Shortly after my birthday in October of last year, Rob and I went on a cruise to the western Carribean with a few of our friends. Sadly since it is so long ago I can't remember all the details, which stops were made first etc. I do remember that we went to Belize, Cozamel, Roautan, and Grand Cayman. We had the best time! I am bummed as I am doing this post, because our cruise pictures are on robs computer. I only have a few of the ones that we bought from the cruise line on this computer. So that is what I will post. I made so many fun memories! I enjoyed spending time with rob without kids and spending time with our friends. Some of the adventures we did were swimming with sting rays. That was a little scary to me but glad I experienced it. Went snorkeling after which I proceeded to get sick and ended up throwing up on the boat ride back in. That was not fun but memorable! Rob was awesome and took care of me! We went to the Mayan temples which was way cool! Boat rides through jungles, hung out all day at the beach! I especially loved that! So relaxing to me! Rob and I went dancing at the disco which was so much fun! Must do that again! The ship was full of 80s trivia everywhere so we all know I was in heaven! We played pranks on each others cabin doors late at night! Busted the Lamberts trying to get us back! Ordered extra food on the taylors room service sheet. That wasn't us, but we were in on it. Ate ice cream cones at all hours of the night. Laughed our heads off at the karaoke bars! Got boo'd at the karaoke bars! Yes this actually happened as we were trying to sing a song by toto! The nerve! Tried and successfully beat Michael at earning more medals on the ship! Although he may debate that with me! Read and entire book!!! That was so awesome! Ate lots of good food. Learned I have a new best friend that likes the same foods as me as well as doesn't like meats etc! Love ya Laura! Slept. We had so much fun with these couples! We are now a traveling group and are planning another trip somewhere! Took tons of pictures that I guess will warrant another post. Maybe then I can write along with pictures what we actually did. Rob loved it so much that he booked another cruise for just our family that we just did over spring break. I will post on that another time once I can catch up! Until then, enjoy our group shots and of course Rob and myself in our awesome couples pictures!!

This is what my kids do for entertainment in the city. Kailey took makenna and some of her friends to the cemetery. We were actually in on it trying to scare them. Yes doing things that I did as a youth in my small hometown. All my SJ friends know what I am talking about and remember....driving around Catholic cemetery 3 times so scary...So my kids know all these fun things I got to do when I was growing up and so we try as best we can to emulate small town fun in a big city. I must say however...I NEVER did this nor would I have had the guts to as a kid. They are pure crazy! These pictures are taken from a cell phone at night so the quality isn't that great but still spooky and blog worthy none the less!

My BIG 40!

So on my actual birthday I was blessed enough to spend it with all the Young Women in my ward at the Temple. Can't think of a better place to be on your birthday! When we were finished and walking to our car, I noticed something on my hood. This next picture is what my great friend Emily had made for me! She LOVES glitter! So darling the big numbers! She also gave me lots of suckers and gift cards totaling $40 to circle k, my favorite place to get pepsi! How thoughtful of her! I Love her lots!

For my big birthday I thought about what I would want. Rob asked me and I LOVE San Francisco and so I decided on a trip with my closest girlfriends. The plan was put in to action. I couldn't have had a better birthday! It was so much fun. I haven't had that much fun with my girlfriends in a long time. I was blessed with those that were able to come and missed those that couldn't make it. I have been wanting to write about it for some time. I decided to just post whatever pictures and write one time about them. I feel overwhelmed with trying to catch up so I decided to make it easy on myself! So here is what we did on our trip! Thursday morning we left to San Francisco! Kirstin doesn't like flying at all and so she pretended that she was on a bus the whole time to deal with her anxiety. That was quite amusing to me. I videoed a ton and videoed some of her on the plane and she is saying "Its only a bus". Hilarious. So I had been talking to Kirstin's best friend from high school peggy barnes. She was like a sister to me and honestly a best friend to me as well. I was so excited that she decided to come with us! She REALLY wanted to surprise kirstin and so I was trying to figure out how to do that. Kirstin I think had her suspicions. So when we landed I pretended that rob had called me and left a message. I was like Oh my gosh!! Rob got us a limo to ride to the hotel in!! So I said someone would be holding a sign for us so we needed to look for it. Peggy was texting the whole time where she was etc. I was surprised how there was literally no one in the airport. Anyways, peggy got some people to help her and so as we got closer a man asked if we were the udall party. Peggy was hiding behind the sign. We said yes and she popped out. Kirstin didn't recognize her at first which was awesome. I got this all on video! In fact I made a cooler video of my trip to music but can't get it posted on you tube because of one of the songs I picked. Anyways it was a great surprise and my sister was excited as well as me! We took the bart to downtown San Fran and walked to our hotel. We stayed at the JW Marriott. Had a beautiful room. The first night I had a surprise for everyone which was an hour massage at the spa. That was quite interesting and a story in of itself. We did all the touristy things like Alcatraz, walked pier 39, got pedicures, ate good food. One day we rented a car and went on an adventure, we shopped which was SO much fun! I hadn't been shopping like that since high school. Kir, Peggy and I stayed in Old Navy for 3 hours! Yes you heard right! The store is huge there! We went to see the new "Footloose" movie which was just released. We didn't like it as well as the first one but brought back tons of memories! I think I had the most fun just hanging out in the hotel room talking. It was great! It was funny to remember things about peg which I had forgotten like she IRONS EVERYTHING! I miss her tons! All and all it really couldn't have been any better. I got to spend it with my sister, daughter and two best friends. I am not that happy how old I am, but really enjoyed this birthday a lot! If I can somehow figure out how to post my video I made I will do so. It is pretty fun to watch!

Ward party Fun!

Every year at our ward party we (yw) are responsible for having an activity booth for everyone to do. For the last few years we have done the sucker tree which I think it awesome because it involves little work etc. Well the girls wanted to do something different so I started thinking about what was popular right now and thought of Angry birds. So I started searching for ideas etc. I found a blog that someone had done it for her childs birthday. She posted EVERYTHING! The templates for birds etc. So I just took from that what I wanted to do and rolled with the idea. Started saving boxes from work etc. I think the hardest part of this whole idea was finding the solid colored balls. Seriously you have no idea how many walmarts I had to drive to etc. I ended up finding the small blue ones from the dollar store. Two for a dollar which was awesome because I was able to get more. The red ones I found at Toys r us and they only had a few. I found the big green ones at two different walmarts. This city is HUGE and I was shocked how difficult finding the balls would be!

Well I just have to say it was worth the trouble because it was a HUGE hit! The lines were long the entire night. I think the girls were tired because they couldn't leave. We needed everyone to set the boxes up each time etc. I made a sling by buying a plastic bowl and drilling two holes in the side. Went to Lowes and bought some stretchy tubing and fixed it to the bowl. Worked great! You have to make sure you get a deep enough bowl or otherwise it will fall out. Just in case you are wanting to attempt this I wrote very simple instructions of how I did it!

So I started by drawing on the balls with a white pencil because white seemed to show up more. As you can tell by the pictures, the blue balls were a little more difficult to draw on because it wasn't a smooth surface. Once the face is drawn on, I started painting with a prime coat of white. I would just paint one and set them down to dry. By the time I was done painting all the balls the first one would be finished drying and I started on another coat so that it was completely white. I painted the entire face even the beaks with the prime coat.




After letting the paint draw, I added the beaks. I improvised as it is really hard to draw on a round surface! As you can tell some of the beaks aren't exactly straight but it didn't matter at all!



Starting to look more like the angry birds we know! Almost finished! Just added the center of the eyes, eyebrows etc according to what each bird looked like. Once those dried I outlined all the faces!



Here are the finished balls! Are they not the cutest!! Finished them off buy putting a glaze coat over the paint so the paint wouldn't peal off! The glaze seemed to be what took the longest to dry. It was worth the small amount of time spent. I think they are adorable!



Sadly I didn't take any pictures at the actual ward party. I ended up painting the boxes a grey color and set them up like this picture. It was so cute! But you can get the idea anyways! Way fun!


Of course we had fun wearing our angry birds costumes! I love that Chris and Keirsten have been coming for Halloween. It is so much more fun with them here!

I am missing him!

Today I am missing this man! I can't wait until he returns home in a few days!

Rob posted this picture on his Facebook account. I had forgotten all about it but thought I should put in my blog because it made me think of lots of memories which i don't want to forget!
This is one of the first pictures that rob and I ever took together! Can you tell that I am nervous? I have to laugh and chuckle at this picture because in ways I can go right back to that time and feel the butterflies and excitement I felt then. Now here we are 22 years later and we are getting on in age. I love this man so much! There really is truth to it gets better over time. I adore him and don't want to think of my life without him!

Rob and I met when he was on his mission. He got transferred to St. Johns when I was a senior in high school. He and his companion lived next door to my sister. I didn't pay much attention to him at the time. I had a boyfriend that I very much liked, but I would see them and say hello when I went over to visit kirstin. When I think back it is interesting because we did things together but I didn't notice him. Rob was at my high school graduation, they also went on the pioneer trek that I went on. There is even part of the video of us standing by each other but I didn't know him. I didn't even talk to him or notice actually because to me he was just a missionary, but interesting that we shared those experiences together. Rob and his companion were really successful in St. Johns and activated a lot of people. This is endearing to me because its my home town!

Well I moved away to college and didn't think twice about it. I was so happy and excited to get on and start my life! One weekend I went home to visit and I of course went to visit my sister. Well this time rob came over and the missionaries were there talking to all of us. Rob just out of the blue looked over at me strangely. I was thinking he is weird...what the heck. Well unbeknownst to me he was getting up the courage to ask me if he could write to me. He finally asked and explained that I was out of his mission boundaries and his mission president said he could write to me. I was in shock and thought he was weird even wanting to write to me a complete stranger. I agreed thinking he was a dork. I was flattered though because he was a very handsome and successful missionary! So that began our journey. We wrote back and forth and honestly he helped me through some really hard times in my life. Kept me on the straight and narrow which I will always be grateful for! We wrote for a few months and it was almost time for him to go home from his mission. I started slowly breaking things off with my boyfriend and started getting excited for the possibilities with rob. I fell madly in love with his spirituality!

He went home on his mission I think in October and for Christmas bought me tickets to fly out and meet his family for New Years. That was a fun experience. I will have to write about that another time. But when I think about it...I really only knew rob from his letters and I can't believe that I was bold enough to fly out and meet his family and stay with his sister and hang out with him. His of course showed me around Newport and his home turf. That was all it took. I was completely smitten and in love! He eventually moved to az for me of course and the rest is history! Four kids later and many years down the road I have grown in love with him more and more each day. It took me awhile to appreciate our life because of our rocky start to our marriage (2 kids in 1 year)but now I look at him with complete adoration! I can't imagine what my life would be like without him, nor do I want to!

Funny how this one picture brought back all these memories! It is nice to relive memories and fall in love with my husband all over again! It is nice to get butterflies every once in awhile! Those can be hard to come by!

The men in my life

My dad would really die a thousand deaths if he knew that I even put his picture on my blog. So I chose to put a picture of my family! What can he say about that? It is a good one of us at the SJ 24th parade last year. It is all of us kids minus cameron.

I love my dad more than anything. He is such an important man in my life. He is one of the few people that I love to spend time with non-stop. I enjoy his company. I Love that we can sit in a room in silence or talk up a storm. He makes the best tacos and will make them for us when asked! I admire how he can control his temper and hold his tongue ALMOST always! I like that he likes to spend time with his family! I like that we were able to go on a trip last year with he and my mom. I think I enjoy him more now than I did as a kid, but I really enjoyed him then too so its a close call. He is a great man that I love more than life.






The other man in my life of course is my husband. I am blessed to be married to rob and I haven't enjoyed him more than I do in my life right now. It has been fun growing old with him. Life truly does get better with age! He is a great dad and loves his kids. I posted a few pictures of him doing just that loving his kids. A few things that I love about rob...He is very handsome! I promise I am not shallow! I appreciate the choices he has made in his life! He can get along with anyone so easily. He is a very hard worker and once he decides he wants something nothing can stop him. I think the thing that I love about him the most, are the times that I get to watch him be loving to our children. It fills my buckets up instantly and overflows them. He is a good man and I am thankful he chose me to be his wife!

Happy Fathers Day to the men I love in my life!