Date Nights

The last two weekends we were able to cash in our tickets and have some great dates. Pretty great to be able to spend time with Ryan and for Grandma to spend time with Camryn.

First up was the Jason Mraz concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Not only was it an amazing concert but the venue was gorgeous! Jason Mraz is great on his albums but live is WAY better! That voice is unreal! I hate not having talents, but luckily we can pay to enjoy other people's talents.

The seats are cute little wooden park benches and you can bring in a picnic (in our case candy and sodas) and blankets. Such a fun night out!

Next up was Lion King in San Diego. We had heard really good things about this show from Ryan's mom who gave us the tickets and it didn't disappoint. In fact it was a million times better than we could have planned for! The costumes, the music and the story...all amazing. Ask Ryan I cried like the whole time. I know I am a baby but there is just something about watching performance and the thrill of the stage. I get all nostalgic. I wish I could be up there singing and dancing with them, eventhough I was never that good and will never be that good.

My advice go pick up a Jason Mraz CD, or if your hi-tech unlike us download his album and go see Lion King. You'll be happy you did. Thanks for such fun dates Ryan and Brenda for babysitting!

Camryn's Big Day

This little squirt did it...she turned ONE! So we decided to celebrate with Grandpa and Grandma Smart, Brittany, Derek and Jack and Mia and Nate.

She actually had a lot of fun opening her presents and playing with all of her awesome new toys!
And I had a lot of fun making these for our little Monkey.

But then she got real shy when we sang to her...
and she wasn't sure about the taste...

so then she squished it together and then thought about it again...

And she decided she liked it better in her hair more than in her mouth! Well I guess that is what you get from a big ONE year old girl. Thanks everyone for your sweet notes, presents and thoughts! Happy Birthday again little cutie!

Happy Birthday Camryn!

One year ago you were born at 4:45 pm today! Boy was that a crazy experience! But you made it safe and sound and it has been a blast with you ever since! You are such a fun loving little girl! Who would have thought being your parents would be SO much fun! We want to record something you are up to these days....

~Your two top teeth are coming in
~You weigh close to 20 lbs...lucky you get to turn around in the car
~You sign thank you, please, more, drink, and eat
~You love to wave hi and bye-bye and blow kisses to everyone and every dog you see
~You say no-no, uh-oh, whoa, and wow
~You say boo for a cow, caw-caw for a crow and ba-ba-ba for a sheep
~You love to dance to every song (sorry to say your favorite is Poker Face by Lady Gaga) and you love when we sing to you
~You are crawling all over the place (had your first incident with the stairs-not fun) and cruising along everything but are too scared to let go off the one hand you need to balance.
~You throw a pretty good tanturm and scream like a girl
~You love to eat everything especially fruit and completely weaned yourself off nursing a couple weeks ago

~You love your mom's jewelry, you say whoa and wow whenever you see my accessories
There is much more to your little personality but most of all we love you! And are so happy you are apart of our family forever! We can't wait for another fun year with you! Happy Birthday Pumpkins! Here is a look back at some pictures from the year:

First Twigg Shoe Party

My first shoe party was a hit! We all had so much fun trying on shoes, eating and of course chatting!

Thanks everyone for all your help and support! I look forward more parties in the future! Stock up on these styles now...they are selling fast!

Weekend with the Animals and the Fishes

We got a last minute visit from the Fish's...always a fun thing! Thursday night Kirby was able to help out with my shoe party (more on that later); it was so much fun and great to have the extra help! While Ryan and Scott went and played tennis and hot tubbed. Best of both worlds! Friday morning we headed off to The Wild Animal Park. All four of us had never been and having free passes gave us every reason to go check it out! Way cooler than I thought it would be! The San Diego Zoo is hard to top, but I kinda feel this out does it hands down. Or maybe it was just the good company and the fact that Camryn is starting to appreciate all the animals.

Since our camera is being fixed we were able to use Scott and Kirby's, which is WAY nicer. Man we need one like theirs!

Scott petting an African Deer. We were so fascinated by this, minus Kirby who wouldn't dare touch them! You can feed them leaves and they are SO nice but extremly scratchy!

Trying to get proof that they eat from your hand and that Camryn liked them, didn't work out all that well!

Inside the Aviary. Don't worry that this bird ate a hole in Ryan's shirt and then right after this picture was taken the birds freaked out and 20+ birds flew over our heads squawking. I am pretty sure we all got peed on!

This place is so cool because you really are able to see the animals so well and not blocked by huge fences. They have SO much room to roam and makes for great pictures. Each time Camryn saw an animal she says, "Whoa! Wow!" She gets so excited. Too bad we saw all these cool African animals and she still loves flamingoes and ducks the most!

Checking out a jaguar she is getting way too old! She is also back to pulling out her bows again. At least her hair is starting to finally come in though now!

The rest of the weekend went from hanging out at the Romney's beach house in La Jolla right on the beach to a garage sale the next day! Couldn't be more opposite! But I did make $350! Thanks to my MIL who is redoing their house, I got half! Hopefully it wan't too boring for Kirby and Scott since we spent most of the day hanging out and shopping at the outlets. It was so great having these guys in town to watch conference with, laugh a lot and have great conversation! We love them to death and wish they lived closer!

New Arrival at Twigg

This new addition to the Twigg selection is only $30 online or $28 at a party!

Check out the rest of the styles at www.twiggshoes.com

My birthday sucked...but even bad memories are good

My family knows me so well, it was my 29th birthday and they gave me just what I was hoping for--a hike up Mt. Timpanogos and some BYU football *insert screeching record sound here*. What? Okay so it was really a birthday weekend for my dad who shares a Sept. birthday. I thought it would be fun to go hang out-I do enjoy a good BYU game actually and hiking couldn't be bad.

Here's the deal-Satan lives at the top of Mt. Timpanogos. Yup he sits up there in that little white shed at the top and laughs at everyone who hikes to the top and wonders why they just wasted 4 hours of their life and still have to go back down. I'd like to say at the end of it that it was worth it...that would be a lie and I told Satan I don't lie. The truth with hiking is it's great for a few hours. A couple hours in and a couple hours out. I love being in the Mountains, looking at waterfalls, maybe even spot some wildlife frolicking in green pastures. Admittedly I haven't done anything with my marshmallow over bone body for six months so probably dragging it from sea level to 12,000 ft. in a day wasn't a good idea. The problem was I kept seeing small children and old women hiking, which I have realized were evil visions put into my mind to discourage me. I'm calling out all liars right now; don't ever say you hiked Timp if you just made it to that stupid lake. That's just the beginning, you still have to hike another hour and a half up straight rock to get to the top. At least with good conversation things go by faster. We thoroughly discussed Peyton Manning's quarterbacking strategy (side note I just googled his name to make sure I spelled in correctly...I hadn't) and other sports trivia--so pretty much I was silent for the majority of the hike.

So I made it--good job right? Way to go brother Ryan. See it wasn't so bad? Oh that's right we forgot that it's going to rain and hell/hail (both can be used synonymously at this point) on you. Two hours down and the rain came, then the hail came, which was good because they masked my tears. My tears that told me I shouldn't have gone the first 15 minutes of the hike when I realized after a power bar and gatorade that I was already fatigued and dehydrated. Okay I didn't cry, but that's because I was too angry. Then (and I'm not kidding) lighting struck directly in front of us, which caused my Dad and I to hide under rocks for about 5 minutes since we were standing in the middle of the rock field and might has well been made of metal.

We finally made it down in a record slow time of 8 hours, did I mention that it was just my Dad and me? Oh yeah, my brothers decided to slide down the glacier instead. Both my knees were shot and I seriously contemplated jumping of a few steep cliffs if not for a wife and baby. We made it back to the car and headed home. Altitude sickness started kicking in and I felt like I got hit by a truck. When we made it back to the cabin I was greeted by Greg and his new "lady friend" and I looked like a frayed kitten (I made that up, I don't know what one looks like). Since it was my birthday they asked me where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner. I wanted to go to a shallow grave and rest peacefully, but everyone was starved so I offered to go to Cafe Rio since it was close (side note I don't like Cafe Rio). That was my birthday--next day BYU got demolished and might as well of had small girls playing defense. I love my brothers and Dad and wouldn't have them any other way--just don't feel obligated to invite me on these things. The next day they went to a death defying bike jump and I got a massage and hung out with one of my best friends.

The next weekend I decided to have a birthday redo. My Dad had some of his hotel points he couldn't use so he gave them to me (I deserve them). We went to an amazing hotel in Santa Monica that looked out over the Ocean and had a hot tub on the deck (they upgraded us since my Dad and I share the name David--what they don't know won't hurt them). We had a great dinner with friends. The next day we took a walk down Venice Beach-we had to stop a couple times because my knees are still jacked up, had some breakfast, stopped by the LA temple then went to Beverly Hills and walked around Rodeo Drive. It was a great birthday redo.

This is for people who want to know me, or think they know me and really don't. I love to do a little of everything. Want to hike? I'll do it. Want to rock climb? I'll do it. Want to go to a sporting event, dinner, zoo, city, travel, anything? I'll do it. I just don't want to do it for eight hours--it stops being fun. You stop thinking about the scenery and just focus on the pain and how badly you want to injure someone or harmless animals. That's all--enjoy the pictures of both weekends.