Another Sweet Angel Joins the Other Side...

Last night our sweet little Bess (my great-grandmother) passed away around 6:00PM. She has been waiting 14 years to join her sweetheart on the other side and i am sure it was a happy reunion for her and the rest of her family. She truly was the sweetest, most kind and thoughtful woman ever. She has been suffering for a while now, always keeping a sweet demeanor and continuing to make us laugh.

I have so many happy memories of and with her...She used to make us a tin can full of our favorite vanilla kranza (yummy Danish little cookies,) on our birthday when she was able to cook. At Christmas we would have to be very careful when opening our presents because she would save every little scrap of wrapping paper. We use to walk her dog, Prince, an ugly little grey poodle; when we would return she/and Besterfar (our great-grandfather) would let us have some licorice candies from her beautiful glass candy dishes. She has always been so thoughtful of all of those around her, even when she was unable to cook she would offer to cook us things when we would come visit her. I remember swinging on her tire swing in her backyard on hot summer days with my brothers and cousins. She was always knitting or crocheting something, she would make kitchen towels and hot-mitts, she loved the BYU channel, and her very favorite color is purple. She loved when Mareesa or I would brush her hair and massage her scalp, she would get this look on her face that reminds me of a little puppy getting a good scratch behind his ears.

Our little Bess will be greatly missed here but i am so grateful that she isn't in pain anymore and that she gets to be with her family that she continually talked about joining. I hope that everyone around her can take her humble, sweet, and serving example and become more like her. We love you Bess!

Four Month Catch Up

Wow, has it really been four months since i have blogged?! My computer is completely out of commission we still haven't found a new one for me, but Ryan's is working great, so this will work for now. We have both been extremely busy with work, family and a few little vacations. There a ton of pictures i will just narrate from the bottom (earliest) to the top (most recent).

SHOPPING TRIP TO UTAH

Mareesa and Courtney enjoying a refueling lunch between stores on our day of power shopping.

My mom and i at Johnny Carinos... This was a few Saturdays ago, Ry had a boys trip planned with a few of his buddies. I got an email about the $5, $7, $9 SHADE warehouse sale, fate, i think so. We left early Saturday morning, Daddy made us a yummy new juice concoction for breakfast out of spinach, limes, and cabbage---it was delicious!! We hit the road and made good time, we got a few basics at the warehouse sale and then went to Nordstrom Rack and made a haul, it was one of those really good days where you find a ton that you love. We shopped at Gateway for a while and got to catch up with K and Cam for a little while. Overall a very successful trip!

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! 7/31/09

I cannot believe that it has been a whole year since i married my best friend and love of my life. This year has flown we have had a great one and i am excited for many more to come!! Happy anniversary I love you babe!

One of my favorite wedding pics

After our game we went and got our first sno-cones of the year. We found a sno-shack that makes them with icecream, like they do in Hawaii, so yummy. We were going to make homemade pizza together for our anniversary night, but we were both full from lunch and our sno-cones that we decided to just have popcorn and snuggle up for a movie. It was fabulous!!

We had our last softball game the night of our anniversary, it was fun, we lost (surprise, surprise). My cute family came to watch, and my mom made a darling anniversary date night present, with candy, popcorn, a movie, soda, and my favorite, a beautiful red German popcorn bowl.

Ry had to work the morning of our anniversary so we woke up early and made french toast together. We got an amazing couples massage followed by a yummy lunch at Senang.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAREESA!

Mareesa turned 14, she is getting SO old and heading to highschool in a couple weeks, it makes me sad because her turning 14 makes me think that i am turning 24 this year---ah!

MISSY RAE AND TOBY

I just love this picture, our kitties LOVE napping in the laundry basket, aren't they stinkin' cute!?

GLASS+FREEZER=EXPLOSION

I opened the freezer to get my lunch and Dr. Willey had put a glass bottle in there and it had blown the whole top of the bottle of and had exploded ALL over!! After i told him what happened, he said that the company that sent him the bottle told him it would be fine in the freezer... maybe there is something you learn in medical school that i don't know, but last time i checked glass and the freezer never mix:-) At least we had some entertainment for the day.

LAGOON!

Ry and i went to the gym a few Saturdays ago, i went to Jen's bootcamp and he biked with Dane, (Jen's hubby). As we were walking out together Jen said she was headed to Lagoon and asked if i wanted to come, obviously i couldn't resist. So i hurried showered and we headed down to Lagoon. We met some of her good friends, Spence, Kari and her two boys, Cam and Casey. This is the only pic we took:-( but we went to Lagoona beach, and rode rides up until the second they closed. We were exhausted on our way home but we had a blast!

GIRLS CAMP 2009

My mom was assistant stake camp director this year, girls camp was up and West Piney and it was gorgeous, and the girls had a blast! My mom had me come up and teach yoga for their spa day had so much fun. This is the huge slide that led down from the main cabin to the other camp areas.

Me teaching yoga outside facing the mountains, you could hear the creeks, birds and the air was so refreshing. It really was that spiritual experience that yoga can give your mind and body.

My mom is the greatest; she planned an outside movie for one of the nights. Everyone brought sleeping bags and sacked out for The Parent Trap, classic movie, and amazing night, good job mommy, great success!!

My mom and a couple of the other leaders getting ready for the movie.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

Waiting to watch "THE BIGGEST SHOW IN IDAHO", it was fantabulous as always!

Lizzy with homemade icecream all over her silly face.

Every 4th my mom makes individual bags of cream and sugar so that we can make our own little baggies of homemade icecream. We shake them with ice and sea salt and it makes the best icecream you will ever taste, yum!

This was the most time consuming dessert i have ever made... So i found this picture online, fell in love, bought the ingredients, and about five hours later this is my creation. It was a tart recipe, which i have never made, it called for special vinegar that i had to go to three grocery stores to find, anyway it was delicious, but i don't know that it was worth all the hard work.

THE DAY BEFORE THE 4TH...

We met Ry's family at Massacre Rocks to fish and camp on the 3rd. We had lots of fun, i wasn't feeling well so i slept most of the time, but Ry did catch some fish, took some bike rides, and had yummy food.

Ry mountain biking...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!

My mom drove her present in to visit us, isn't it cute? She has been wanting a scooter forever and finally got a sparkly orange one, and now has her motorcycle license, so funny!

NEW KITCHEN FLOOR

The finished product!

Ry putting in our new kitchen floor, it was quite the challenge since our house is not even close to being perfectly square. But it turned out great, and the hard work paid off, great job honey!

I LOVE THEM...

I'm sure these kind of pictures bore other people to death, but i really do love my cats, and i think they are so sweet when they cuddle up together like this.

ANOTHER CAMPING TRIP

We took another camping trip to Warm River/Island Park. This is Cave Falls, we drove forever to find out that the caves were closed because of a rock slide. We were disappointed, but it was pretty cold so i was happy to get back into the heated truck.

Making breakfast under our make shift lean to, it dumped rain almost the entire trip. We played cards, fished and played more cards, not much to do with all the rain.

A huge sucker that Ry reeled in...it was such an ugly fish!

ANNUAL BRIAN REAMS BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

Ry's team made it to the last game and lost to the ISU basketball team (they totally rigged it, in my opinion,) they played great and it was for a good cause. Second place, not so bad.

McKAID'S GRADUATION

Cute grad cap cupcakes my mom and i made.

Congrats Kaid!!

Kaid graduated Highest Honors, spoke at graduation, and did a great job. What an awesome kid, i am proud to say he is my little brother.

Mareesa's 8th grade GRADUATION

Mareesa and her friends at their graduation, can you believe she is on her way to highschool?

WARM RIVER CAMPING TRIP

Up at Bear Gulch in the old train tunnel, where my dad use to fish when he was younger, it was beautiful!

Looking down at Bear Gulch, we wanted to fish down there but the ground was too wet for us to hike down without falling to our deaths.

So... we went over to Buffalo river and fished for a while, the only thing i caught over there was a huge mossy rock. Can you see the thunder clouds behind us? That's the storm we had to beat before we got back to camp.

A little Swallow Tail that came to visit our camp site, she's so pretty!

Ry playing with the stuffed bear at the Mesa Falls Lodge.

All the fish we caught that day...

My dad caught the biggest one of the day, he was super excited!!

My little medium size fish.

Big Springs; it was gorgeous and we had so much fun wandering around.

The fam (minus Kaid) at Upper Mesa Falls

Ry wins the award for smallest fish of the trip, it was sardine size:-)

First day fishing of our camping trip...

UTAH

Swimming at Uncle David's house after a very long day of watching Ween play volleyball.

David, Daddy, and Mommy having a jolly old time together.

Isn't she a great lookin server?! We watched her play at Westminster for hours this day, she did great! She is trying out right now for Poky's Highschool team, good luck Weenie!