Summer turns 12

Summer turned 12 and had a blast celebrating with her Utah friends & family. Love you Summie. You are growing into such a beautiful young woman. The party included skating, laser tag, pizza and a private party room with a dj booth complete with music videos. It was a lot of fun!

Summer, Carli & Holly doing their sister dance to "Hot & Cold" in the dj room!

Gorgeous Grampp Girls Allison & Carli (Allison arrived from Minneapolis earlier that week--yeah!!)

Summer, Aspen, Amanda & Abbie

Aspen and Summer in the DJ booth

Summer and Amanda

Abbie and Summer in skates

The whole gang!

Holly & Ed (Ed arrived in Utah in time for the party!!) Notice something different about Holly? She went back to blonde over the Summer. She is a blonde babe once again!

Anisa, Abbie, Summer & Jordan (our good friends drove all the way from St. George to party!)

Earlier in the week I went to lunch @ CPK with Allie & Kelli my beautiful (pregnant!!) daughters.

I was out for a jog during the balloon fest in Sandy and happened to have a camera in the car. This picture doesn't do the magical moment justice. The balloons were closer and more vibrant than they appear in this picture. Later, I ended up jogging by the spot where they were all landing. It was a lot of fun!

Boating and Oral Surgery

A few days after Summer & I arrived in Utah, Holly arrived from Ireland (yes I know, we all want Holly's life! She was invited to Ireland for a visit with her friend Taylor Ribbins who spends her Summers there with her Irish family. She had a fabulous time.) So.... Holly came to Salt Lake City via Dublin!

First order of fun in Utah was a day at Jordanelle on our favorite boat--the Beckstead's Black Pearl. I thoroughly LOVED being up there in the mountains on that beautiful lake and the kids had a blast. Thank you for the fun day!!!
Holly & Carli riding the tube...

Summie fish at home in the water

Holly got up and out of the ice cold water...

Me & Carli... Miss you baby :(

Abbie & Summer... 2 peas in a pod...

Tyler Brunatti catchin some air....

Chillin on the boat after lunch with Car, Ty, Kel, & Mont...

After our day of fun in the sun, we got down to the first order of business which was wisdom teeth removal for Holly AND Carli. They spent a few loopy days on Loritab and kept me busy running up and down the stairs with frozen pea ice packs --and logging miles to and from milkshake runs. It was crazy but I loved taking care of them and they were hilarious! They came through it all beautifully with very little swelling and bruising. Holly's teeth were horizontal so she had lingering pain:(
Fresh out of anesthesia... Love the cotton fangs. Notice it is older sister Carli clinging to Holly for moral support. Holly was totally out of it! I love you Carli & Holly! Glad you went through this together and that you still wanted "Mommy" to take care of you!!!

p.s. Hey Cayman friends have you found a way to get music players back on our blogs? I hate that they blocks us due to our lack of copyright laws. I miss my music!!

Summer Highlights

I love my life! I really do have the best of both worlds--mountains and sea. It was great to spend much of the Summer in Utah and wonderful to return to the beach. So much has happened and so much exciting news to share. I'm going to start at the beginning and blog for a few days about all of the fun and all of the surprises in my family. LIFE IS SOOOO GOOD!!!

July in Utah can you guess where I am? (The music should give it away) Air Supply concert--Sandy Amphitheatre! What a kick. I took my neighbor Ruth Seirup with me--Ed wasn't in town and her husband Bob was watching ManTV with their son

Ruth :)
In order to get her to go I had to assure her there wouldn't be any pot smoking drunks around. Ha! Ha! (We were the wildest girls in the crowd which tells you a lot about the crowd.)

Beautiful Utah my mountain home!!!

We so enjoyed the mountains and mild weather in Utah. I loved running in the shadow of Lone Peak to my old familiar ipod tunes--(it felt fantastic to run hard and fast downhill in the dry air but I was excited for the beach by the time we left.)

A Few More Pics...

Master Bedroom Built-ins

Kitchen dining area

View from Master Balcony

Summer hanging out on the family room couch

Kitchen: the oven bakes great cookies :)

Sun through plant leaves near the pool :)

We've Moved!

The Master Suite

The view to the south where the single family houses will be

The view from the family room balcony

(I took this picture looking up while I was laying by the pool)

The architectural detail at Camana Bay is world class!

The couryard below us--this tree is huge and lit at night--pavers are pretty

Summer's favorite trick in pool or sea...

The view of the pool directly in front of our front door

Our new front door--love the yellow and the planters...

Last week we bid a sad farewell to the Sovereign. We were hoping to stay until Sept. 1 when our new apartment will be ready but the unit was needed for someone else so we made a hasty move to a temporary apartment in the building next to where our new apartment will be. (I should say that Ed made a hasty move while I was away in Florida with Carli :)
We are crowded with two bedrooms and surrounded with boxes we don't want to unpack since we will be moving yet again in 5 weeks :)... but Camana Bay is wonderful and I think we will love it here. The pictures don't really do it justice. Ed walks to and from work in under 5 minutes. We can walk to movies, shopping, restaurants as well--could be dangerous :) The beach is about a 7 minute walk. We are truly living the "new urban" lifestyle.

Love the palm trees :) Miss the beach :(

Goodbye to Kelli and Ky :(

Kelli and Kyle left today and the house is so quiet :( I'm left with the memories and the photos...thought I'd share a few. Allison and her friend Annie left on the day Kelli and Kyle came so it has been a fun few weeks with lots of company.

Friends :)

We had a wonderful visit with Dave and Julie O'Leary and all of their children last month. Thanks to the swine flu scare in Mexico at the time, they opted out of Cancun and came to Cayman--lucky for us.

We also loved having the McKells who visited the month before the O'Learys and brought along three of their children. We have been friends with Brad and Renae since BYU. Such fun history. Sorry we didn't take more pics with the McKells.

You know the friends that feel like family? The ones that no matter how long you've been apart you just pick right up with them? That's how it is with these friends. Such a treat to make some memories with friends here in this beautiful place. We love visitors :) Especially when they bring teenagers from Utah--makes Holly feel like she's a little closer to home.