take me out to the ballgame

tuesday night we went to an idaho falls chukars game!

...what? not impressed? well, i don't blame you. but being small town means getting excited over terribly lame things sometimes.

this was something we checked off of our "must-do this summer" list. i love going to baseball games! we played the casper (WY) ghosts and we lost miserably, but i had a good time watching avery vie for the attention of the fans in the stand around us, and i'll do anything if it means being outside in an idaho falls twilight. i just love the summertime here! august begins tomorrow, which means that i'm hitting what's left of my summer activities list hard. coming up? a trip to west yellowstone to the playmill theater, a river float trip, and camping.

woke up, got out of bed...

last week in a nutshell. klayton, zach and i went to the park to play soccer early on in the week. avery loved chasing the ball and i miss playing so much! ugh! we also got to go to rexburg to celebrate my niece, ava's, birthday. she turned three and klayton had lots of fun riding on her tricycle with avery and playing with the girls. saturday a pier opened in downtown IF on the snake river, and they threw a big party, so we called carson (klayton's brother) and his fiancee, shellena, to come with us. we played rockband (and brought the house down), we rode on a cart pulled by miniature ponies, and klayton and carson had the bounce-house fight of the century. check out their bouncy rivalry. we went to lunch at chili's afterward (see carson picking his teeth) and had a really great day with them. they get married in THREE DAYS!! yay! last of all, sunday klayton and i hunkered down after we put the baby to bed to paint her a new toy box. she has so many toys! my aunt jennifer made klayton and i a white chest when we got married with our names and wedding date carved into it. it's so beautiful (and big!) that i decided i wanted to take the blankets that were formerly occupying it out so it could be avery's new toy box. what do you think?

too little

too late.

mallory and josh got engaged on saturday!! i'm so happy for her! they are getting married in vegas this fall, and then they head back to englad to live and go to school and have adorably-accented babies in! i love you, mally.

london calling

...well, not exactly london. liverpool actually. my little sis (aka the coolest girl in the world), mallory, has been enjoying her summer in liverpool. A LOT. a little too much, if you ask me. she has been working at the tate, an art museum, living with an adorable couple in runcorn, and she has gone and fallen in love! every time i talk to her she sounds super happy, but... but what if my mallwhorey goes and marries a cute Brit and lives overseas forever!! i mean, on one hand, SAWEET! i'm totally going to visit her every year. but on the other hand, i'm only going to see her... well, not enough.

but can you blame her? check out her main squeeze. name's josh evans. he's 22. served a mission in africa. likes long walks on the beach and has EXCELLENT taste in women if you ask me... i couldn't lose mallory to anyone less than her own mr. darcy.

...but until they get engaged or have a love child or something i'm going to send her pictures of her favorite person in the world (well, in the continental united states, at least), avery, to try to entice her to come home to me. i am an evil genius. muahaha

who wouldn't want to come back for this face??

there's always money in the banana stand

my dad was here this past week and "boy oh boy did we have some big fun," as Stanley Spedousky would say. my pop pop is the coolest and i love him oh so very much. every time we sit down to eat, you'll hear either, "how's your burger? *snicker*" or "what's the soup du jour?"

if you are wondering, the correct answer to either of those questions is, "dig in and i'll tell ya! *snicker*" or "it's the soup of the day." and when dad asked me how i can stand living up here with all of the WT folks, i told him my motto. WWJDD.

what would joe dirt do?

we did a bunch more stuff than just ride the carousel in rexburg and swim at monkey rock, including spending an evening in Jackson Hole watching Oklahoma and going to the Rexburg Temple, but i guess my camera and i were fighting. sorry!

"mmm. that sounds good. i'll have that."

avery vs the bookshelf

avery vs the bathtub

why... so... serious?

we went to the midnight release of The Dark Knight last night and i am still reeling!! it is incredible. so entertaining and exciting. heath ledger was INCREDIBLE as the joker. incredible. i don't know how else to describe it. he played the role beyond perfectly and made jack nicholson's version look like a bad joke. oh, and thank goodness they replaced insipid katie holmes for maggie gyllenhaal. honestly, i saw it twelve hours ago and i'm already itching to go again.

new twilight movie trailer!!!

watch it here!!!

the boys are back in town

summer is slipping away and there is still so much warm weather fun to be had! regardless, i am determined to enjoy each warm and sunny day i am given. thursday klayton orchestrated a river trip for swimming and bridge jumping with my soon-to-be-married brother-in-law, carson, glen, and my brother zach. we went to downtown idaho falls and they jumped off of the cliffs and bridge by key bank there. i stayed out to hang with avery (i.e. the water is still pretty cold and i am a wuss), but i got some pretty great pictures and we all had lots of fun. i sure love all those boys. and we all really missed my other tow-headed half-brother, daniel, because idaho summer fun is never the same without him. but the boys all acted plenty silly anyway. check out the pics i got of them posing, acting like cavemen, etc.

and here's uncle zach giving avery a ride on his scooter. i took a bunch of cute pictures of her smiling and laughing, but this was my favorite. it's the biker sneer she has! like she is wearing leather and straddling a harley!!

you'd catch 'em surfin' at del mar

here are our pictures from our beach week! we had tons of fun. avery and i came back tan, but klayton came back bright red! despite the 2nd degree burns klayton got, we really had a blast. i loved being with my family! my brother, zach, came back to idaho with klayton and i. he'll be living with us for about a month and working at the restaurant. i'm so excited to have him here!

day one of the beach. klayton is the sand castle king. my favorite part was walking over to check out what he was up to with my 18-year-old bro, spencer. we started teasing klayton about how seriously he was taking it, but then i turn around and spencer is on all fours, helping klayton build retaining walls.

all of the kids helped. alas, the tide came in too quickly and the castel was washed away.

the next day we hit sea world. here's uncle spencer and av.

sunburned mommy and avey.

grandpa with avery. they dressed to match.

grandma and grandpa got a kick out of avery seeing all the animals. here we are at the shamu show. when avery spotted the whale she would shriek and clap.

she loved the tide pools too.

i love this pic! here's uncle zach and avery with matching expressions - tongues out and all.

sometimes i worry that i'll make klayton hate me with the things i have him do. i guess i'd deserve it if he did. but doesn't he look cute!?

here's the kiddie sesame street water park. avery loves playing with other kids.

the last day in san diego we hit the beach again, and klayton hit the sand. he worked on this Bellagio remake for FIVE HOURS. my uncle doug took an avid interest in helping klayton this time. they even went to the store to buy rulers and levels and all this junk.

and here are klayton and doug with their finished masterpiece. you should have seen the people all along the beach gawking.

i didn't take hardly enough pictures for a week-long vacation, but we had a blast and avery is sure having a hard time to adjusting to life without all of grandma and grandpa's attention.