My BirThdAY!

My Birthday this year was great! The best part about it was that Branson surprised me and took the day off of work so we could spend the day together. It was so nice to have a whole day with each other!

This is what I have been keeping all my shoes in since we've been married. It was such a pain digging around in it everyday to find a pair of shoes. Most the time I would find one shoe and then get so frustrated that I couldn't find the other, that I'd dump the entire box out so I could find it. Very annoying.

So... My first Birthday surprise was a beautiful Shoe Rack that Branson put together for me. He even put all my shoes in order!

We went T.C. Eggingtons for breakfast...

They have the most delicious food ever!!

After breakfast, we went and rented movies and lounged around and watched them all afternoon. We watched shark week and now I am terrified of the water! I think it ruined my life. Don't watch it or you'll never want to go in the ocean again!

That night Branson said I could pick anywhere I wanted to go for Dinner. I picked Sushi! Branson had never had sushi before and so I picked the most mild sushi so he would be eased into it. It didn't help. He didn't like it. I should have known... he doesn't even like regular cooked fish!I loved it and thought it was soooo delicious! I'm glad he was a good sport about it and now he can say that he has at least tried it!

Thanks for making my Birthday the best day ever Branson!

Camping & Fossil Creek

Awhile ago, we ventured into the great outdoors to go camping with our friends Skyler and Kari. We were really excited to go because we both love to camp and we hadn't been for a long time. Branson also got invited to go to Fossil Creek that Saturday by some of his friends from work and told them we would go, so we told Skyler and Kari about it and we decided that we would go to Fossil creek straight from camping. Alvin and Jessie also came and that made it really fun!!

Driving to go camping

Trying to pop the Jiffy-Pop over the fire but it was burning my hand off!! I tried to use a sock on my hand so I could shake it over the fire without getting 5th degree burns, but it was not helpful at all. In fact, It burned my hand just as much and made it harder to hold the popcorn!Getting discouraged. I finally sat it in the fire because it was just too hot! It was a miracle, but the popcorn actually turned out pretty good!

Cleaning up in the morning.

Why did we take this picture? I don't know? Looks like the bathroom bush! lol

SATURDAY: Fossil Creek

This is the waterfall that we hiked to. The boys looking down from the top of the waterfall. Brans, Me , Jessie, Alvin, Jared, and his wife, watching everyone jump off the waterfall. Skyler and Branson

I'm pretty sure that's Stan.

Kari & Skyler

Brans:)

Some Kyakers that came down the waterfall.

Me and BAll the boys getting ready to jump. All tuckerd out!

Monsoons

One of my very favorite parts about living in Arizona in the summer is that we get monsoons! There is just something amazing about rain storms in the desert. A couple weeks ago while we were eating dinner it started to pour. Branson decided that it would be the perfect time for us to go skim boarding so we changed into our swimsuits and headed out to find a place to skim board. We ended up going to a park not too far from our house(which I later found out is called cat pee park) When we got there it was really fun and the water was the perfect level to skim board on. Branson was mostly using the board at first and was going down a little hill which was a really good spot because you could get a lot of momentum. After a couple runs he decided to move because he said it smelled really bad over there. So we moved to a different spot. Then, it was my turn to try!! I was doing OK but was having a hard time getting enough speed so Branson decided that we should go back to the hill where he started. I thought that was a good idea! ( I forgot about the smell) I really wanted to have a good run so I gave it my all. I ran down the hill. threw down the board, and jumped on!! I rode for about two second and..... biffed it!! I was covered in water. As soon as I fell and had all that water on me, I remembered real fast why we had moved in the first place. That was the sickest most nasty smelling water ever! I had even gotten it in my mouth. No wonder it's called cat pee park! I was ready to go very shortly after that. But, All in all it was a lot of fun! I'm glad we went and played in the monsoon water!

Updates

A few weeks ago my Dad came into town to drop my niece Leah back off at home before her school stated. My Mom and Dad flew her to Colorado to stay with them for two weeks. They are SO sweet and so kind for having her there to spend time with them and all the cousins. It was so great have both my Mom and Dad stay the night at our house before they had to fly back to Colorado! I'm sad I didn't think to snatch a picture of Mom, but here is my cute Dad.

The Cabin

So, it's been way too long since the last time I updated my blog! Actually... I never have updated it. That's pretty bad! I didn't have a working camera so I never did anything to update it, but then my sister gave me some special batteries that I need and now it works perfectly! Branson and I went up to his families cabin this weekend and the one thing I wasn't going to forget was the camera so I could finally take pictures and update the blog but of course... I forgot it!! So, I guess I'll give you an update with no pictures. Branson's family has a beautiful cabin up on Graham Mountain in Thatcher. We drove up right after work on Friday and stayed until Sunday. On the drive to Thatcher it was really stormy. It rained almost the entire way. It was really cool because there was a huge rainbow and on one side the sky was light and you could see the sun setting and on the other it was really dark and stormy with a lot of lightning. On our way up the mountain, we saw a ton of wild life! Branson saw a snake going across the road and so he pulled over, ran out in the street and caught it. He put it in a box in the trunk so that he could give it to his little sisters.(They LOVE animals) He also caught me a baby frog! It was so cute! I love frogs! We also saw about three skunks and... we saw a Ringtailed Cat! It was really cool!!
When we finally got to the cabin it was pretty late so we ate a little dinner, visited with the family, and it was time for bed. I was pretty nervous because before we went, Branson had told me that there were going to be tons of spiders at the cabin. So many, that you would just be sitting there and all of a sudden one would just crawl up you arm and when you slept you would feel like they were crawling all over you. Seeing as how I am a big baby and very scared of spiders so I was freaking out a little bit. Saturday was great. We had a really good breakfast, played games, and spent a lot of time outside. I also got to spend some good quality time with Grandma Lewis. She is so cute and sweet and has the best sense of humor. Branson spent most of the morning making a bow and arrow. It turned out really good. Very impressive! After that we went on a little hike. It was so beautiful up there! Everything was super green because of all the rain. That night we had a lot of fun playing games and relaxing with the family. We slept up in the loft with Alvin and Jessie. The beds up there were SO flimsy that it felt like we were sleeping on the trampoline. Always rolling to the middle. It was so fun. I did wake up a lot because I kept having dreams that spiders were falling on me from the ceiling. I am so paranoid. It was really fun being up in the loft because there was a big storm with lots of thunder and lightning and since there were skylights we got a really cool show. The cabin was so much fun! I hope we get to go again really soon!!

Our Beautiful Wedding!