WOW! What a Birthday...

What kind of friend comes to your house with homemade creme brulee and brings her own torch? AN AMAZING ONE!!!

Beginning Monday night with dinner at Benihana with the family, I have enjoyed at least one birthday meal or treat EVERY DAY this week, with the culmination this Saturday with dinner at Maddox with my parents (my mom and I share the same birthday so this is an annual tradition).

I have to admit that this dessert topped them all and was DELICIOUS!

... as you can tell!

Thank you Heather!!! (and Kelly, of course...)

Somebody's Happy...

Hillary has been saving for quite awhile for a new car. She's been "shopping" KSL.com religiously and was patient enough to get a pretty good deal on this 2005 red Mazda 3 and was even able to talk the owner down $1,500 to fit within her budget.

She is so excited she can hardly stand it and Hailey is thrilled as well because she will get Hillary's old car which is just the perfect size for her.

Now if Garrett can just flip a few more pizzas and wash a few more dishes at Robintinos he can make us a 5-car family...

Bountiful Handcart Days...

Kind of strange this year. There were 5 adults from our family watching the parade without any children this since they were all participating on various floats. My parents drove up from Sandy and John, Hillary and I had great front-row seats in the shade by Carriage Crossing.

Garrett is a member of the Bountiful City Youth Council and helps out when he can...

Garrett pegged our group with about 3 frisbees... He said they handed out 2,000.

Hailey rode on the WXHS float as one of the 20 cheerleaders for 2010-11.

She says she LOVES all the girls and she's having lots of fun.

Grayson was on the Forza Futbol Club float. They were entry 125 out of 128. The sun was beginning to set by the time they got to the end of the parade route around 9 pm.

Colby, Mitchell and Grayson had a fabulous time throwing candy--and they can throw hard!

We had dinner at John's parents house around 9:30 and then watched the city's fireworks show since they have great views from their house. Since we were the only family of all of John's siblings that was able to attend, we brought enough guests to eat all the food.

Hillary brought her friend Alyssa (one of her roommates last year and again this Fall).

It's so much easier to get Garrett to events if he can bring a carload of his friends...

Hailey brought her good friend Katy to join the fun.

I believe Garrett was instructing Grayson and his friends about the hazards associated with illegal fireworks...

Cooper didn't like the fireworks at all and ran to John to take cover.

Another fun tradition for our family. Maybe we can get Cooper on a float next year!!!

First Picks...

There's ALWAYS Zucchini...

What are you growing in your garden???

Morning Greeting...

Don't you love it when you wake up to this?!

... and this!

With 3 teenagers in the house, I'm not sure which "friends" are the culprits, but I have my suspicions...

Kids...

Grayson and his friend Colby finished off their week-long G.R.E.A.T (Graphics, Robotics, Engineering & Amazing Technology) Camp at the University of Utah. They loved it!

With Grayson at his 3 hr./day camp all week and Hailey in Provo at EFY, I wasn't a crazy carpool lady every day and actually had time to read and work on other projects. However, I was very glad to see Hailey when I picked her up at BYU Saturday morning at 7 am.

We headed straight to our day-long Stake Youth Conference at This Is The Place Heritage Park. (I hope Garrett works harder than this at his Robintino's job... I "think" he does since he got promoted from dishwasher to pizza maker after 6 weeks.)

Hailey cracked me up and I had to take a picture of her comparing skin color with her two cute black friends... really Hailey?!

This pictures says it all... "Mom, this is the third dance this week and I do not like when you take my photo cuz you post it on your blog."

Wild West Wednesday!

What a deal! $2 Wednesdays at This Is The Place in SLC until September. Since Grayson and a friend were attending a camp at the U this week from 9-noon, I thought we'd head over for some Pioneer fun with a deal like that.

I was hoping Grayson was having a good time but could never catch him with a smile on his face.

... thought for sure he'd show a little excitement while panning for gold...

... how about candlemaking????

... thought maybe a train ride would do the trick...

... and finally SUCCESS--the beginnings of a smile as he got shaved! Glad to know he'll be smiling on a daily basis once he needs a razor!!

He's Home...

Elder Collin King just returned after serving faithfully for 2 years in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission. He flew "home" to Atlanta to see his parents and speak in their ward and now he's in Utah for a short while and will be speaking in his real home ward Sunday.

My dad loves to take our family out to dinner for ANY occasion (and we love to go!) Good thing he only has 2 daughters or we'd have to reserve a conference room rather than a couple of tables...

Its fun to have 3 of the 4 King cousins together and hang out with them.

We were excited to visit with Collin and his younger brother Connor. We're glad Collin will be back at BYU in the Fall so we can see him more often...

***Missing: Garrett had to work at Robintino's so he couldn't join us (he did bring home about 12 dozen breadsticks at 11 pm though....)

Secret Sunday OVERNIGHTER...

... glad we didn't really have to go the 5,295 miles to the REAL Zermatt--just 60 miles to the Zermatt Resort in Midway--beautiful!

Once again we took our sack lunches in the car and ate as I drove the family to the undisclosed location...

They were excited. The family participated in shuffleboard and a group chess game...

... and Hillary was glad she was on Garrett's team as he yelled "checkmate" to John and Grayson.
Hailey never disappoints when she participates in unwanted photographs...

... the goats were so fat because they'd been fed a lot over the holiday weekend.

Enjoying the indoor waterfall jacuzzi...

John told the kids to enjoy this bit of Switzerland since it may be the only chance they get!

4th of July Holiday

Our family went out to celebrate the holiday weekend Saturday with our annual trek to Sandy Days with my parents and my niece and her family.

Garrett was a little naughty when he started squirting his dad so his cousin's husband started beating on him!
These girls were extra naughty when they got Utah face paintings!!! (and one of them attends BYU...)

The youngest kids were the best behaved so we took them to Texas Roadhouse for lunch...

... and my runners toes enjoyed swimming back at my parents' pool before heading to Stadium of Fire with Carrie Underwood that evening in Provo.

How did y'all spend your holiday weekend?! (the twang kind of stayed with me after listening to Carrie all night...)