Birthday dinner...

For my birthday dinner, Merril took me to a fancy french restaurant called Guy Savoy in Vegas. I've always wanted to try a fancy place, like the ones shown on food shows. I bought a new dress for it! I actually bought 2 dresses at Ross for $15 a piece and used one so I could make the sleeves. It turned out great! 

This restaurant was super fancy and super expensive. It was course after little course of fancy food. 

Our favorite part was this guy and his bread cart. There had to be 15 different types of artisan french breads. He kept saying, "I can come back as many times as you want and you can try as much as you like!" He was awesome!  

The wait staff knew right away that we weren't their usual crowd. We ordered a dessert to share and they brought by a dessert cart and said, "Would you like to try some?" Since desserts were $30 a piece, we declined. They leaned in, "No, it's on us. Please, try some desserts." Big grins. We spent around $500 for one meal. That is crazy, right?!

We had a good time at the restaurant but we decided that we probably won't do that ever again. 😅 The food was great and we're glad we did it but we're good for the rest of our lives.

The next day we had all you can eat sushi. We both felt we were very full and only $50 instead of $500 for the both of us. It was more our speed. :)

We had pie for my birthday at Grandma Campbell's house. This is the side you never see.

Valerie's birthday is the day before mine and there was an 80s party. It felt like a party for me sort of. We had a great time messing around with the photo booth props.

Too bad some of these 80s styles are coming back. Yikes.

Valentine's Day 2019...

We had Valentine's dinner with the kids. We had a lovely candle light dinner.

But the highlight was a magnificent fondue. There were strawberries, bananas, pretzels, and marshmallows galore!

We had lots of fun dipping yummy things in the chocolate.

Mikayla's crazy, chocolaty face...

Randos...

We got bored on a Sunday afternoon and this string of pictures is the result. I have no words.

Mikayla's 7th birthday...

Donut towers are the best! Why haven't I been using them all along!? I'm just so over cake. Crazy cake for a crazy girl.

We had a unicorn-themed party, complete with a pinata!

There were presents, of course!

She's been begging for a hatchimal for a while.

We finally gave in and it was more fun than I thought it would be!

Awwww! My girl went to Preference!

Maxine is finally old enough to go to Preference.  She asked Colton and had a great time.  I was asked to take pictures and wished we were at a prettier venue. And it was FREEZING! They had lunch and played nerf wars for the day date. Dinner was at a friends house. After the dance, they went to Culver's frozen custard. These are the beginnings of the best times!

Mighty Mikayla...

Those arms are mini but mighty! All the younger kids have been climbing the door jams.  Mikayla is the best at it. She's a perfect combination of strong and slight.

End of Maxine's swim season...

Maxine competed at the region swim meet and shaved 6 seconds of her 100M freestyle and 5 seconds off her 100M breaststroke! Yay! I'm proud of her dedication and really excited that swim season is over!

El Cheapo!

Maxine was asked to El Cheapo by her long-time friend, Trentin. The dance was hippie themed. Maxine's hair is totally made for the seventies! 

I don't even have that many pictures of anything but they looked cute and had fun!

Gringos con Motos y no pasaportes!

Merril, Wade, and Wade's brother-in-law, Michael Richey, were planning to go to Mexico. Down in California, they realized that Wade and Merril had both forgotten their passports! No bueno! They tried to get the passports down to them but ended up changing their plans and headed north instead.

I like to think that something bad would've happened to them and the Lord made them forget, thereby protecting them. 💗

They decided to ride up the Pacific Coast Highway to the redwoods.

They saw cool beaches.

They found a beach with a ton of elephant seals. Merril said they smell bad. Hee hee. 

They still had fun riding motorcycles but next time they'll remember their passports for sure!

New 25th Ward and Merril's in the bishopric! What?!?

At stake conference, our stake was split and 2 new wards were created. We are now a part of the newly created 25th ward! My whole neighborhood has been divided for quite some time so I'm excited that it's all back together again! Parts of Park View, Rock Hampton, the older Canyon Ridge, all of Zions Gate Homes and half of Zions Gate trailers make up the 25th.

To our surprise, the new stake president wanted to speak with me and Merril on Saturday night. Merril was asked to serve as the new 2nd counselor in the bishopric. This is the first time Merril's ever been in a bishopric. 

Merril's Dad, Mark, was able to be here to ordain Merril to the office of high priest. Merril's Dad has served as second counselor in a bishopric before. Must run in the family.

I'm always amazed at how calm Merril can be in really nerve-wracking situations. I was excited and nervous and he was calm as can be. I'm hoping that calming influence will be useful when serving in this new calling. 

I think the hardest adjustment will be sitting alone in sacrament meeting. At least I'll still be able to see him and wink at him.

Fun Winter Saturday!

We started our Saturday at the Cedar City Aquatic Center to watch Maxine swim the 500M freestyle. That is a brutal race. Her time was just over 8 minutes. Her coach made her do it. After she showered and changed, we went to go play in the snow!

We drove up Cedar Mountain and found a great hill where we made tube trains!

Merril's exercise tracker said he hiked 2 miles. Really we only hiked a mile up because we rode tubes down.

The weather was perfect, sunny and calm. We were hot and kept having to strip off layers.

When we were switching cars, there was an epic battle for shotgun. Juliet won. 

Singing at George's Corner Restaurant...

Merril likes to sing and play the guitar. Okay, he really likes to play the drums but it's hard to perform percussion by yourself. He snagged a gig at George's Corner Restaurant and had Maxine practice up a few of her songs to play. She sang backup vocals for a few of Merril's songs too.

Maxine recently got her own guitar and she's getting so good at it.

Music has always been a part of my childhood and I'm glad to have met someone who gives the kids this kind of opportunity to perform. 

Goodbye boat!

We are getting rid of a few items this year, our boat included. We purchased this boat when Maxine was 2. I've had it for longer than all our cars and most of our kids. The interior is toast and needs several little things to make it awesome again. And we're going to let someone else do all of that. 

Merril's trading it for a snowmobile so we won't be getting a new boat this year. I don't know when we'll get one. It's been a sanctuary on calm summer nights and I will miss it.