BREAKING DAWN

I actually don't think I have ever been as excited for a book to come out. I feel like all the kids (and adults) who rushed out to see what happened to Harry Potter, except in this case it's Bella, Edward, and dreamy Jacob. I have recently switched to team Jacob. I think it would be better all around that way except for the small detail that he didn't imprint with/on Bella. I would love to hear YOUR predictions for the sequel. EW.com has some interesting articles about Stephenie Meyer and Breaking Dawn and USA Today also has a cool article about the whole craze!

I am planning to read this book when Mark and I get away for the weekend but I don't know if I can wait that long!

Bear Lake is Heaven

I swear that I am going to buy a little house in Dingle, ID (yep, it's a town- my dad owns a house there) just so I can go to Bear Lake every day in the summer. What a fun lake. We had the third annual Kyle and Wendy Erickson reunion there on Sat. What a fun time. More to follow........ It's been a very busy, very good few weeks.

Baby Raccoon

After the Stadium of Fire the awesome Edwards family met us at the Marriott in Salt Lake where everyone but Zachy and I enjoyed the plush feather beds of the Marriott. Z thought it would be a better idea for he and I to sleep on the floor. My back still hurts thinking about it. It was 1 am and he kept telling me to sing. I would start to sing and drift off to sleep and he would yell at me to sing some more. Ugh. It was a long night.

On Sat. morning the kids just had to swim in the beautiful outdoor pool. Zachy loves water but is terrified of swimming pools so we wandered around while Mark and Don watched the kids swim.

We then walked downtown to the Gateway mall. That it was about 90 degrees at 10 am should have tipped us off to staying indoors. The Gateway is a beautiful outdoor mall in Salt Lake but dang it was hot! We all took the kids to Wall-E in a nice air conditioned theater. Zachy isn't a good traveler anyway but he was tired on Sat. so the loud theater scared him to death. I ended up at a stupid arcade with him for most of the time. We also rode the escalator quite a few times too. Yee haw. The allure of the escalator left me about 20 years ago. When the movie was over the Ed's parted ways with us and we decided to look around. That was cut short when we almost died from heat stroke. (Zane would think we were wimps, he is on a bike everyday in the 115 degree Arizona heat)It could have been a fun afternoon but cranky Z+ lots of heat= grumpy parents! We headed for home after that getting an ice cream at DQ on the way.

Sunday I ran up to SV for our big Erickson reunion. (1 of 2) It was fun to see people but I didn't realize that most everyone was getting ready to go. In hindsight it was a long trip that I probably wouldn't have made if I would have known it was about over. That being said, the kids had a blast getting dirty in the forest (Kadon looked like a baby raccoon) and then had fun playing outside at my parents house. Star Valley is so beautiful this time of year. I just soaked it up.

Brynn went to a school camp this week about an hour from here. We have missed her a bunch. I went up for parents night last night and she ran to hug me when I got there. She had tears in her eyes and said she wanted to come home. I would have let her even though they were doing fun things last night and today but her buddies talked her into staying. She was having lots of fun but was just a little homesick. She gets home today and I will be so happy to have all of my kiddos together.

Hope your week is going well!

Stadium of FIRE!

Wow! I think I have discovered a new tradition for the 4th of July. We were lucky enough to go to the Stadium of Fire in Provo on Friday. What an event! I have never seen anything quite like it. It was the most professional, most patriotic show I have ever attended.It was broadcast to the Armed Services Network. We had great seats so that was fun. What a show! One of my favorite parts of the show was at the beginning several soldiers walked out onto the field to get ready to hold the giant flag and the crowd roared and was instantly on its feet. How cool is it that to give those soldiers a 30,000 person standing ovation!

There were skydivers that brought in the flags. I loved that! Then the Blue Angels did a fly over which was awesome! (scared Zachy and Kado outside with their daddies) Then a bunch of soldiers rolled out a field length American flag. My man Glenn Beck was the emcee and he was awesome. He is a patriot. He had it set up with CNN to surprise 3 Utah women whose husbands were stationed in Iraq to talk to them over a satellite. What a tearjerker. It was funny when one of the soldiers held up a red Utah jersey right there in the BYU stadium. He got quite the reaction! They also had 1000 dancers from 3 states perform a cool dance that represented the different Olympic sports and they had a bunch of athletes there too. Miss Utah (who incidentally is a Sgt. in the National Guard) sang God Bless America and it was great.

In the midst of all this the Blue Man Group and then Miley Cyrus performed. We were there for the kids to see "Hannah Montana" and they were dying with anticipation but honestly I thought the patriotic stuff was cooler. I am that way though.

After Miley performed they set off tons of awesome fireworks! There were so many my neck got tired looking up at them. (I know, poor me) The stadium was really smoky by the time they were done. The fireworks scared Zachy but Mark loved it because Z would snuggle with him. :)

The rest of the weekend was great too. Part two coming soon.......

Happy Independence Day!

Happy 4th of July! I LOVE this country! Stadium of Fire here we come!

Kissy face

I could (and do)just smother this little guys face with kisses.

Beautiful flower girls