Young Woman Recognition

Sunday evening I recieved my Young Woman Medallion fo finishing Personal Progress. It felt really good to be done with personal progress! I've been working on it for 5 years, so it feels great to have it completed! It was my first taste of all the things to come in the next month. I'm done with school in 3 weeks, I graduate from High School on the 23rd of May, and then from Seminary on May 24th! It's pretty exciting but it's getting harder everyday to make it to classes, I just want to be done! I look forward to graduation but I sure wish the rest of the family could be here!

Lizzy's Ice Competition!

This past weekend Lizzy competed in the Ft. Collins classic at epic. She competed in synchro, artistic, and ice dance and did an amazing job! My mom was working at the ice rink basically all weekend so I was in charge of getting her ready for her competitions. I picked her up from school and she helped me answer my prom date :) and then we got her ready, got all her stuff together, went and picked up some dinner for ourselves and to bring to my mom and got her to the icerink. Friday night was the synchro competition and they did a great job! They skated a clean program and ended up getting 2nd place (although honestly they should have gotten 1st, the team that got 1st had a fall and didn't skate a very good program), but they were very happy with their performance.

Here's Lizz in her synchro outfit with her 2nd place medal! She was happy!

After her synchro performance I took her home and after she got showered I put her hair in curlers for her saturday performances. My poor mom didn't get get home until like 10:30 after being at the icerink

On saturday morning Lizz and I got up at about 6 (my mom was already at the icerink) and got her ready for her artistic performance. We got to the rink at about 7 and Lizzy was all made up but I hadn't even run a brush through my hair (Lizzy's hair took longer than expected). Lizz performed "These boots are made for walking" and absolutely oozed attitude and it was AMAZING! She took 2nd place which is awesome and means that she qualified for the competition Colorado Springs! Yay! Courtney and her girls even made it out for the competition, thanks guys!

After the artistic performance, Brett and I ate dippin dots for breakfast, and Lizz had an ice dance competions. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it, but she had the most beautiful lines I have ever seen! It was awesome! Overall it was a great competition and we're very excited for Colorado Springs!

In other news!!! I got a half tuition scholarship for my first semester at BYUI where I will be attending in the fall! I am very excited, but not quite excited as my parents I think! ;)

Snow Day!

It started snowing last thursday as I headed off to seminary. When I walked out of seminary I was surprised by the amount of snow on my car. I quickly climbed in to escape the weather and rushed (safely) home so I could crawl back in to my warm bed. It was a "CSAP" day (CSAP is Colorado's standard testing but you only have to take them up until your sophmore year) so I didn't have to be to school until 12:20. My mom and I had special plans to go to Chilis just the 2 of us and enjoy some yummy fajitas. I woke up around 9, worked out, and then was getting ready to head to chilis and then go to school. When I got out of the shower I had a text from Lauren asking if I was driving the truck to school since the weather was so bad. A couple minutes later my mom got a text from Lizzie saying that there school was letting out early and my mom left to pick her up. Momments after that we got a call from my school notifying everyone that school was letting out at 12. I was thrilled because that meant I didn't have to go to school at all, but I still had my heart set and chili's fajitas so we made it a whole family thing and me, my mom, Lizzie, Brett, Brittany and Calan all ventured into the storm to get chilis.

Here's the 3 of us at Chilis!

After Chili's we all (minus Mom and plus Lauren) went outside to try to build a snowman. We quickly learned that the snow was too dry for that so it became a snow mound. Well, while we had a pile of perfectly good snow, Lizz and I decided we should take pictures in it. But not in our snow suits, in our swimsuits and open-toed high heels!

Surprisingly, it was not that cold because we only spent a couple of minutes out there in the snow. And totally worth the memories!

After our pictures we decided to make something out of our mound and attempted a snowman again but instead it became a snow dog!

Notice: Holy Ghost has been spotted!!!

This past thursday I went out to watch Courtney's 3 youngest kids for her so her and Steve could take Avery to a movie. I was a little worried because Avery is usually my helper when I'm watching their kids. But when Courtney and Steve left it seemed like it was going to be a pretty easy night... I was wrong. When they left Chasen was asleep and Brielle, Dax and I were playing. Brie was sitting on my lap and we were joking around and Daxton was laughing at us, so I though it was going to go pretty smoothly,... until I turned and made direct eye contact with Dax. As soon as I did that he started screaming and I had to leave the room and let Brielle talk to him until I could army crawl my way back in. Once I did this he seemed somewhat ok as long as I sat under the table where he couldn't see me and I didn't say anything. I thought the kids might be more entertained outside so I picked up Daxton from behind where he couldn't see my face and quietly walked outside and he was fine playing with his sister. Well, I soon realized that Dax and I could be friends as long as I was wearing my sunglasses and we were outside (no direct eye contact allowed with this kid). So after we got bored jumping on the tramp, Dax and I sat on the deck and watched Brie drawing with chalk on the patio. At this time the sun was starting to set and it cast our shadows against the wall. Brielle thought this was pretty cool and she turned to me and said, pointing at her shadow "look Mary, It's my Holy Ghost!" Then she pointed at my shadow and said "It's your holy ghost!"

That made me laugh for a good 20 minutes and deffinatley made the whole night worth it! I sure love those kids!!

Picture Tag!

Just for fun! If you want to, go to where you keep your pictures on your computer and take the 4th picture from the 4th file.

This is a picture of Bryce and I. I think it was on Christmas eve or around that time. Bryce (and Kyle) looked so handsome in his jacket! It was pretty cute! It was also just a really fun day! I love this kid! He better be good while I'm off at college! He know's if he's not I'll drive back here and kick his butt. ;) I love you dude!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPH!!!!

Happy Birthday Steph! I am so so SO excited that is is finally your birthday so that you finally know what your present is! I absolutely cannot wait for you to be here! So that we can FINALLY have an updated version of the above picture! I am so excited for you to be here. We are going to watch mamma mia and go to the chocolate cafe and go shopping and hug and kiss on your adorable baby!!! I don't know if you can tell, but I might be just a little bit excited. March 8th cannot come quickly enough! I am literally counting down the days!

Anyways, I hope you have a fabulous birthday and enjoy every minute of it! I wish I was there in person to wish a happy birthday, but we'll celebrate when you get here! I love you like crazy! Happy Birthday!

If it's smoking it's cooking, If it's black it's done... if it's on fire it's....?

My Grandad always told us when it comes to food; "if it's smoking it's cooking, if it's black it's done". Well what about if your food is on fire?

Brett made an AWESOME dinner for us tonight! He got ribs out of the feezer this morning and soaked them in something that smelled amazing and then made garlic potatoes and green beans. Well he was a little bit worried about the ribs being cooked through entirely so we went outside to the grill to check them and this is what we found...

Our ribs had somehow caught on fire! We're not really sure how? Dinner was great though! Thanks Brett!