Primary program

Earlier this month our ward had the primary program, It was really great! I was a little nervous giving Brody an open mic in front of a crowd, but he did great! I thought i'd try to video the boys saying their parts each year so I can see them grow from year to year, so here's Brody:

*That little bit about it being Sunday wasn't actually part of his part, but more the sharing of information.

Pumpkin patch

Our ward's playgroup met at the pumpkin patch, so we joined in on the fun. I really like this pumpkin patch, we went a few weeks ago and had fun that time too! It's free, lots of white pumpkins (my fav) and a little farmstand with fresh veggies, jams, salsas and honeycrisp apples (by far the best type of apple ever.) I tried to get a cute little picture of the boys, and this was the result:

hmm, not so great. the older one should do better right?

I guess he thought the camera was off to the side!

Running around on the hay maze:

My favorite part of the morning was the twins on the bounce house slide, one word: hilarious!

T-swizzle

A couple weeks ago Taylor Swift came to cowboys stadium for the final stop of her speak now tour. We bought tickets back in january so I have been waiting for quite a while for this concert! I really enjoyed the show, she has alot of creative stuff going on and she sounded a little better live than I expected. But holy cow, there certainly were A LOT of screaming bedazzled tween girls!! I started to wonder if I was way off to think I was part of a target audience, but there were two men sitting in front of us, without any girls accompaning them, so I felt a little better about being there! Here's some pics from our night:

special guest B.O.B.

justin's way to "cope" with the evening, the espn mobile app

singing a ball gown

floating over the audience

In true Taylor fashion there was a lot of hair being whipped around, and running up and down the stage, and in true aging kim fashion I was really concerned she was going to get dizzy and pass out. Turns out she's young and perfectly fine moving all around for multiple hours!! She put on a great show and was definitely worth the wait!

Have a seat

You may be shocked by this, so are you sitting down? I actually got some crafts done!! The craftiness has been very few and very far between since a pair of guys showed up a few years ago, but it seems that if I plan a little better then I may actually find some opportunities to get some things done, I'm super excited! The other night I made this Halloween yarn wreath, which is definitely a simpler version than I've seen, but I figured I'd start with baby steps.

I promise the flowers are supposed to look wrinkled like that! And also, that's not my arm. Anywho, this is really, really easy to make, it just takes a really long time to wrap the yarn around the wreath, so I recommend having some good tv on to keep you going! Now sit tight, I'm already moving on to the next project...

I had seen this on eighteen25 and thought it was really cute, the letters were from hobby lobby, spray painted flat white and i modge podged paper onto the heart. I think for now I like how it turned out! It certainly helps to have a little more space to work on things! Now, hopefully the shock has worn off and next time no one will be caught off guard when I finish a project!

crewkade

yup, when there's two their names blend as one, especially when they're this similar:

i love watching crew and kade do their "twin thing" together, i can't imagine how fun it would be to have your best bud with you all the time! they obviously fight a lot, but i love when they rotate play with each other, luckily i got a little on video when we were playing at the museum:

of course i save the best for last. one day at lunch we were listening to a little jack johnson and crewkade decided to work out a few moves, i love this video!

twins are crazy, but i feel so lucky to watch these two become the best of buds!

seattle

i should preface the next couple days of post and say that this trip we took was AMAZING!! i think we all have a "travel bucket list" and this trip crossed a few of those goals off my list! i'm so grateful for justin's grandma who arranged for this family reunion, and for clarke and diane for making sure we had an amazing time in seattle! and i am especially grateful for my parents who braved the trenches with our little guys and truly learned first hand all the joys and choas brody, crew and kade are, seriously, thank you!! so... here's the trip:

we started out in seattle for a couple days and i LOVED downtown seattle, yes there's a LOT of bums, but the city is really fun, and it's beautiful!! here's some of our highlights, believe me, it's picture overload:
we stayed next to pike place market, lots of shops/restaurants/attractions, lots to walk around and see.

heading down to the market

so this is famous fish throwing market, very entertaining!

the gum wall, not surprisingly, totally grossed me out!!

we took a ferry boat ride to Bainbridge island, and everything about puget sound is gorgeous! the islands are covered in trees with houses popping out, and of course seattle's skyline is really pretty!

justin with a view of the seattle seahawk's stadium and the mariner's field.

view of space needle, i hope you enjoy my true windblown look!

did you get the sunglasses memo?

view of Bainbridge island

after the ferry ride we went to Experience Music Project museum, which was really interesting! justin by the cyclone of guitars, this thing was two stories tall!

the museum had a hall of historic guitars, a Jimi Hendrix feature and a Nirvana feature, which caught our attention. they had lots of memorabilia, smashed guiters and historical progress of the band, it was amazing! recognize kurt's sweater??

after the museum we crossed the way to the space needle, and up we went!

view from the top!

city view on one side

ocean view on the other!

out to dinner at ruth's chris, yum! seattle has delicious crab cakes, soo good!!

pretty much i LOVED seattle, it's beautiful, there's tons to do, and people were really friendly! we boarded the ship in seattle and to be honest i was sad to leave the downtown! it was gorgeous to watch seattle and all the other island go by, such a pretty place!

some skyline and mt. Rainier, i so underestimated the size of my Rainier, it's HUGE!! most of the time the peak's covered with clouds, and flying in our plane was flying about at the height of the top of the mountain, truly majestic!!

enjoying the view

sailing away, and excited for our next stops!!

juneau

i've fared pretty well on previous cruises, but the chilly choppy water off Canada and Alaska really got to me, and the majority of passengers on board! after a few bumpy sea days, we were all very relieved to be on land, and better yet, in Juneau Alaska! we took a view off the balcony and were blown away by how gorgeous and green it was! the mountains had this misty fog swirling around creating such a cool atmosphere! so we bundled up and stepped off ship!
view into Juneau:

the highlight of Juneau is Mendenhall glacier, which is really amazing, we took a little walk through the rainforest of Juneau and it must be the texas summer we just left or something, but we loved the green, the chilly air and the never ending drizzle!

there's a lot of bear activity near the glacier, what with all the alaskan salmon swimming around and everything, so the walks were not guided but more "walk at your own risk, you've been warned." we didn't linger around too long, but i did love the sign that warned against dogs, looks like Juneau's my kind of town!

Juneau rainforest

view of the glacier, and all the flooding that's slowly inching up the trees!

so Mendenhall glacier is blue, the ice is so thick it absorbs all the colors of the rainbow, except blue, which it reflects. interesting right? i tell ya, you learn something new every day!

a little breakage action

the glacier comes from the Juneau icefield and is about 12 miles long. scratch that, i learned more than one thing new!

our excursion for Juneau was to walk on the top of the glacier. you've probably wondering how that was going to happen because lets face it- i don't hike. enter our ride:

yup, we helicoptered to the top, can you tell how excited we are?!

helicopters are so fun! they go straight up or down, side to side and they just hover, it was great! some views of Juneau's city

water views out the other side

above the glacier

the little orange specks are the guides we're going to meet up with

arriving in style:

glacier pics

view from the top

the 350 ft of packed ice we walked around on. they gave us these glacier boots to use, they reminded me of track spikes, so we wouldn't slip around.

a little glacier stream they let us taste, so clean, pure, and freezing cold!! while our guide was letting us drink the water some other guides were playing around testing the ice and one girl fell in up to her waste! she obviously had water proof stuff on, but it was chilly to see!

this crevice was super deep, it made me a little nervous!

to the side of the glacier was a little waterfall, quite picturesque!

grandma lil braving the glacier with her escorts mike and clarke.

so on cruises people always take really cheesy pics where the guy holds the girl, but usually they're on a strip of beach in board shorts and a teeny tiny bathing suit, so here's our shot- Juneau style!

our glacier trekking group (me, justin, jana, rob, clarke, alyssa, shauna, ryan, mike, diane and grandma lil.)


after we got back to the "airport" we took a quick pic by a bear, stuffed of course!

Juneau was amazing, so pretty and green! visiting Mendenhall glacier with everyone was really cool, and we loved the helicopter rides!!