New Calling

I got a new calling at church at church today - Enrichment Counselor in the Relief Society Presidency (or 2nd Counselor). Yikes! I'm really excited about this new opportunity - I had been in Young Women's for like 3 1/2 years or something crazy like that - but I am going to miss my girls and the other leaders a TON. It's going to be really hard for me to not go up to the church every Wednesday night....but I think my husband will enjoy having me home more. Just something new to get used to, I guess....not sure if I'm happy or sad yet - a little of both I guess.

So, if anyone has some good Enrichment ideas, I'm going to need them! I was the Enrichment Counselor once before when I was at BYU-Idaho, but that was with a bunch of young girls that just wanted to have fun. This is totally different, I have to try to please all the women - 18 to 99 - it just seems a little bit overwhelming!

Forest Festival 2009

Yesterday we went to the Forest Festival Parade to watch all of David's family and Jared walk by. It was a lot of fun, but HOT, HOT, HOT - we all got a little bit burned.

Brian, Becky, Crystal and Sara came down to watch the parade with us (by the way, I even got CHRIS to come - it's a miracle!)

Allison got a Pinwheel and LOVED it!

David's family was towards the beginning of the parade - David was a previous Paul Bunyon (the boys version of the queen of Forest Festival), so he got to ride in a truck with a bunch of other past Paul Bunyons. I thought it was pretty cool they let his entire family ride along, too.
Jared's band was towards the end of the parade (he's in the picture somewhere). They didn't walk past until the parade had been going for an hour and twenty minutes. So, after his group passed, we quickly packed up our stuff and headed home - there was still a LOT to come and we were totally done!

I don't think we'll ever get Chris to go to another parade, but we really enjoyed ourselves and LOVED having family to watch for...

Allison's First Catch!

Monday night we went fishing with some of Chris' family and with the assistance of her father, Allison caught her first fish! It was a very exciting moment and I'm sure there are many more to come. If you look closely, you can actually see the fish - it was small, but that didn't matter!

Birthday Time!

I can't believe I'm 27 already. Time is flying by. We came back from camping on Sunday and had my birthday party at my parent's house. My mom made my favorite - Enchiladas! Yum!!

It's so much fun having Allison around to help me blow out my candles (oh, and check out the candles - there are 2 & 6 - my mom forgot how old I was!)...AWESOME!
It was such a beautiful day - I got to open up my gifts outside.

Allison loved my Homer Simpson birthday card from Sara...

It was an awesome birthday!

One funny story - towards the end of the evening, the phone rang and I answered it. The group of people on the other end started singing Happy Birthday (which is a normal occurrence for our family), so I spent the rest of the song trying to figure out who it was singing to me. I didn't recognize the voices, and then at the end of the song they sang "Happy Birthday Aunt Laura" - it was a WRONG NUMBER! I got a good laugh out of it and told them that they had the wrong number but it was actually my birthday so it was perfect that they sang to me. Isn't that crazy?

I don't mess around!

Beware - If you mess around with my camera, I WILL post the pictures - Love you Brian & Becky!

Memorial Day Weekend

Chris and I love to go camping, so for the Holiday weekend we decided to make it a 4-day weekend and take off work to go camping starting on Thursday. Tim and Julie came up with us Thursday night and stayed until we left on Sunday. Kevin and Chanel came up Thursday night and then went home Friday (I'm not sure why, but I didn't start taking pictures until Friday), and then Brian and Becky came up Friday and went home Saturday. It was a ton of fun! Thursday night was a little crazy because we were halfway there when we saw a sign that said the campground was closed until Friday. So, we decided to continue on and found our own campsite for the night - that was an adventure.

Friday we went to the campground (which appeared to have actually been open on Thursday - grrrr) and set up camp. It didn't take long for Allison to get dirty!
We decided to head down to the lake and enjoy the sun - here's Allison tossing her hair back in the wind.

And before long her head was in the water....yikes!

Cute little Crystal enjoying the grass...

And Julie taking a moment to enjoy her pregnant tummy!

Crystal and Becky....
Okay, so here's the story with this picture - Crystal got into her swimsuit to get wet, but we didn't bring Allison's down, so she just got naked and wanted to swim. We weren't okay with that, so we made her put on the skirt from Crystal's swimsuit in stead of being naked. It was a little better....but it didn't last too long and we made her put her clothes back on.
Back at the camp - Allison's enjoying being out in nature.

The girls sure love Tim!

Isn't she sure cute even when her face is a mess?!?

Cheesy Brian!

Chris chopping up the wood!
On Saturday we decided to go for a little walk in the woods - Brian, Becky and Crystal had to stop for a picture when we saw this gorgeous view.
Allison LOVED riding in the backpack with her dad (good thing that she still fits!)

After we went for a walk, we decided to get changed and let the kids go swimming. It was a beautiful day but the water was FREEZING! Not just a little cold - this is like mountain run-off water that is ridiculously cold. Allison wanted to get in so bad, but she decided the best way to get what she wanted was to make her mommy go in and hold her - so much fun!

Somehow the group convinced Brian and I to get further and further in the water. Man, I don't think I ever got used to how cold it was. When I finally went under the water, Allison thought it was hilarious and wanted me to do it again and again - I'm such a pushover.

Then we decided to swim out the the dock. We are so freaking crazy!
What better way to head back than to dive in, right?

We had such a great weekend, we are looking forward to a lot more camping this summer!

Mia Turns ONE!

Kevin (or should I say Doctor Nielsen) is FINALLY done with Dental school and his family has moved back to Washington. We are soooooo excited for them to be around all of the time. After being here just a few short days, little Mia turned one year old. So exciting!


This little munchkin is so stinking cute!
And her older brother is pretty darn cute as well.

She was such a good sport on her birthday. She was eating all kinds of fun stuff and everyone loved watching her show off her new found talent - WALKING!

It's been such nice weather we had dinner out on the deck - with some very cute decorations.

Our family is so big now the kids have to sit at a separate table - the little ones love it, but I'm sure Kendall will be asking to be moved up pretty soon.

My crazy kid!

The boys fixing up dinner - mmmmm good!

5 YEARS!

I cannot believe Chris and I have been married for five years already. Our anniversary was on the 15th, and we had a nice dinner out (thank you Brian, Becky and Sara for babysitting). We were going to go to a movie afterwards, but we would have gotten home too late and were missing our little munchkin (plus I had to work the next day). Anyway, it was a great day and I realized how much more I love my husband every day. He is a wonderful husband and father and I am grateful for him in my life.

Time to Update!

Well, Allison hasn't had the flu for quite some time, so I guess it's time to update. How about some random cute pictures to start us off...
Allison at her Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen's playing Frisbee.

Mommy and Allison having fun with the camera.

And finally our cute little girl all ready for church!