Catching up...

I have A LOT of catching up to do.  So first off I thought I'd begin with just some of the miscellaneous happenings from the spring and summer.

In April, my niece Aubrey was baptized.  It was a beautiful baptism, and a great day.  Here's all the family that was there from our side and Aubrey's dad's side.

The kids all sang the baptism song together.  Spencer was SOOOO mad at me for telling him he should go up there.  I guess he's just getting too old for that sort of embarrassment.  I was proud of him for doing it though.  I didn't force him.

 The three littlest girls, Melia, Kalia, and Ashley stood up front and they were so cute singing together!

 I love this picture of Grandpa Place snuggling with his two youngest grandchildren, Ashley, and Evera.

 Here are Ev, Ash, and Melia playing on the iPad together.  Isn't this cute?!

For my birthday, in May, Mike and the kids made me a yummy caramel cake from scratch!

 The kids had fun helping.  :)  Evera tried to eat a bit of it before we cut into it too.  :)

 On June 1, we went to see Les Mis at Pioneer Theater with a bunch of our friends!  We ate at Marketstreet Broiler.  Here are Paul and Tiffany, and Sally.

 Here are Mike and I, RJ and Jamie, and Rebecca and Robert.

 And here are Mike and I with John (Sally's husband--unfortunately we didn't get a pic of them TOGETHER--bad camera angles).

 In June we were also able to go to the temple with our nephew Taylor when he received his endowments before leaving on his mission to New York.  The flowers were so beautiful and it was a lovely day!

 I love how majestic the temple looks with the gorgeous mountains in the background.

 Long story short on these next few photos, shortly after our granite countertops were installed, they got a big oil ring on them from a jar of peanut butter.  The guy who installed them came over and tried to remove the stain.  It was not very effective.  He tried multiple things.  Over a few months (he was difficult to get ahold of) he came over twice to try different options.  The second time, he put this sealant on them and left it to cure for 24 hours...the bottle of sealant which I got ahold of later clearly states--in bold--DO NOT LET DRY ON SURFACE. DO NOT LEAVE ON FOR MORE THAN 5 MINUTES.  The best part was that it also said, if you DO leave it on too long, you'll have to get a commercial grade floor sander to sand it off...OH GEEZ!  This left the counters with this awful dull nasty film on the top. After 6 months or so of trying to get ahold of the guy to resolve the situation, I gave up and took matters into my own hands. 

 We bought a Kirby vacuum (which I LOVE) and we got this special attachment for free which sands and buffs, etc.  I decided that'd be perfect for us on the countertops!

 I was right.  After a few hours of sanding, our counters are once again shiny and smooth!  I love them and had forgotten how shiny and beautiful they were!  Hooray!

 In June we celebrated Father's Day.  Here are Mike's presents.  Melia helped me BUILD our wrapping paper for Mike's gift with Legos!  :)

 And here's Father's Day dinner!  I think this is probably the greenest dinner I've ever made, so I had to take a picture.  :)  Lol!

 We also went to see Guster, Ben Folds Five, and Bare Naked Ladies at Usana!  It was a super fun concert!  Here's Ben Folds playing the piano.

We'd been looking for a while to find a bicycle for Melia but didn't want to pay too much.  My friend, Missy, found an adorable Hello Kitty bike for her at the DI for $5.  So one day we had it sitting out ready for her when she woke up from her nap.

 She was really excited but still in a daze from waking up.  She was pretty cute about it!