Booty Shakin' Baby

This weekend we went camping at Eklutna State Park with my parents which was quite fun! I'll post pics later but I just had to post this video of the trip before I did anything else! I've never posted videos and don't really tend to unless it is extremely worth it. Well, Brighton has been shaking her booty since she was like 6 months and this was a GREAT viedo of it! It's a little long but if you watch it, you'll get to see Brighton's personality shining through! Enjoy!

Loving the CT!

I wanted to say that I am loving being on this creative team! It has been so much fun and I have an awesome designer to create for! Jenna has been so great, understanding, and very helpful! And her designs are super cute! I just wanted to give a shout out to her and let everyone know that you can get her stuff at scrapdish.com or dragonflairestudios.com Oh and I've been working on some pages lately with her kits so there's a few below (Be grateful and Pure joy) that are made mostly with her stuff! Anyway, hope you enjoy the things I've been working on! Not much else has been going on here other than the fact that we leave in 13 days! Can you tell I'm excited?

New Cousin!

On July 20th, Brighton got a new cousin! Val, Kyle's step-sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl they named Alexandria Ila Eastman! She's super cute and the family is doing well! And on that same day, Olivia turned one so they share a birthday! What fun it will be when everyone is together again! We just wanted to say way to go Val and Aaron and we can't wait to meet little Alexandria!

"Caught Up" in Kenai

Sorry that the entries have stopped the past few days but Kyle, Brighton, my dad, and I all went down to Kenai to go dip net fishing. We left on Thursday and returned on Saturday with a plethora of fish! We definitely caught our fill! The total was 27 and Kyle was the champion at 13 catches, my dad at 12, and I only caught 2 fish. I know I came out on bottom but it was still super fun and I was glad to catch any! For those of you who have never heard of dipnetting, it is a true Alaskan experience that we couldn't pass up before we left! What you do is take these giant nets hooked to a pole and wade out into the ocean, stick your net in the water and wait for a fish to swim in! Once they do, you drag it to the shore and whack it with a club until it's dead (Barbaric I know, but how else are you going to kill it?!). This takes place at the mouth of the Kenai river where it meets the ocean. It's about the only beach we have in AK that has full blown sand but I wouldn't go wearing a bathing suit there! It was super sunny and nice, but it's always very windy and the water is freezing (thus the chest waders and winter jackets) which makes for false hope. Anyway, we had a great time as you can see in the many pics and Brighton enjoyed her first trip to the ocean and even got some sun! Oh and the whole camping experience was like night and day compared to our first voyage! It was blissful because we brought her pack and play and set it up in the back of the truck! We didn't hear a peep from her all night! What a great vacation and fun way to round off the remaining days that we'll be true Alaskans!

Stroller Sadness

This will be a bit of a cheesy post but I wanted to say a sad farewell to my beloved jogging stroller! It was bittersweet today because we put a ton of stuff onto craigslist before we headed out. Well we were so happy because almost all of it was sold within a few hours, but that included our jogging stroller. By the way, can I just say that craigslist is the greatest?! I can't believe it took me this long to finally put anything on it! Anyway, we got almost all of what we paid for for our stroller and we were very happy, but I was a little bummed because I loved that thing! We took it everywhere and it made me go running, knowing that I could go with lil' B. Anyway, we hope to get a jogging stroller/bike trailer when I get down to utah so hopefully that'll make up for the awesomeness we had to depart with! Enough ranting! After all, I can't be too upset. I mean we're leaving in 20 days so what's there to be sad about?!

Harry and the Happy Day

So this past weekend after we saw the parade, Kyle and I went on a date to see the new Harry Potter movie and it was great! Of course I'm a sucker for all the Potter media so I loved it! I recommend it to everyone and just had to share my enthusiasm for magical mayhem (I'm a dork I know!)! And it's always fun going on dates with your husband! Although he's never read the books, he enjoyed the movie immensely and it was fun to get out together!
On to other day to day events, it was such a nice day today that Brighton and I couldn't stand staying inside! So we packed up and headed for the park with Lillie and Juliet! It was great fun except the park manager turned the sprinklers on and no one could play on the playground without getting soaked! Well, it was an enjoyable day and the sun got us excited for Utah! Only 21 more days in counting!!

Bear Paw Parade

So on Saturday we met our friends Juliet, Ryan, and Lillian Belnap to watch the Bear Paw Parade. The Bear Paw is a festival in Eagle River that everyone in town attends and there's activities through out the community during the week (Such as the slippery salmon run which an obstacle course you have to go through while carrying a dead salmon! It's weird up here in AK!). It's great fun and the parade is always an exciting event! This year's theme was "Pirates of the Bear-a-bean" which was pretty cheesy but fun to see everyone dressed like Capt. Jack Sparrow. Every year it seems like it pours on the day of the parade and Saturday was no different! Thankfully it stopped right before we got out of the the car so we didn't get too soaked. Lillie is Brighton's best friend here and they had a blast together pointing to the fire engines and clapping for the horses that went by. The funny thing is that the missionaries were in the parade too! They weren't attached to any float, but waved to all the bystanders. Random huh?! Well, I had to get a shot of that and thought it was pretty funny! We will definitely miss the good times and good friends we've had here but are super stoked that we'll be on a plane to sunny Utah in 3 weeks!

Special Day for the Foleys

Today was a special day for some friends of ours. A while back I told everyone about the story of the Foleys. Tehya was a foster child from birth to our friends Delmar and Jared Foley. Well a few weeks ago was Tehya's 1st birthday and all the papers went through last week for the adoption so they are an official family! We were invited to their sealing today and it was an awesome experience! They not only are official in the eyes of the government, but also in the eyes of the Lord! They are such a great family and Teyha is so lucky to be able to enjoy the blessings of being born in the covenant now that she is a full Foley! It was a tender experience that I'll never forget and I just thought I'd share the joy with all! Congrats to the Foleys!

Birdie Business

I have a little story to tell. Yesterday when Kyle, baby, and I started to go on our weekly bike ride, we noticed a bird was particularly close to us and it wasn't flying away. Kyle got so close that he grabbed a glove and picked it up! It would not move! We thought it must have a hurt wing or something because it was not doing anything. So we decided to freak my mom out and bring it in the house. Well we were nervous that it was going to go crazy and fly around but it didn't, although when we were taking the bird back out, it totally pooped all over Kyle! It was kinda funny! And when we took the bird back out, it flew away like nothing was wrong! It was weird. Brighton loved the whole experience! She wanted to get super close to it and touch it, but we didn't want her to get the bird flu! Haha! I was super mad that our camera battery was dead when this little event took place because we don't have any pics of it and I know that this pic has nothing to do with the story, but I always have to add one! Nothing too eventful is really going on with us other than the flight of the insane bird, although I do have a little news. If you haven't already noticed, I got invited to be on the Little Bird Design digital creative team! I am still a little nervous about being on the team but am loving everything I'm learning and doing so far! A big thanks goes to Beth Summers for introducing me to the creative team world! It's been great!

Tagged long ago!

In spirit of all the tagging that's been going on, we finally decided to actually follow through with a tag! It's been a long time coming, but we got tagged like a month ago by the Ottleys and finally sat down together to do it! (P.S. And do you love the picture of us?! It was 3 days before I had Brighton! Ugh!) So here it goes:

What was I doing 10 years ago:
D- Cheerleading on a little Pop Warner squad
K- Working at Taco John's

What was I doing 1 year ago:
D- Getting adjusted to motherhood
K- Managing the Alaska Club

5 snacks I enjoy:
D- Ice cream! Any flavor!
2. Quakes mini rice cakes
3. Popsicles
4. Nerds candy
5. Pepperoni (I love cold straight out of the fridge!)

K- Jamba juice
2. Burnt almond fudge ice cream
3. Frozen Snickers
4. Jello w/mandarin oranges in it and vanilla pudding on top
5. Red Swedish fish

5 songs I know I all the words to:
D- We didn't start the Fire- Billy Joel
2. Gangsta's Paradise- Coolio (Sad!)
3. Isn't She Lovely?- Stevie Wonder (Brighton loves it when I sing this song to her!)
4. Whenever, Wherever- Shakira
5. No woman, no cry- Bob Marley

K- We didn't start the Fire- Billy Joel (We are both obsessed with this song and embarrassingly enough we have a dance to it too!)
2. I would walk 500 miles-The Pretender
3. Mormon Rap
4. Come Thou Fount
5. Pachabel's Canon

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
D- Pay for Kyle's schooling!
2. Invest and save for Brighton and future kids' college fund
3. Go to Spain!
4. Buy a boat or horse (I still can't decide yet!)
5. Go crazy at Joann Fabrics

K- Pay off school debts
2. Invest for kids' college funds
3. Go to Hawaii
4. Buy in as partial-owner to a ski resort
5. Open my own outdoors store named Comin' to the Outdoors

5 things I like doing:
D- Hiking
2. Biking
3. Knitting
4. Pilates
5. Scrapbooking

K-Bouldering
2. Skiing
3. Kissing my wife
4. Playing with lil' B
5. Hanging out with my siblings

5 things I will never wear again:
D- Leggings with stirrups
2. My hair in a perm
3. Bright teal green eyeliner (I looked like a lady of the night!)
4. Enormously large sweaters that were way too baggy on me!
5. BRACES!

K- Brown, orange, and white polyester disco shirt
2. Pegged pants
3. Black dress shoes with white socks
4. Bleached hair (It looked yellow on me!)
5. Jock strap w/ cup (Soccer cured me of that!)

5 of my Bad Habits:
D- I'm a backseat driver
2. I get too stressed over minor things
3. I'm too open when it comes to bodily functions (Example: I fart and burp in front of people but think it's okay if I say excuse me)
4. I spend too much time on the computer
5. Since being in AK, I eat a lot of junk food! Yuck!

K- I leave my clothes lying around our room
2. I'm either too quiet or too loud
3. I'm too forward when first meeting strangers i.e. I hug people upon introduction
4. Food sometimes doesn't sit well with me
5. I'm a little too stubborn

5 of my Favorite Toys:
D- Our camera
2. My jogging stroller
3. All my Stampin Up stuff
4. My bike
5. Our computer

K- My skis
2. My mad rock boulder pad (Thanks Pat!)
3. My future bike
4. Brighton's bike carrier
5. All our camping gear

Now I'm tagging:
Kirsten and Aaron Henscheid
and
Lizanne and Stuart Rasmussen

Independence Day- Seward Style

For the 4th of July, we went down to Seward to partake of the festivities there! In Alaska, Seward is the place to be on the 4th. It's definitely a tourist town so we were able to walk around the shops and see some fun stuff. Also, on the 4th there's what is called the Mt. Marathon race. It's a 5k race up Mt. Marathon which is this super steep mountain and if you can imagine they race up it! It's outta control! They get filthy and pretty bloody running up it and practically rolling down it! Anyway, we saw the women's start and the picture of the lone racer above is actually Kikkan Randall who is a first-placed Olympic skier! She's an amazing athlete! It was cool to see her! And there was even a mini- marathon race for the little kids which I thought was so cute I had to get a pic! Also we were able to go down to the docks and look at all the boats. Brighton loved looking at all the water. Oh and did I mention we went camping? Well, for those of you who aren't the biggest of fans of camping, I don't blame you! Having a little tyke in the picture definitely changes the scenario quite a bit! Brighton thought it was a sleepover and she did NOT go to bed! She was loving her life and going crazy! It was probably the worst night sleep I've had since Brighton was born! Well, it was an eventful and tiring 2 days but we had a ton of fun and we made some lasting mems!

These tiny feet

I can't believe these feet are walking all over the place! I forgot to let everyone know that Brighton is running all over the place now. She started walking about a month ago, but wasn't too big on the idea so we didn't push it. Well, now she can't get enough of it! She looks like she just got off a horse when she walks which is hilarious! Anyway it has been a ton of fun watching her grow and I can't believe she's getting so big! She's become a toddler and I'm getting all weepy-eyed but it's still so fun to see her personality and attitude get crazier by the minute!