Ah, Heber . . .

We're still at my grandparents' place basking in the beauty of Heber Valley in late Summer. Warm days, cool evenings, frigid mornings, gorgeous scenery . . . the leaves have begun to change in the mountains . . . it's practically heaven.

I grew up coming here every summer for at least a week, often a month. And I am so glad that it hasn't changed that much and that Paige can have some similar experiences that I had in my childhood (the farm hasn't changed that much; the town/valley has changed A LOT).

Papa and Honey were here for a few weeks too, and while they were here Paige and Papa were constant buddies, riding the tractor, feeding the horses, picking apples, chasing cows and foxes on the 4-wheeler, and exploring the garden. Papa and Honey left about 5 days ago, but still, several times a day, I have to explain where Papa is. Paige asks me , "Where Papa?", whenever we step foot outside, she hears a loud engine (like a tractor or motorcycle), or she sees a horse or cow. She misses her buddy.

Here is a video clip of the two of them with the horses. The Paint's name is Jasmine and the Arabian's is Magleby. Paige frequently runs to the window and calls out, "Maggie!" and she always looks for him if we're outside. She loves to feed him apples and likes to collect stray pieces of hay for him too.

We will be up here for about another week. Ben is coming home on leave for 2 weeks and is due to arrive this Thursday. He's flying into SLC. We'll spend a few days in Park City, go to the BYU v. UCLA football game on the 13th, my birthday ;-), and then head south, spending a couple days in St. George, Vegas, and then finish up in California at Disneyland.

We can hardly wait!

Paige Sampler

We're in Heber, UT for the next few weeks just relaxing with my grandparents (my life is one long vacation these days - so not fair as Ben suffers in Afghanistan), and I am without a camera:( Luckily I've been hanging out with my sister, Noelle, and she has taken quite a few pictures of the babies. So, I stole the following images off of our extended family blog.


Andrew, Paige & Anna. The girls are more interested in Andrew than he is in them.

Paige, Anna & Andrew at the waterpark in Provo. A miracle they are all looking in a similar direction - towards the camera!

Paige enjoying some watermelon. My sister, Chelsea posted some more really cute waterpark pictures on her blog.

Paige decided to pull out her bows on the way home from a shopping trip.

Noelle and I bought matching tutus at the Gymboree outlet. The girls loved them.

My niece Anna. She's 6 weeks younger than Paige. She is a sweetheart.

"Some day my prince will come. . ."

In Honor of Ben . . .

I have changed the look of our blog! Actually a friend from our Wymount days, Heather, and a friend of hers started a new blog design site. I was browsing through her SUPER cute templates and stumbled across this one. Not the 'cutest' but fitting nevertheless. I decided to give it a try. If you're interested in changing up your blog, look here. They have great templates and great instructions. So easy! Oh yeah, and they're free.

Sister's Weekend in California

I've been back from our trip to California for a week and am finally sitting down to blog about it. I haven't been very motivated because I hardly have any pictures! Ben took our camera to Afghanistan with him. I was supposed to get a new one, but have delayed the purchase because more often than not I am with my mom, so I just use hers. But I didn't have control of the camera in California which is why we ended up with 83 pictures of quilts and only one picture of any people (a picture of the ladies from sisters weekend holding our purchases from the quilt show in Long Beach - the quilt show where my mom took 83 quilt pictures).

So for your viewing pleasure, here is one of many quilt pictures and us with all of our loot:















From left to right back row: Honey, Marci (cousin), Amber (sister), Lily (first cousin once removed?), Ann (aunt), Beth (cousin, mother of Lily).
Front row: Jen (sister), Me, Grandma, Loreen (Grandma's friend and walking buddy).

Noelle (sister) came to sister's weekend but showed up after the quilt show (brat), and Emily (cousin) and Chelsea (sister) couldn't make it. We missed them.

So this sister's weekend thing has become kind of an annual tradition. My grandparents, Marvin and Margaret Miller, have two daughters who combined have 8 daughters (there are also some boys, but this isn't about them). We all grew up within in a few miles of each other in Southern California but have since scattered, so it is fun to get together for one weekend a year just to do fun things, like eat at our favorite restaurants, shop, see a show, talk, etc.

This year we met up at Grandma & Grandpa's in California and did the following:
1) Attended the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach, CA
2) Ate lunch at PF Chang's
3) Ate dinner at Red Onion
4) Shopped at Fashion Island in Newport Beach
5) Ate lunch at Cheesecake Factory
6) Attended a Dodger Game! (Dodger's won 6-0)
7) Ate Dodger dogs, peanuts, cinnamon sugar pretzels, chocolate malt ice cream . . .
8) Attended Malaga Cove Ward (Grandparents ward)
9) Ate at Admiral Risty :)
10) Went in the hot tub ~3 times
11) Ate donuts from Mayer's Bakery OR bagels from Lox of Bagels every morning
12) Walked down PV Drive E with Grandma & Grandpa at 7 am for exercise
13) Ate apples off Grandma's trees, homemade applesauce from those apples, and apple cobbler made from those apples; all lovingly made by grandma. Yum!!!
14) Tried not to cry when we left

Notice how half of the list has something to do with eating :)

Drink Stealers and Scared of Mice

Both phrases describe Paige and my niece Maggie at the river. Watch the video below of what happens when Papa catches a mouse at the beach.

Tousin Fwends at the River

Well, we are home from the River a week earlier than originally planned and in just a couple of days we will be heading off to Grandma & Grandpa Miller's in California, so I better get these river pictures uploaded now (before the end of the month when there will be too many to sort through).

'Tousin Fwends' is my cousin Marci's son Porter's term for 'cousin friends' and it has now become a regular part of our vocabulary as we often look forward to getting the kids together. Out of the 5 girls in my family, 4 of us had babies between August '06 and April '07. And my mother's sister's daughters are having them even faster than we are, in fact the 20th Great Grandchild is on his/her way. So yes, there are a lot of babies around.

Here are a few pictures of Andrew and Maggie and Paige at the river this month. Sadly, Anna, the fourth Tousin Fwend was unable to make it.

The babies loved riding in the boat; doing so often led to a nap, as you can see Andrew is snoozing in his dad's arms. They all enjoyed toddling around in the mini splash park. And Paige enjoyed doing anything Maggie was doing; here's the both of them with a morning Capri Sun.

Fountain Fun

My parents have this fountain in their front courtyard that Paige just loves. The morning before we left for the River, we wet down the patio, put up the umbrella, and slathered on the sunscreen before we let her loose. She tries to climb in but can only get one leg over the edge, and then she doesn't really know what to do next. This particular morning she had an especially good time spraying herself and drinking from the hose.