FINALLY, our yard is complete, and it only took like 7 years to do it! Here is a picture of Jason and the kiddos enjoying our basketball court, Jason put up the hoop last night.

The world's most perfect birthday cake, decorated by the one and only Amy Pfister.
Kadin and Scott doing some bowling at the party.
All of the kiddos with their birthday cake.
Cassidy's first day with glasses.
Eating at P.F. Chang's in Salt Lake City with Papa Ted and the girls.

Well, we are back from Montana and I don't have a ton of time to blog but I wanted to get these pictures posted before I forgot about them. We had a great trip to see Jason's family, we missed you Jill and fam, and had tons of fun. We ate and ate and ate, which is usually the case in Montana, but at least I was able to get Jason to run with me a couple of times. We went to The Ox twice, of course, and ate some delicious meals at both Ronna, Scott and Amy, and Rex's places.

On Tuesday evening Ronna had a birthday party planned for all of the grandkids, since all of their birthday's are back to back in the summer, at the local bowling alley. We had pizza and bowled, Jason and his brothers were pretty fun to watch try and beat each other at a game and Cassidy was determined to beat Uncle Matt. Then, Aunt Amy had decorated a cake with six squares sectioned off, one decorated for each kid, is there anything that woman CAN'T do, and Grandma Ronna had a gift for each granchild to open. It was too cute.

We also went on a picnic to Memorial park, looked at Grandma Ronna's almost done house, went to a movie, the guys went golfing, and we just sat around and visited while the kids played. Brayden, Zack, and Kaleb are all pretty close in age so it was a love - hate thing going on with them. We had to seperate them a few times but all in all they had a great time. Cassidy played little mother the whole time and really like playing with the litrtle ones, Shelby and Kadin. The kids had their annual eye exams while we were in Helena at Grandma Ronna's work, Montana Eye Care, and it turned out that Cassidy was in need of her first pair of glasses. Jason was mad at me for being a little depressed about it but he didn't wear glasses from the time he was 8 or 9 until he was 30 like me either. I am trying to look at them as a cute fashion accessory and not as the pain in the butt I thought they were.

We got home on Saturday night then went to SLC on Sunday to meet Ted and his girls at the airport on their layover from Orlando and volleyball nationals, where they took 17th place. We took them to luch downtown then headed back home to make it to church.

We had so much fun and are looking forward to having Matt and Cassi come and stay at our house this weekend on their way to their new home in Sacramento.

Me in my flight suit!
It's a bird...
it's a plane...
it's Allison!


I CAN FLY!!! Seriously! Jason is the coolest! He had an entire evening planned, babysitter and all for my birthday. After Cassidy's baseball game we took the kids to my friend Emmalene's house to play with her kids. I have been really excited to try a new restaurant called the Sonora Grill in Ogden so we went there for dinner, he didn't even need to ask me where I wanted to go just drove me right there. After a huge dinner and four Diet Pepsi's we walked back to the car but he didn't get in. He lifted the hatch and he had my tennis shoes and socks in hand. I asked him if we were going for a walk but he said that he thought I would need my shoes to fly. I have been dying to try skydiving for quite a while now and about a year ago they opened a sports complex with an indoor skydiving place called iFLY inside, the same building where I took Jason surfing for his birthday. Well, Jason let me fly! I can't belive how incredibly sweet and perseptive he is sometimes. What a very lucky woman I am to have such a wonderful husband! There ws one other guy there with his wife, it was his 38th birthday, so he and I took turns in one minute flights. I thought I might be sick with all of the food I had in my belly or pee my pants from all of the soda I drank but I made it through just fine. Skydiving here I come!

I have decided that the saying "You are as old as you feel" is really true. I don't feel 32 that is for sure! I can't remember feeling any different than I do now than I did in my 20's. I look pretty much the same as I did then and I actually am in better shape than I was then, especially since I was pregnant twice in my 20's. It is just sad that so much in today's society is hinged upon how old you are; I can't remember the last time I filled out any form that didn't ask for my age. Why does it matter so much? Just one of those "things" I guess. I wonder why birthdays are such a time for reflection. A time to sit back and contemplate where you are and where you are going. We took the kids to Kung Fu Panda over the weekend and it had one of the most profound lines in it. "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that is why they call it the present". Cool, huh? I really hope I can try harder to reflect on that as I continue to age. :0)