Birthday Girl!

Yesterday was Raylee's 1st birthday! I can't believe that it's already come and gone. Even though I knew Raylee would never remember the day and that she had no idea that it was even her birthday, I still wanted to make it a special day. It was a really fun day for me because I got spend the whole day playing with Raylee where usually I have to try to get 5 hours of work in. At 4:30 Corey got home from work and we let her open her presents from us so she could have a couple hours to play with them before everyone arrived for her party. We gave her a giraffe rocking toy, a pig that walks and oinks, and some clothes.

Corey's family came at 7 (we had already celebrated her birthday with my fam) to help us celebrate. For dinner we had pizza, which Raylee loves (although I think we could have had anything but green beans and she would have been happy! Then it was time for the presents. Raylee had lots of fun playing with her new toys and her cousins.

Daddy helped her open her presents.

Raylee and all her cousins playing with one of her toys.

Here is a quick rundown of the presents she got from everyone:
--Grandpa Bryce and Grandma Sherie gave her a minnie mouse jacket, mickey mouse and friends rubber toys, and some hair clippies (Sherie had just gotten back from disneyland so she got her presents there)
--Jeff and Josi and fam gave her an animal train
--Jaime and Daniel and fam gave her an ariel block set
--Chris and Mandy and fam gave her a soft cinderella doll and horse
--Grandpa and Grandma Whipple gave her two outfits, some pajamas, and 2 books
--Alison and Baylen and fam gave her a magnetic fridge farm
Talk about lots of new stuff!! What a lucky little girl.

Raylee loves her Cinderella doll, so she had to give her kisses. (Yep, she's already doing open mouthed kisses. We are in trouble in future years!)

Anyway, after the presents we sang happy birthday to her and she(meaning Corey and I) got to blow out the candle on her sunshine cake. She wasn't sure about everyone singing to her and she couldn't figure out why I wouldn't let her start eating the cake.
Then it was time to dig in, and she did just that. We let her have the whole cake to herself, and she loved it! I was worried that she would have a tummy ache from all that she ate, but she was as good as gold and she didn't get near as dirty as I thought she would!
The day couldn't have been more perfect! Raylee was so lucky for her first birthday because she got to celebrate it a couple of different days, so thanks to everyone for making her birthday week so special!!

Camping at Mirror Lake

I LOVE CAMPING.

I love being in the great outdoors with such beautiful surroundings. I love sleeping in a tent. I love campfires. I love having all day to do absolutely nothing. I love the YUMMY food. I love everything about it. I don't even mind the lack of flushing toilets! I have been going camping since I was a little girl and some of my best memories come from those camping trips!

Since I love camping so much, every year my family goes camping for my birthday. I look forward to it all year long and this year was no exception. I was especially excited this year because we were staying for three nights which is longer than we have been able to stay the past couple of years.

While we were up there the guys and some of the kids got to do lots of fishing!



Corey and Baylen have taken up the sport of fly fishing, and so on this camping trip they were able try out there float tubes and they also did lots of shore fishing as well. They had a blast and caught lots of fish.

While the guys were fishing, we played up on the bank. Raylee loved to play with the rocks, although I had to keep a close eye on her because she tried to eat them a time or two.
Raylee loved to hang out with her cousins. They were nice enough to play with her and let her tag along with them. Raylee saw her cousins playing on the big rock and so she had to try to climb up there to play with them.
And what's a camping trip without playing in the dirt!

While we were there we celebrated Raylee's birthday since everyone was together. We started by having birthday peach raspberry cobbler (yum!) and singing happy birthday to her.

Then the next day when it was light outside she got to open presents. Hurray for new toys! Thanks everyone for all that you gave her!

The County Fair

Last Wednesday we went to the Box Elder County Fair with some of Corey's family. I love fairs. I love them in spite of the insane amounts of people and outrageous prices. I was even more excited this year because I had a little girl that I knew would love it. We started the night with rides. Raylee's grandma Sherie bought tickets for her to go on a couple of rides and Raylee's cousin Griffin was sweet enough to go on all the rides with her even though there was other rides I'm sure he would rather have gone on. I was worried that Raylee would scream the entire time on her first ride, but she LOVED it!

Another part of the fair I knew Raylee would love was the animals. She loves looking at pictures of animals and hearing the sounds they make so I knew she would really like seeing them in real life. I was right. She loved looking at the bunnies, chickens, and the cows.

We ended the night with some yummy cotton candy for the ride home. Mmm Mmm.

Say Cheese!

So, this is the face that Raylee has started making when I grab my camera and say cheese. WHAT A NUT, a cute nut, but still a little nut. I am pretty sure she gets it from Corey.

Little Miss Lazy

I have been doing some serious slacking on the posting lately. I have no excuse. I have just been extremely lazy. It may or may not have something to do with all the books that I have been reading in the last couple weeks. But I'm back now with a little update on what we've been up to the last little while.

While Corey was gone on his trip to Alaska, Raylee and I went to my moms house to stay so we wouldn't be lonely in our new house. It was lots of fun. We did some shopping, went hiking, and, to my credit, I did try to get some work in (although I didn't get in nearly as much as I was supposed to).

At the end of the week Raylee and I hitched a ride with my mom and dad and went to Island Park to our yearly Bird family reunion. I always have lots of fun at the reunion and this year was no exception. It is always fun to see all my cousins and catch up with everyone. We floated down one of the rivers one day. I went down twice. Raylee went with me the first time and after screaming for the first five minutes she slept the rest of the way. Then the second time down turned into quite the adventure when we helped rescue some old ladies and their grandkids who had fallen out of their canoes. Some of the other cousins helped get them in the rafts while we went to try to save their canoe which was quickly sinking quite a ways down the river. They ended up going with us the rest of the way down, and it was kind of fun to perform our little rescue mission.

*Sorry for the lack of pictures, but Corey had the camera in Alaska

A week or so after the family reunion my Grandma Whipple came down from Oregon to visit for a whole week. We usually only get to see my grandma a couple days a year so this visit was extra special.

On Sunday night we had a barbeque where we got to try out some of the fish Corey caught.

On Monday we went to Salt Lake and went to Discovery Gateway (thanks grandma!). Raylee had lots of fun there. I was worried that there wouldn't really be anything for her to do, but there was an area that was made for kids three and under and Raylee had a blast playing with her cousins Ashlyn, Hailey, Mickell, and Tanner.

On Wednesday my Grandma came up to see our new house and then we went to Al's house for a yummy dinner of pizza.

On Thursday we celebrated my brother Jared's b-day by going to Park City where we had access to an amazing 2.9 million dollar condo (thanks Emily and Dave for hooking us up!) which was MEGA nice. We went swimming, watched a movie, played games, had cake, and Jared opened presents. It was TONS of fun!

On Saturday we went down to my moms to say goodbye to my grandma before she had to leave. It was definitely an amazing and fun filled week!

Last week we celebrated my b-day. I am officially a quarter of a century now. I totally milked my birthday for all it was worth, making Corey do all sorts of things he would normally decline to do with me. We started the day by going swimming in the Roy pool, then after that we went shopping and out to dinner and then back home to watch the Olympics. It was lots of fun (I feel like I'm saying this a lot in this post!) so thanks Corey for making the day special!

The End. Hopefully I will be better on keeping up since we've got a couple of busy weeks coming up.

Wild Alaska!!

Well this is the first post that I have done myself. Cherice is always trying to get me to do it, but I always tell her she is doing a great job. I just took a vacation to Alaska and Cherice told me that this one was all mine.......So here we go!! Alaska is the type of vacation that I have always wanted to go on! So me, my dad, my brother Jeff, and my Brother-in-law Daniel all went up there for a week of fun. We flew into Anchorage and stayed most of the nights with Daniels brother and family. They live in Anchorage and was kind enough to let us stay with them. The time we spent in Anchorage we did a lot of site seeing and touristy stuff. We also took 3 days and 2 nights away from Anchorage and drove down south to do some fishing. We first went to Homer Alaska and went out in the ocean to fish for Halibut. We then drove to a city called Soldatna Alaska and fished for King Salmon on the Kenai River. I was so amazed at the fun we had in both places, and we came away with lots of fish to bring home. (Daniel was the big winner with the biggest Halibut and King salmon caught. His King Salmon was the biggest one caught the whole time our guide had worked on that river. "55 Pounds" WOW)
We also went golfing one day in the rain, drove up towards Denali National Park, and ate lots of good food! We didn't see a lot of animals due to it raining the whole time we were there, but we did see a few moose and lots of whales! It sure was a fun trip and I can't wait to do it all again!!!!

This is the 4 of us standing in front of Thunder-Bird Falls. You can't see the falls in this picture but it was really cool. I didn't think my dad was going to make the mile hike up to the falls overlook because his knees were hurting him, but he did great and it was well worth it.
This is the 4 of us standing outside the Anchorage Harley Davidson. They had a chrome Bear outside of the store and we just had to get some pictures. (Look at Jeff -- He was on his phone the whole trip.. Ha Ha)
Just some cool scenery out in the Wild Alaska!!
I just couldnt pass up the chance to kiss a moose....With a little tongue!!

. Homer Alaska was a really cool place, and we had a blast while we were there. We were just glad that it stopped raining long enough to let us get out on the ocean to do some halibut fishing.
This is me holding Up a couple of the Halibut I caught. We each got to keep 2 of them, but I probably caught 8 or 10 in total. They are like pulling up a wet rug, which after 8 hours of doing it I was beat!!
This is my dad holding up a few of the halibut he caught. He was just glad that our boat had some nice couches in the cabin for the 2 hour trip out in the ocean and 2 hours back. We all took some good naps going out and back in!!
This is Daniels big catch!! This King Salmon was 55 pounds and won the biggest fish of the day. I was definitely jealous of him and his trophy fish!!
Jeff didnt do so shabby himself!! This is a fish that weighed 35 pounds, which is above average for King Salmon. (The average is around 30 pounds.) It was so much fun bringing these big fish in!!

Next time we go we need to order a little less rain!!!!!!