Bridal Showers

I was so blessed to have 4 bridal shower to celebrate my upcoming wedding!

The first was held on April 13th at my friend and co-worker, Faye's house and was put on by Faye, Collette and Linda.  Linda made these cute decorations.

Here are a few more.  That lace table cloth was used at Faye's wedding.

Faye made some delightful treats including these little cheesecakes topped with kiwi and blueberries to match my wedding colors.  They were so pretty!

She had lots of delicious food including these homemade mini quishes!

Brent's wife, Elizabeth was kind enough to take pictures for me.

This is a group shot of our lovely work ladies including my teammates wives.  It was a lot of fun.

The next shower was the same day, just a few blocks away.

We had more delightful food.

These ladies hosted this one.  Poor Collette had double duty and she did it cheerfully even with a serious headache.  She deserves a medal!  It was at Bev Martin's house.  That's Katherine in the background and Jen Norman on the left.

Collette made these cute favors.  It had microwave popcorn and some other treats, but the tag says, "Thanks for popping by."

They nailed and taped a sign to this tree so people could have a visual on where the shower was.

I had to pose by it.

Here's most of the crew that came to this shower.  Sweet Jan Chappell came to both showers and even doubled up on gifts!

Robert and Matt came over for that weekend and I hung out with them after the showers.  Here they are all dressed up on Sunday.  I had Robert wear one of my dad's old ties.  It looked really nice.

A few weeks later, Robert's mom threw a shower with Robert's sisters, sisters in law, and sister in law  parents.  Robert's ex mother-in-law even came.  That one was really fun too!

I snapped this quick picture a little after the shower when people were just visiting.  Robert came in and got caught up in all the visiting.

I snapped this little number too.

That same weekend, we were driving around Austin about sunset and a huge amount of bats flew out from under a bridge we were driving over.  They looked like whisps of clouds at first . . .

but as we got closer, they were definitely bats. . .  a lot of bats.

The last shower was just yesterday and was put on by my cute visiting teachers, Juen and Kristina.

This was mostly ladies from my ward and my Aunt Maylene also came.

Lots of good food there too!  I've been spoiled!

IronWoman

I have to brag about one of my amazing friends.  Katherine is SUPER tough and sporty.  She decided to stretch herself and try a 1/2 Ironman.

I was at her house the other day and she asked for my assistance in helping her try on and decide between two wet suits.  Well, I did more than help.  Like any good friend, I pulled out the camera for these shenanigans!  This was choice #1.  It was really hard to get on.  

Choice number 2 was worse, but was SUPER hard to get OFF!  Even at this point when it should be easy, it still took another few minutes!!!!  She picked #1, I believe!

This is a pic she posted after finishing the race just yesterday.  A half Ironman is a half marathan, 1.2 miles of swimming, and 56 miles on a bike.  Yikes!!!!!  Way to go Katherine for maneuvering your way through over 70 miles of awesomeness! 

Countdown Blocks

I'm in charge of a craft at our upcoming Relief Society "Thuper Thursday" activity.  I chose to do some countdown blocks.  Well, a lot of people signed up so I had to get busy on getting them prepped.  

I had bought some wood and given it to my friend Tara's husband Pete to cut, but the more orders came in so Robert picked up more wood for me.  We cut it after the camping trip and Easter picnic mentioned in the post below.

We accidentally clogged that little guy up.  The third board really seemed to have more sawdust that then others!  It was my job to use Robert's electric sander to smooth them all out - no easy feat, but I escaped unscathed,

Saturday while watching conference, I started painting the wood for the activity.

This shows more of the scope of what I did.  I painted from 11 am to 8 pm!!!!  

But look how cute they're all going to turn out!  I don't think I can put these away until their respective seasons! :)

Camping Fun

This is actually two little camping trips wrapped up nicely into one post.

A few weeks ago, we had planned to go camping with Matt, but due to the late hour, we ended up camping at Robert's mom's house.

Not to worry, though.  We still had a fire in Robert's nice little stove.

We had some s'mores and everything!

We set up tents right next to the house.

Sadly, mine had a few issues and it ended up flapping in the wind most of the night.  Oh well!  Such is life!

Easter weekend we did some real camping, however there was a burn ban, so we used Robert's stove again, but used propane to cook some tin foil dinners.  I didn't take any pictures at the camp site, but I did get some of Matt being silly with a rubber band in the car.

Robert showed us a cool trick he did back in the paper route days and Matt & I had quite a bit of fun with it.

We headed straight from camping to a Williams family Easter picnic at a park by his sister JoAnn's house.

Robert made quite the selection of deviled eggs.  They were a big hit.

I brought these cute little Reeses Peanut Butter cheesecake nests that were delightful.  Those are Reeses Pieces Eggs on top!  Mmmmmmmm!

This pic is most of the "sisters" that were there.  I'm on the left, of course, then we have Robert's sisters Kathleen, Marcia, Cynde (sister in-law), and JoAnn.  His mom is on the right.  We're missing Roger's wife, Sherri, but she was hunting for eggs with her cute little daughter.  It was a great time.  I look a little terrible, but I got ready in a tent that morning.  What can I say? 

Joseph City Trip

I decided to take Robert back to my hometown - Joseph City, AZ for Founder's Day.

I left from work  and met him in Georgetown.  We switched into his car and headed to San Angelo where we stayed with my Dad's old secretary - Carolyn McMunn.

She made us some delicious stuffed French toast for breakfast!!!!

We sure loved visiting with her and her husband, Mac.

I took Robert by my parents' old house.

I didn't take all that many pictures in Joseph City!  Ross did let us look at the old house.

These are some blossoms on the tree in the backyard.

I got lots of these pictures of our hand prints in the cement

The whole family.

This warms my little heart! :)

I had to take Robert by Jackrabbit, of course!

He got this to show his son since it's like the sign in Cars.

I had to do my token picture!

Robert hadn't seen a tumbleweed OR been to AZ before this trip, so I had to document one for him.

Now when I said I didn't take a lot of pictures on the trip, Kristal sure did.  She was kind enough to take some engagement pictures for us.

Here are just a few to give you a sample.

Just previous to our photo shoot, we had played in a volleyball tournament and I had majorly jammed my ring finger.  My ring wouldn't even fit on my finger so in lots of the pictures, you can see my ring on my middle finger.  It was a super fun trip!  We stayed with my Aunt Karen in Joseph City and My Uncle Blaine and Aunt Margene in Midland on the way back.  They are now on their mission in Wyoming at the Martin Handcart sight! :)