Ryan's birthday

The secret birthday party for Ryan's birthday was on August 26th, even though his birthday is on August 27th.

I drove him around and then took him to Shannas...

Here is Ryan and Brandon after the remains of eating the Butterfinger cake.
The cake with the candles lit
When we first came in the door, Brandon and Eric did a great job of "dogpiling"Ryan. It was too funny.
Ryan's Grandma Norberg (to the right) and Aunt Phyllis drove up from Lehi to enjoy the surprise party. It was so fun to see them. Aunt Phyllis is FUNNY and Grandma Norberg is just the sweetest.

The Garden Bounty

These are a few pictures from our first garden. We planted four different tomato plants, but they have now become the "tomato jungle". Every day I go out and pick at least 4 big tomatoes and eat about 8 cherry tomatoes for a snack. It is HEAVEN!

Our corn is going gangbusters FINALLY. We have eaten a few ears, and YUM!

We have officially found 6 growing pumkins. This one is starting to turn orange. We plan on providing pumpkins to a lot of kids :)

This is from our second apple tree. The first apple tree is transparent apples, for canning. These apples are starting to turn red and hopefully will be YUMMY eating apples!

I made a fresh batch of salsa with most of the things coming from our garden. In case you are interested in a sweeter salsa, this salsa is HEAVEN. I got the recipe from my sister, and honestly, it is AWESOME! However, you probably always want to double the batch because it goes SO fast and it is SO yummy!

Kari's salsa
1/2 red pepper

1/2 red onion

1/2 green pepper (I used 2 small green peppers from the garden)

2 cloves pressed garlic

1/2 c. lime juice

salt and pepper to taste

3 slices of pineapple, chopped

1/4 c. pineapple juice

6 roma tomatoes ( I used garden tomatoes and probably put an extra one in)

small bunch fresh cilantro, I used a little less, like maybe 3-4 TB chopped

Sintay visitors

Ryan's sister Erin and her family made a trek out West to visit family, and included us in the visit. YEAH! It was so much fun to see them for a couple of days, and especially to play with Miriam and Marcus and Amelia!
Miriam LOVED climbing in our backyard in one of our apple trees. I couldn't BELIEVE how high up she could get. She was a VERY big climber. And Marcus loved the apples because they were just his size :)

Here are our first pictures of little Amelia. I promise she did smile on occasion :) but mostly it was just the dead stare :)

This was the first chance Ryan to got hold little Amelia. She was SO cute. Plus, she had very cute smiles, and she didn't cry when we held her :)

After dinner, we did some serious playing of Fireball Island. I'm not sure any of you have ever heard of it, but it was Ryan's FAVORITE game when he was little, and he bought it on e-bay awhile ago...ever since then, whenever anyone visits our home for the first time, it's part of the initiation to play.
Playing Fireball Island was very fun for Miriam and Marcus. I'm not sure what pose Marcus is trying to do, but apparently, maybe dancing?

Cruise the Fourth

Many of you may know (or may not know!) that Ryan and I have been on 3 cruises. We will be going on Cruise the Fourth, actually, will be on Cruise the Fourth two weeks from today. Ever since our first cruise on our honeymoon, we have become addicted, well, me at least, and since the having kids thing is taking longer than planned (in case you didn't know, I was diagnosed with a molar pregnancy at 13 weeks back in January and am still on the can't-get-pregnant list), so we are going on Cruise the Fourth so I wouldn't be too depressed this summer without a baby. Now, for those of you having never gone on one, this picture is to help encourage you to go on one. This was from Cruise 3, specifically in Cozumel, Mexico, on a dune buggy drive we got to drive around the island. It's one of my all-time favorite pictures from our cruises, but in a few weeks, I'm sure you will get to hear more cruise details. And I'm always happy to discuss cruises with anyone.

And, in case you want to countdown with us, as of right now, 11 days 16 hours 38 minutes until we are on our cruise! WAHOO!

Partying with Princesses

So, talk about rejuvenation. Last week, I took a day off work and traveled up to Idaho to babysit my two nieces Sadee and Ava, who of course love me. Sadee had tried to sit outside on the porch all day "Alisa is coming, I'm waiting out here for her mom", but alas, she couldn't sit out all day until 10 at night when I arrived. So, when I got there, the excitement and hugs I get from these two little girls just made my day. Seriously, I am not a mom myself yet, but if it is ANYTHING at all like being an aunt to Sadee and Ava, I may die of feeling loved. Love just comes off those two girls for me, it was the BEST. Here are some of our adventures.

Ava LOVES this little blue hat. She walked around all the time with the blue hat. When we were outside, it was so funny to watch her try and not have it blow off in the wind.

Ava is now into this huge thing called "watch". She says Watch in the cutest way, and looks at you so you watch her do a trick. Literally, she would say "watch!" (left picture) about 10 times in a row, and even though I would be looking at her the whole time and after each rendition of watch I would say, "I'm watching you Ava", she still said Watch. Then after the 10th time, she says OK, and does the trick, which usually consists of jumping on the bed, or sliding off the couch. It was TOO hilarious.

This is Ava after you "watch her", of course all smiles.

Okay, so Sadee and I, during Ava's nap, printed off pages (her FAVORITE thing to do) from the computer and we color them. We also found paper crowns to print off, so we each printed off our own crowns and colored them.

Sadee colored her very own. She even took the picture of me in my crown (pretty good huh?).

And the reason why we have a full body shot of Sadee in the crown, is because, being the princess she is, she wanted everyone to see "her beautiful red dress". A true princess at heart.

Every time I go to visit, I have to "draw pictures" for Sadee. These always consist of the Princesses, Belle, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderalla, etc. Sadee thinks I "draw good" and "pretty" but she is kind of Nazi about how I draw the people. Everything needs to look exactly like the pictures, so this picture was the first time I got the Beast so he "didn't look funny". I had to include it. Let me know if anyone is interested in purchasing said picture :)

During the sleepover, we had a dance party...which consisted of excellent dance moves by Sadee (see above picture---can't you just see her on the show So you think you can Dance?) and a few moves by Ava. Ironically, Ava loves dancing even more than Sadee.

So, this is Sadee eating "fire chips" otherwise known as Doritos. Now I call them fire chips. I asked her why she called them fire chips and she said it's because they are red and fire is red. Apparently, I know nothing about fire...

So, the picture isn't super clear, but this is Sadee on her bike. She only wanted to ride it around in the garage, but it was still cute :)

So, this was when Sadee and Ava and I ran races. As you can see, Sadee always outran Ava... her pants kept falling down because they were too big :)

As always, I'm REALLY looking forward to the next play time with my princesses!

The Green Face

This is Ava's "green face". She apparently does this face, now on command, after seeing the Wizard of Oz. Apparently, this is her version of the wicked witch of the east, who has a green face. It is so funny, because now you can say, "Ava do the green face", and she automatically does it! I'm wondering if she thinks she looks mean? More like hilarious... seriously.

Auntie Alisa

So, many of you know that I LOVE being an aunt. These two little girls, Sadee and Ava, are the love of my life, after Ryan of course. Actually, I'm addicted to being an aunt, until the time comes that I can be a mom.

Sadee, the little princess above, is so funny. I was there when she was born so maybe that's why I feel like she is my own. She speaks like she is 20 years old, but at the same time, wants to be a princess with LONG hair, not short, curly hair. She is the epitome of Shirley Temple and everything is princessy to her. Plus, she TOTALLY thinks my drawings of the princess are GOOD! (I know...she is just four!). This was her picture at my brother's wedding reception. One of the bridesmaids gave her a little fabric coverup thing....and so then she got to be a bride. Isn't she the cutest?

Now, this is Ava in her full glory, (above) running around like a crazy person at my brother's reception. She was laughing her head off when I took this picture. She is 19 months old and is the cutest little thing now. She finally has hair and this other picture of her is " the green face" or her imitation of the mean wicked witch of the west, since she recently saw the Wizard of Oz.

Less than 48 hours now...

I am a huge Harry fan. I admit I have read the books a zillion times. Between my husband and I, we have at least two copies each of each book. Needless to say, I have been counting down the days until the 7th book. It started at a huge amount and now, as you can see by my title, we are down to less than 48 hours. And even though I will be sad when Harry's story has ended, I can't WAIT to read book 7.

I feel like I came into the Harry saga a bit late, because the first four books were already out when I started reading them, but ever since, I have been a huge fan. Pathetic as it is, the 6th book came the day Ryan and I got married and we both got a copy as wedding gifts :)

Anyways, I just hope Voldemort gets it in the end and we find out really why Snape is who he is... and maybe Ron and Hermione finally tell each other they are meant to be!

2 years later

So, earlier this week, Ryan and I had our 2 year anniversary. I can't believe I have been with this MARVELOUS man for 2 whole years. This is our engagement picture from 2 years ago... and I still love it. It took us awhile to find each other, than awhile for me to figure out that Ryan truly was the one for me, and here we are, 2 wonderful years later!