Aspens Birthday

Happy Birthday to our Aspen!  I am so grateful for my little beauty.  We don't know what we would do with out her.  Aspen is so smart and with it.  She gets the big picture and is so wise for her age.  

Here are some of our favorite things about this darling girl...

1. She is sharp as a whip and nothing gets past her

2. She knows what not to eat.  She has always known that chocolate gives her headaches and that red dyed     candy does the same thing.  She knows how to limit her self with sugar and treats.  She worries about her food and if it is healthy.

3. She is our rule follower.  She does not deviate from what she has been told to do.  She is very much black and white.

4. She is determined

5. She has about the cutest laugh you have ever heard

6. She is an amazing sister and daughter.  She loves her parents and siblings.

7. She is very talented and I can't wait to see all she does in her life

8. She loves to cuddle

9. She is sugar and spice topped with some sass

10. She is so beautiful and is such a standout

11. Every year her teachers confess she is their favorite kid in class

12. She is very serious.  She is always thinking deep. 

13. Life would not be worth living without our Aspen

 We had a great party for Aspen.  We love living at Highland Pointe and it has been an adventure.  One of the major highlights is all of the friends Aspen has made.  Lucky for her, there are about ten little girls her age.  We invited them all over for a pinata and cake.

Aspens friends are seriously some of the cutest girls ever.  We love them and I hope she always remembers this summer with her great friends.

Aspen, McKenna, and Brinlee

Ashley has been a huge blessing for Aspen.  She had a hard time leaving her darling group of friends behind from Navigator Pointe.  Ashley loves Aspen and invites her everywhere and her mother is a godsend and takes Aspen all over the valley doing fun things.  They have totally become two peas in a pod. 

Aspen with the twins

Aspen and Everly

Aspen and Raegan.  We are so happy Aspen and McKenna have a cousin so close to their age and someone who they both love and adore. 

Aspens very best friend at the apartment, McKenzie

There is nothing like a darling little girl and her handsome daddy.  They both put smiles on my face.

Youth Confrence-Zions National Park

Nate and I were both called into the youth programs for our church. Nate is an advisor for the Young Men and I (Katie) am also an advisor in the Young Womens.
We had our annual Bear Lake trip planned with our family, but last minute decided to go with the Youth. We LOVE Bear Lake so much. But decided we might not have this chance to get to know the youth and be apart of such a great trip.

We went down to Richard Paul Evans "Timepiece Ranch". It was a blast. It is barley outside of Zions National Park. He has two houses about a fourth of a mile apart. We had the women in one house and the men in the other. There was so much to do. Richard owns about 200 acres and there are four wheel trails everywhere. He had several four wheelers for us to ride and golf carts and dirt bikes. He had a man bring in hundreds of trout to stock his pond for the weekend so we could fish. It was awesome watching the fish being put in the pond. They built an outside movie theatre. We had a huge screen with eleven blow up mattresses outside to lay on. It was so amazing laying under the starry sky watching movies. We ate like kings the whole weekend. It was so much fun.

This is a view from faraway of our movie screen.

I could not believe how beautiful it was up there.

It was really nice for Nate and I to be able to spend so much time together not chasing after kids. We missed our kiddos a ton, but we needed a vacation together.

The first day we drove about five hours to get to "Timepiece Ranch". On the way we ate in Beaver at a surprisingly yummy Mexican restaurant. The Young Women all came the second day. So first things first with a bunch of men was....playing paintball for hours. Richard and I were on a team an won the first came. It was awesome. The second game, I was defiantly a target seeing how I stole the flag the first round. This picture is of my arm being shot at by Richard (now not on my team) . It turned really blue on day two and three through...hmmm um seven!

We decided to go into the park on day three. We took the older boys and girls and left some of the younger ones behind with leaders. Everyone was happy. The kids who stayed behind got all of the toys to themselves. I had never been to Zions, so I was very pleased to be able to go.

Nate and Katie

We hiked up the Narrows and took a swim in the river.

Swimming at the Narrow.

We were super excited that we were able to go spend time with the youth and our good friends Holly and Eric Fairbanks. Holly and I shared a room and stayed up until four thirty in the morning talking about everything you can think of. It was the best.

We have awesome youth in our ward.

Nate and I covered in paint.

Richard made us his famous crepes and pina colada smoothies every night. We had the best lasagna and salads for dinner. The Evans took care of all of the food. It was to die for.

It was so neat to get to know Richard Paul Evans. He has such a wonderful family. His two daughters are in young women's and his beautiful wife and I get to work together. He has a new book coming out soon and it was so cool to hear how he came up with it and how he is so inspired. He had so many neat stories that he shared that were right up my alley. He gave me a copy of his book and I think there are only two that were printed early, so I felt very spoiled. The new book Michael Vey is going to be a big hit so it was fun to see all the neat things that are starting to happen with it. While we were up there Amazon called and chose it to be the number one best seller on their website for young adult reading for the month of August. Pretty cool.

Rich has a really neat assistant named Diane. We really hit it off and it seemed we had been friends forever. We plan to go to lunch "quarterly". Isn't that darling of us? I loved meeting her and getting to know so many people better. I went home from this trip feeling so blessed in my life. I am so happy I moved. I never would have grown how I have and met all of these wonderful people. And I still get to keep my friends from where we came from. Life is such a gift.

Boating up at Pineview

We LOVE going boating!! It is our favorite thing to do as a family! We went for Sages birthday and brought Sam and Zack! It was so much fun for the brief time we had. The weather turned horrible and we had to leave. We went up to my dads house for a wonderful dinner. Then we decided to ride his horse Gypsy. We all LOVE that horse so much. As McKenna was riding her, she tried to lay down. It was so sad. We got her saddle off and got her up to the barn. My sister Jess, Nate, Jeannie and I all were with her for five hours. We tried to keep her walking. She got really sick. The vet came and we had to put her down. It was so sad. My dad was in Colorado and didn't get to be there to say goodbye. It was so sad. We all cried and cried. Gypsy was the best horse my dad has ever owned.

Drew LOVES boating!

We loved the hot driver!

Isn't she a doll?

Sage loves his cousin Zack. They have such an amazing relationship. They are such great examples to each other!

McKenna and Sam laughed and laughed on the tube. They were in complete heaven.