Sending Jacob to the 'burg!

A few weeks ago my little brother packed his car full of stuff 

and he and my mom drove from Colorado to Rexburg.

Another sibling recruited to the Y of I!!

I drove up to meet them EARLY Friday morning.

Didn't want to miss him getting set up in his first apartment!

I had to document him making his first official college meal.

A quesadilla in this fiesta maker he got from the Goodwill!

Can't wait to hear about your adventures Jacob!

Some of my favorite memories were made there...

hope that will be true for you too!

Sending your youngest baby off to college is 

quite an adjustment.  Frozen yogurt that night
helped ease the growing pains.

My mom and I decided to go to the Rexburg temple early
Saturday morning before we drove back to Utah.
It was lovely inside and out.

My mom got to stay over at our house Saturday and Sunday night before 

her flight back to Colorado left Monday

Mabel loved having Nana around!

Showing Nana her new scissors:

Mabel Jane Tew, MD

Instead of our regular church on Sunday we had a regional

conference in Salt Lake at the Conference Center.

The flowers around Temple Square were INCREDIBLE!!

My mom and I just kept ooohing and ahhhing.

(please ignore Mabel's middle finger)

Mabel saw the reflection pond and wanted to get right in.

Our Westbrook 2nd Ward leadership:

L to R: 1st counselor Julian Hernandez, 

Bishop Tyler Dabo, 2nd counselor Nate

My mom brought out this bat nightlight for Mabel.

To say she loved it is an understatement. 

Hugs.

She calls him her, "Cute little bat."

While Mabel was napping on Sunday we did some yogurt tasting.

Everytime I am at Harmon's I always wonder about all these exotic yogurts!

Are they good, gross, worth mortgaging your home?

Noosa and Liberte were our favorites.

Nate gagged on this goat yogurt.

It was pretty goaty.
He is a good sport.

Monday morning we went to get Mabel's haircut.

Her last experience was not so pleasant (see here) so 

I was a little worried. It was totally different this time...

All smiles...not even one tear!  We have watched several

haircut videos since then...maybe it helped?

New bangs.

(which she pushes to the side and says, "Fix my hair!" 

anytime I try to have her wear them down)

 We met Nate for lunch at Pho Bien Hoa....so good.

It was a fun little trip down memory lane in Rexburg 

and a great few days with my mom.

Move out here already.

Neighborhood Block Party

{CREATURE ENCOUNTERS}

Cute sign that Avi made...
sorry if I spelled anything wrong is my favorite part.

Last week Jocelyn and Andy held their annual neighborhood party.  

This was their last one because they are moving next year. SADNESS! 

We are going to miss their family so much! But they won't be too 

far away (Draper) and they will have some land, and animals, 

so we are planning to be the Godparents of their goats. 

This company was awesome! 

They did a great job of being informative and fun.

{turtles}

{tarantulas}

I think this was my favorite part.  

I was surprised that I really liked holding the tarantulas.

They felt super cool...fuzzy and slow with sticky feet.

{scorpions}

Just another normal day on the job...

with a scorpion in his mouth!!

Andy wanted a taste too...

AGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

My face sums it up...I didn't 

love holding the scorpion.

  {snakes}

Mabel LOVED the snakes...

takes after her daddy and mama.

 

Jocelyn is SO AFRAID of snakes,

but she totally cried and conquered her fear!

Thanks Oliversons for AWESOME night to remember!

Happy Birthday to Me!

{thirty}

Last week I turned the big three-o!
28 & 29 pretty much felt like 30 so this birthday didn't phase me much.
I think 40 will the one that will be weird.

On Labor Day we went to Kaysville to spend the day with
the Tew family and celebrate a few birthdays.

My nephew JJ turned 10...
and those candles didn't stand a chance!


Treinta Anos for me...
and Mabel stuck her finger in the cake.
Just like her mama - can't resist some good carrot cake
with cream cheese frosting.

My mother-in-law Georgia turned 62 and let all the grandkids
help her blow out her candles. :)

~30 ACTS of KINDNESS~

Initially for this birthday I wanted to do something BIG. 

Big as in go to South America and help dig a well.

But that didn't quite pan out so I scaled things down a bit.

I decided I wanted to do 30 acts of kindness...
small and large acts to those I know and don't know.
I quickly realized that was a little much to attempt in one day
so I have given myself the whole month
and I have been recording the experiences in my journal.

On my actual birthday Mabel and I donated 30+ pounds of food to
the emergency food pantry at Crossroads Urban Center.
During my final year in the BSW program at the University of Utah,
my internship was with Crossroads, specifically with one of their
 advocacy groups CORC.  We happened to drop off food as
CORC members were leaving to meet for a rally downtown.
We joined them and one of my friends, Reverend Lee,
had Mabel cracking up in no time.
It was great to catch up with CORC members...
several of them had never met my little miss.
I love this girls laugh.

UPS delivered a big box that day and Nate said I couldn't

open it until he got home.  He came home from work 

early and inside the box were new knives!

I have been wanting new knives for a long time...

just couldn't bring myself to spend money on knives even

though I use them a ton.  Thanks Nate!

I have only sliced my fingers three times already.

Then my sister-in-law Kristy came over to watch
Mabel for the night so we could go out on the town!

Kristy brought balloons for me and one for Mabel.

We were both happy campers.

Admittedly, I really wanted a birthday balloon!

I have always wanted to try Kyoto so we went
to Salt Lake to test it out.

GREAT sushi.
Happy 30 year old right there.

After dinner we stopped by Real Foods in Sugarhouse
to say hi to Elisha.  She was giving out samples
of their raw milk.  It's REALLY good.

Dr. Better and my new foxy purse.

We finished the night with Nielson's frozen custard.

Nate was being so funny the whole night...

my stomach hurt from laughing.

A few days later I ran a 10k in Payson.

It was my birthday present to myself and it was for a good cause.

Payson is lovely country to run in...it was my first

time racing in the evening.  I thought I might die when I got out of the car

and it was 95 degrees.  I think I'll stick with morning runs.

Plus I got attacked by mosquitoes!

On Sunday Nate gave me another gift.
A compilation of the sweetest (and funniest) notes
from so many friends and family.
I felt so special reading through them,
Thank you to everyone who sent a note, thought, or memory -
I will cherish these forever!

PS: I have been wanting to get shelves in our office since we moved in
two years ago.  We finally got some, yay!
The office is SLOWLY becoming more functional.