Family Vacation with all 27.5 of us!!!

Every other year my family does a big family vacation to Lake Powell and Grover. How is this different than any other weekend? Well Lake Powell for one, and two.... 6 whole days in the best place in the world!

This is me and Har Har, this is my little sister Sarah's oldest. She is pregnant with your second little girl... hence the .5 in the title.


Grandma Nise and Sage

Karen, Bridger, Gabe, Emilee, and Harley

Everywhere we went Harley would say "EGABE" or "EANNIE"! She loves the "KIDS!!!"

Thursday we took off to Lake Powell. I didn't get any photos, but we did stop at our breakfast spot at Blondies. That place is downright awesome! My family used to always go to the HITE marina of Lake Powell. But the last five years or so the water has been to low there and they shut it down. Well, with all of this moisture Utah has had, we did some researching and found out that the HITE marina has been opened yet again. But the nice ladies at Blondies told us it was closed, and as we were driving to the marina we didn't see any boats.... cue panic! BUT when we got down there we found out that the locals are trying to keep it secret that its open so no one will come. Which was great for us this weekend because we were literally the only boat on the lake on Thursday.

This is a picture of a bush. What you cant see is what is in that bush. A RATTLE SNAKE!!! We spent the whole entire afternoon with a Rattle Snake on our beach and were so very blessed that we didn't get into trouble with it. We had no idea it was even there, other than my 15 year old nephew Taylor swearing he heard rattling! Dont worry, we all made fun of him, but we all were quick to so SORRY when 12 hours later we realized he was right! The thing literally slithered right past my leg and my brother lit off a flower firework and the noise or the heat or vibration or whatever cause the snake to rattle and I sounded the alarm!!! By jumping up on my chair and screaming "RATTLE SNAKE RATTLE SNAKE!!!" the men jumped in to action to locate and kill the snake while the woman either jumped on their chairs (eh hem) or herded the children away from its bush!!! It was freaky! And all night long I had my legs up in my camping chair. The worst was when pregnant Sarah couldn't hold it anymore and had to go and squat to pee! She was so scared!!!

That is where we camped! It was amazing!

I dont know what it is about boating food, but I've never tasted anything as good as it! Whatever it may be! This dish? TACO SALAD

Uncle Dan teaching the kids to skip rocks

Dan and April

Grandpa playing with the babies on the tube

Sage learned how to do a 360 on the knee board! WAHOO!!!

Harley on a Harley

Back at the cabin all the rest of the family met up with us! I love it!!!

We had a RODEO/CARNIVAL on Saturday. Let me tell you it was quit the event!

We had ladder/ football throwing!

A Ring Toss

We had a bobbing for balloons with colored marbles in them contest. Each marble represented a certain amount of money.

For every activity you participated in you got a ticket to put your name on for a drawing

We did barrel racing, kids on a stick horse....

and adults on bikes!!!

There was relay racing on the pond!

and canoing as well!

Who gave this man a baby???And the PINATA!!! I know what it looks like, no the baby wasn't the pinata, this was after the beating of the pinata!

Later on the rodeo queens came out!

After that all the kids morphed in to dogs and did tricks in the tubes!

I LOVE this picture! All the kids sitting down to watch a movie, and fighting to stay awake to spend as much time together as possible.

Sunday we had our horse shoe tournement. The only game my parents can win without rigging!

This picture is pretty great too! This is Monday, right before we were leaving. All the kids were pretty sad, so leave it to Grandpa Kevin to help them out by taking them on one last ride on the "vroom vrooms".

We tend to vacation to Grover A LOT!!! Some people think we're crazy and that there is so much more to see in the world. While I totally agree there is something so magical about Grover, it literally draws the kid out of you! I will forever be grateful to my parents for working so hard so that we could have this amazing place to go to whenever we want! The family vacation of 2011, in my eyes, was a 100% hit!!!

FOR SALE!!!

HEY GUYS!!! I came across a pot of gold on Fathers Day. So, we were up in Ogden and my uncle in-law showed me this stash he had of old windows! I about died!!! He is willing to sell them to me if I want them (which I do) and I thought that I'd share the love! If you want me to grab you one or two, please let me know and I'll get them to ya within the next week or two. They're going for $10 a pop (I know right???) and the possibilities are endless!!!

These are the two kinds that I saw.

The six pained window.

Or the two pained window.Just let me know ASAP

CRAFT DAY!!! YAY!!!

Doesn't it seem like its been FOREVER since Craft day??? It does to me! Well... lucky for us Sarah threw this one so it was a weekend affair! Meg and I drove down to Moroni and chatted the entire time! ha ha ha. Its always so good to get together with the Meggers!

We were so excited we just couldn't wait, so we actually crafted Friday night. Our wonderful host Sarah decided that we needed some summer wreaths! She found this awesomely easy idea at twindragonflydesigns.blogspot.com.

Got this beauty at Hobby Lobby for $2.50. I took all of my old fabric, so this project literally cost $2.50!!!

All you do is take whatever fabric you want and rip it into strips and then tie them on to the wreath. Easy Peasy.

Megs final project!
My final project! (I decided to try burlap (WHAT A MESS!!!))

Sarah's final project!

So that left us with Saturday to spend the entire day chatting and YARD SALING! Don't you just love the summer?

Until next month!

MAPLE LAKE

We were just recently tipped off to this lil beauty and decided to check it out for a Sunday stroll/hike.

Maple Lake

And like always, this little guys was passed out the rest of the day!

New Jobs!

Well, this month we've been very very blessed. Cory finished up spring semester and since we already knew that he had been accepted to the police academy, we knew that his schedule would allow for him to have a full time job during the day. And so we both set out searching for a full time job for him!!! Luckily our good friend Jess soon to be Dent let us know that she just left her job and they were hiring. So we applied for the position, and with a sweet little word from Jess, Cory was interviewed and hired!!! He now works for Angies List from 7-3:30 every day. He loved Zupas, but was sure ready to move on! I cant tell you how proud I am of him, he's already been in the top of the company 3 times in two weeks as the newbie!!!

Well, I've worked for Myler Disability for almost a year. I wasn't so happy about it when I first started there because everyone has to start out in their call center, but I quickly moved up in the company and have really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere and the people that I work with. I have also gotten a ton of experience!!! Needless to say, I wasn't looking for a job. But one day I kept getting a call over and over (if any of you know me, I hate talking on the phone, so if I don't know who it is, I'll wait for the voicemail). Finally Cory answered it for me and brought it to me and told me to talk. It was an old friend who told me that her firm was hiring a Paralegal and that she had told them all about me. She asked me to send over my resume and the lawyer called me that night and asked me to come for an interview the next day. I went with full intentions of turning them down, I was only going as a favor to my friend, but I felt SO STRONGLY that I needed to take this position, and it didn't hurt that they were offering more. It was actually kind of weird, because both my husband and I looked up the attorney I was to meet with on their website and both of us thought he looked SO FAMILIAR!!! Well, I already had a year plan laid out, and this wasn't included in it so I tried to shake it and continue on at Myler, but in the end, I finally listened and have started at Fillmore Spencer law office.

What I've learned from this is that its great to plan things and be prepared in your life, but be willing and open to change those plans when the Lord tells you he has a different one for you. HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING!!! How many times do I have to remind myself of that??? ha ha ha

Thanks Zupas and Myler for taking such good care of us!!!

PAPER SHOWER

So, when we got married my home ward threw me a "Paper Shower"! At the time, I thought that was a little weird, but because I had so many showers, I appreciated the creativity! Well, now that its a year and almost 2 months later can I just say that a "Paper Shower" is the way to go? For a year and two months now Cory nor I have ever had to buy a roll of toilet paper! We are just about done with our last package! So to all of you involved in that shower! THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN!!! BRILLIANT!!!