Memorial Day, Father’s Day & Jared’s Birthday

We had such a fun Memorial Day that even though it was a couple weeks ago I still wanted to write about it.

I think we have started a new tradition for Memorial Day.

We did the same thing last year and think we will continue to do it.

My whole family all met up at Highland Glen Park for a BBQ & some paddle boating.

The kids loved playing in the water & sand, and the rest of us just enjoyed relaxing and chatting.

(Memorial day pics taken by Andrea Swenson)

 

My niece, Stella, took good care of Hank the whole time and made sure he got lots of love.

I need to hire her for the summer!

   

Love this cheesy grin!

 

We were also able to visit Ruby’s grave, my grandpa’s grave & my grandma’s grave.

Thank you to all who remembered Ruby.

I love seeing all the graves decorated on this holiday, it is one of the most beautiful things ever.

This past weekend we celebrated Father’s day and then Jared’s birthday on Monday.

They always fall in the same week so I always have double duty.

I had been gone to a scrapbook retreat (more on that later) so I tried to plan ahead, but some things still feel through.

I had stopped to get him one of his favorite desserts (banana bundt cake with maple frosting) before I left on the retreat and of course they didn’t have any.

Strike one.

However, he still got breakfast in bed Sunday morning and presents from everyone.

We went to church and then celebrated our dads with visits to them.

We also celebrated Jared’s birthday with my family that night.

He requested a chocolate kit-kat cake and this is what I came up with:

He has been clean eating lately and I threatened to make him a ghee & coconut flour cake, but decided to make a calorie filled, delicious, gooey cake instead.

 

My grandma’s birthday is also the same day as Jared’s so we made her blow out the candles too.

For his actual birthday I bought passes to Park City’s outdoor activities (alpine slide, zipline, ropes course, etc), but of course it had to be stormy that day and rained us out.

Strike two.

Instead we went to eat at one of favorite restaurants, The Spin Cafe, in Heber.

It didn’t disappoint.

Then I took him to a movie and we called it a night.

It did make me realize that Jared and I definitely need more date nights!

It was nice getting out just the two of us.

Other things going on:

-We have been touring the Parade of Homes the last couple of weeks and have wanted to move right into a couple of them, although just the thought of moving again make me want to vomit.

-I mentioned I went to a scrapbook retreat over the weekend. I went to Mantua to a girl’s camp (roughing it) to scrapbook the whole weekend.
I was able to get caught up on a lot of stuff and hope to be able to finally get caught up one day.

The set up:

This is where my butt sat for two whole days:

Jared had the kids while I was away and I received this text message:

Maybe I should go away more often.

Although he had a great time and took the boys hiking, fishing and exploring.

Everything was great until this happened:

Luke face planted it while hiking and was pretty miserable.

But ice cream made it all better.

-I saw a plastic reconstructive surgeon about my bell’s palsy and what it has come down to is basically my face is recovered as much as it is going to be. I will never get my smile back. I’m trying to come to terms with this. The only things they can do is Botox to loosen the muscles that tighten up when I smile and then do physical therapy on my face to manipulate the muscles to look symmetrical when I smile, however it will be a new smile. I’m still deciding what to do.

-I’ve been working on Hank’s first birthday celebration coming up in a couple weeks.

-We have been busy with lots of summer playing.