were leaving I was SO tired and SO dirty.. sidenote.. Of all my life of hiking and camping, I don't think I had ever been so dirty. The trail we hiked on, was almost hiking in sand.. so you can imagine how dirty our shoes/feet were. So I was so ready to shower and we were up at 4 the first morning and 6 the second morning, so it made for a long 2 day's. But when we took the girls to the rest of camp and saw how much fun they were going to have, I wanted to stay! But, I was just grateful for the time we got to have with them. We had to other couple's who were leader's with us. It really was great and so many memories were made. I'd do it again and again!

Getting ready to hike!!

an old Prospector's cabin from the late 1800's.

There were butterflies EVERYWHERE. They would land all over us. I felt like I was in a butterfly exhibit.

Getting ready to go into the cave. At first nobody was going to go because there were THOUSANDS of mosquito's in the entrance. Nasty.. But, we got our brave pants on, doused ourselves in bug spray, covered our mouth's, tucked in every part of clothing and went in. It was well worth it.

After the hike.

After a bottle of water and paper towels. Seriously, I can handle getting dirty while camping, but feet caked in dirt was just too much. After a little water on them and clean socks, I was ready to roll!

The girls making bacon cheese burgers for dinner!

The Rim

The sunset... beautiful!!

Making breakfast! Check out those pancakes. I'm a pro!

Bucket List Item's... Check!

Two of them at least!! (I'll get to those in a bit)

Wow. Life has been so fun and full of adventure lately. Now, when I say this I think to myself, everybody probably thinks life is perfect with Preston and me. (Because I don't write about the negative, hard times) Why would anybody want to read that? Our life is like everybody else's. We have our struggles and our difficult times but for the majority of the time, we are happy as can be and love what life lets us explore. Preston and I have been married 5.5 years (I can't believe it!) We have had soo many awesome experiences. We are fortunate to travel a lot, spend lots of time with family and friends, spend as much time as we can with each other (when school isn't too demanding on Preston). A couple of years ago, I was really feeling sorry for myself that I wasn't a mom yet. When I see all my friends living the life of motherhood. But I did a lot of praying (both Preston and I did).. and still do. And we are definitely happy, comforted and content in waiting just a little bit longer while Preston finishes school and Really, it's not that far away. What I've gained from this is Preston and I will never get this time back when it's just the two of us when we start our family. Preston like's to call it "a 5 year honeymoon" Because we can pack up and leave pretty much whenever, we can stay up late, go on dates whenever and however long we want and we have really spent great, quality time with each other. So, here's to more of our adventures! I am definitely blessed t o have the great husband that I do. He works so hard for our family and is just shy of his one year mark until he is Dr. Preston Rhoades in Pharmacy. Whew.. I'm counting down!

So, as far as our adventures go...  May was quite exciting. I turned another year older..26. My birthday landed on a Sunday this year. Growing up, I didn't like my birthday to be on a Sunday because we couldn't do anything.. like go out to dinner, go to movies, whatever you do on your birthday. BUT, now I love it on Sunday's. I don't have to work, I get to enjoy the sabbath and do a whole lot of nothing! I got beyond spoiled this year. Preston surprised me with so many gifts and fun things he had up his sleeve. I got so many great and sweet cards and gifts from family and friends.

One of the sweet things Preston did for me was he set up a private Gondola ride in Scottsdale on Saturday. It was awesome. This picture I just realized is quite blurry but it's the only one I captured of the good time!

My sweet friends (Callie, Lacey and Ashley) came and "heart attacked" our house. The garage, front door and car. Such great friends! Really, it made my day that much more special.

Then these fantastic girls decided to make our GNO a birthday dinner for me! 

Bucket List Item:

Now, the day after my birthday, I experienced one of the best times of my life. Not even joking. Preston and I got tickets to the Phoenix Coyotes vs. Nashville Predator's NHL Stanley Cup Playoff hockey game. WOW!! It was a blast. Yes, they won. and yes, it was AMAZING. The crowd was so crazy, the game was awesome and this was like a once in a lifetime game/chance.. especially since now the Coyote's aren't doin' so hot against the Kings.  But I'm not losing faith yet since they did win today!

Bucket List Item:
GRAND CANYON!!
Preston and I got to go see the beautiful Grand Canyon. Growing up my parents were always taking us kids to National Parks.. which I have always loved, but we never did get to the Grand Canyon. I told Preston I'd be pretty disappointed if we moved back to UT with never visiting the Grand Canyon. We had a nice camping spot and spent a weekend up in fresh air, cooler weather and spectacular scenery. These pictures I am about to post don't do justice. Seriously. If you have been to the Grand Canyon, you'll know what I mean. We were able to do some hiking and see (what seemed like a lot to us) of the Grand Canyon, but really, we only explored a tiny part.

Shuttle bus!

Native American Ruins

Colorado River

Getting the fire going for dinner!

Yummy tin foil chicken dinner!

DELICIOUS. It looks suspicious. But seriously. Google 'Banana Boats' and make them.

After a long day hiking around and exploring, relaxing by the fire roasting mallows!

Well, if you made it this far, you're a trooper. I tend to go a while in between posts and just pile it all on at once.