April & May

April and May were full of fun.  

• These two started playing together more.  And are they cute or what?!

• Our church time this year has been slowly killing us.  We go from 1:00-4:00, with sacrament meeting last.  The mornings feel long, so we took a beautiful spring walk in Temple Square one morning.  

•  Who wouldn't guessed the first snowman of the season we'd build would be in April?! We had a massive snowstorm, so Andy and Cameron took advantage.  Andy loved building his snowman and loved watching him slowly melt even more.  "Look mom! His head fell off!" 

•  I organized a piano festival (Applause Piano Festival) in our area at the end of April.  I was so happy with how it turned out and had so much fun working on it! 

•  We took a fun Joy School field-trip to Wheeler Farm.  

I think this picture about sums up Andy's personality.

I love watching Andy and his buddies chat.

•  I helped throw a baby shower for my cute mission companion, Emily. 

•  Mother's Day was wonderful.  It was busy with lots of family visits, but Cameron made me feel so loved and appreciated.  How did I get so lucky to get these two boys?! 

•  I ran in the very wet Ogden Marathon!  It was all very last minute; I bought someone's bib from them the day before.  Considering that it poured rain the entire time, I still had fun and enjoyed myself.  Until I stopped running; then I was freezing.  

•  Max started nursery! He did so well the first couple times!  No tears at all.  Now he's a bit more hesitant for some reason.  P.S. This picture melts my heart.  

•  Joy School ended.  We had such a fun first year!  Andy loves his school buddies (Jacob, Elena, Jana, Savannah, and Olivia), and he'll miss having school with them.  

•  Andy had a great soccer season! There were many, many rained out games, but it was still a fun season.  Andy even made a few goals!  Gooooo Purple Monsters!

•  Memorial Day was so fun!  We had a fun breakfast with my family, played kickball with them too, I got to go shopping (without kids!), and then we finished the day off with a hike, just the four of us.  And Max fell in love with throwing rocks in the river. 

•  I love that I get to spend my days with these wonderful boys.  They make my life so sweet.  

•  We got to go to Cameron's cousin Garrett's wedding in Fillmore.  It was so fun to spend time with Cameron's family and the Curtos.  Any was the entertainment at the reception; he proved to be quite the charmer, asking girls (young and old) to dance, even telling one college-age girl how pretty her hair is. :) 

Cancun

Cameron and I spent an incredible six days in Cancun at the beginning of April.  (No kids invited!) We stayed at Villa del Palmar and LOVED it. It was such a gorgeous resort.  It was way nicer than we anticipated.  Delicious food.  Beautiful room and view.  It was perfect! Neither of us had been to Cancun before.  We're in love!  I don't think anywhere could have more perfect weather.

We spent a couple days hanging around the resort--couples' massage in a hut (best massages we've ever had), time share presentation (to finance the couples' massage), lots of reading at the beach and pool, kayaking and paddle boarding at the beach (for the record-I'm way better at it than Cam), and lots of delicious meals.

We spent a good chunk of one day at Isla Mujeres, and island you take a ferry to.  We rented a golf cart for the day and drove around.  I think we had our best meal there--an amazing seafood plate.  And the view at the restaurant was seriously breathtaking.  We also visited Tortuga Land, which had all these turtles, sharks, and dolphins to look at.  Very fun (and hot!!!) day.

We spent another day at Xplor, a park with zip-lining, rafting, swimming in an underground river (which Cam made me do, even though it was freezing!), and amphibious vehicles. We don't have many pictures, but it was a BLAST.  The zip-lines were amazing.  There were 14 different lines we did; a few of them went through water.  Such a great day!

Such a wonderful trip.  I don't think we'd change a thing about it.  (Except for spending a small fortune on sunscreen at the resort. ;)

One of the restaurants had the BEST guacamole.  We got it three times.

On the ferry to Isla Mujeres.  Our beautiful resort in the background.

Cam had a thing for these white turtles at Tortuga Land.  

Sharks and dolphin at Tortuga Land. 

Our perfect lunch at Isla Mujeres.  It was on the tip of the island, so there was water on both sides of us.

Best. Lunch. Ever.

After our fun day at Xplor. 

The view from our room.

January, February, March

Time to play a little catch-up!  Here are some of the things we did the first few months of the year.

January 

• Cameron's grandpa, Harlee, passed away on Christmas Day.  His funeral was at the beginning of January.  It was nice to be with family and to honor him.  

Cute Max took a little nap on Grandpa's lap.

•  Andy started Sunbeams!  He LOVES it.  

• Cameron went snowboarding with Brendan at Solitude.  

• We had the annual crab feast with Cam's family.  Turns out I'm not allergic to shellfish!  I thought I may have been because of some hives I'd gotten previously, but I got tested and was thrilled to find out I could eat as much crab as I'd like. :) 
• I competed in a piano competition, the Oquirrh Mountain Concerto Competition.  I practiced hard to bring my Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 back!  It was fun...but very stressful. :)  I loved having that part of myself back, but it was really tricky trying to balance that stress with parenting.  I didn't win, which was disappointing.  If I'd won, I would have gotten to play with the Oquirrh Mountain Symphony, which would have been amazing.  But it was also nice to just be done! 
• Cameron and Brendan went to a Jazz game together. 

February

• Valentines Day was so fun!  It's the first time Andy really got into it.  We loved decorating his box and picking out Valentines for his friends.  He even wrote his name and tried to write their names.  I got to host the Joy School Valentines party, which was crazy and a little bit fun. ;)

• This is what happens when we try to take a picture together on our Valentines Day date. I promise Cameron had fun. ;) We went to Cafe Molise and then indulged and went out for dessert too at The Dodo.  
  
• We went to the zoo with the Craguns. It's impossible to get a good picture of these two anymore!
  
• We went on a fun date to a BYU Singers Concert.  We both were obsessed with them all during our time at BYU, so it was fun to re-live that.  

March

• We went to a few U of U gymnastics meets in February and March.  Andy liked them!  But I think he just enjoys outings in general.  

• Lots of happy park outings.  And lots of choo-choo trains down the slide.  We had amazing weather in March!   

• Cameron and I went down to Moab for a weekend, so I could run in the Canyonlands Half. What a beautiful course!  It was fun to travel down for a race.  Sara and Jordon generously watched our boys at home so it could be a fun getaway just for the two of us.  The actual race felt really hard, and it was my slowest half ever!  (1:58)  That's the way it goes sometimes, I guess! :) We had fun eating good food, chilling in the hotel hot tub with bragging runners, and we even hiked Delicate Arch.  Cameron hadn't been to Moab before, so it was a must.  Super fun, quick trip!

• I can't believe we don't have a picture, but we celebrated Cameron's Grandma Elizabeth's 80th birthday party with a surprise party at Brio!  It was so fun to surprise her.  That same day, Cameron and I went to see Les Mis in Orem at Hale Center Theatre.  It was Cam's first time seeing it!  Super fun because his work friend was Jean Valjean.  
• My wonderful students had a spring recital.  It's always so fun as a teacher to see my students work hard, make progress, and achieve something wonderful.  
• My sister Rachel received her Endowment at the temple.  It was so special to be there with her and to be there with so many family members. 
• Rachel and I went on a super fun sister date to Sawadee and to see a movie.  
• My mom and I took my Grandma Winterton to the symphony.  It was a treat, because she always took me to the symphony when I was younger.  She doesn't get out much, so I think she really enjoyed it.   

• An unfortunate event: I got in a car accident. :(  My first time ever being in an accident.  I was fine, and luckily I was alone in the car.  But the car was totaled, so we're in the process of buying...a mini van.  Yep, you heard me right.  And, no, I'm not pregnant. ;) 

• Cam and I went to see Pentatonix (his favorite) down in Orem one Tuesday night.  We felt pretty wild and crazy being out til 11:00 on a Tuesday.

• We got to celebrate Greg's birthday with a fun dinner party.  It was so fun to have Ward and Amy there too. 

California, Part 2

We spent another two days in California after Disneyland.  It was the perfect way to end the trip.  Saturday, I got to go for a nice, long run (where I was THIS close to being hit by a car! but never mind), we went to Laguna Beach for a delicious breakfast and beach time, we swam at the hotel, and we ate dinner at Downtown Disney.  Cameron and I got to go out to a late movie with Brendan. It was POURING rain the entire mile walk home from Downtown Disney, but we survived.  

An artistic breakfast shot by Andy 

Sweet Maxy loved the beach 

Andy's pants stayed semi-dry for the first two minutes.

Then he ditched his pants to chase the waves with Dad. 

Andy did a self-portrait then wrote his name.

Sunday we got breakfast, walked around the Santa Monica Pier for a bit, then headed to the airport. 

Too bad Andy has no personality.

Max got lots of practice walking with Grandma.

Many thanks to Greg and Kathy for the best trip EVER!