Our Favorite Hero

Last week was Father's Day and I have been thinking a lot about the wonderful father my kids have been blessed with.  Louis does so much for all of us, without thinking of himself.  He is endlessly serving us.  He is patient, he is smart, he is kind, he is strong, he is fun, he is silly, he is Christlike, he is selfless, and so much more. 

Louis is 32!

Just a few weeks after Mary's birthday we celebrate our favorite man, Louis!  We had a small celebration at home just with our family.  It was sweet and simple.  I spent the better part of my day preparing his big birthday dinner.  I surprised him with homemade Cafe Rio pulled pork burritos, homemade sauce and everything, cilantro lime rice, salsa black beans, and cilantro lime ranch dressing.  It was a lot of work, but so delicious!  I also made him his favorite cookies and cream cake.  The kids put together a scavenger hunt with his presents and they had a blast helping him find his gifts.  We all love Louis so much, he is silly, he is fun, he is smart, and he can fix anything we need him to.

10 Year Anniversary

Louis and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary in August.  We went to Park City which is where we spent our honeymoon.  We had an awesome hotel room that was close to a lot of restaurants, we spent the day at the Park City Adventure Park riding the zip line, mountain coaster, and a scenic ski lift ride.  We got soooo sun burned, but had such a wonderful time!  One of the highlights of our anniversary for me was leaving an anonymous gift card and note on the car of some newlyweds!  It was so sweet thinking back on when that was us and being able to wish these newlyweds the best as we were celebrating our 10 year anniversary!
I am continuously grateful for Louis and our relationship.  I love spending my life with him and I love the life we have built together.

Let's Have a Party!

Before our trip to England one thing that we were really looking forward to was Louis' 30th birthday party!  I started thinking about it and what we could do probably 6 months before he even had his birthday!  Louis loves having his birthday be a big deal and really celebrated so I try hard to make him feel special on his day.  Several months before his birthday he started singing the red solo cup song then pulled it up on the computer so I got the idea to do a red solo cup party!  It ended up being really fun! 
We decided to do a bunch of minute to win it games that involved cups.  I think minute to win it games are my favorite thing to do for a birthday party because they are fun, they are quick, and you usually have everything you need at home already!  Not everyone decided to participate with the games, but those who did had a fun time and the kids had fun messing around with the cups too!  For food I just did a taco bar, I had made taco meat through the month before and frozen it so I could pull it out and dump it in a crock pot when it was time for the party.  We also did a cup hat competition, we asked everyone to make a cup party hat for the party and the best one would win a prize.  I made an awesome trophy out of two red solo cups and some cardboard for handles then spray painted it gold.  I wish I had remembered to take a picture because it turned out pretty cool.
The party ended up being a fun night with family and Louis had a good time, which is what really matters!

8 Years!

Over the weekend Louis and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary!  It was such a wonderful celebration together.  A few months ago I got the idea to go camping for our anniversary this year.  If you know me, you know I do not like camping.  But I do love Louis and I knew it would be something he would love.  I brought up the idea to him and he was surprised that I was even suggesting it!  It ended up being one of our best anniversary celebrations.

Thursday night we headed up into the mountains to the camping spot Louis had set up earlier in the morning.  We finished setting up the camp and had dinner (we got pizza on the way up).  Louis made a fire and we sat there talking, roasting marshmallows and looking at the stars.  It had been a long time since I'd seen the stars like that.  It is still one of my favorite sights.  I wish I had the capability to take a picture of how wondrous it was.  When the fire was almost out we stood up and were watching the stars when a shooting star passed by!  It was such a nice night just sitting together with the sound of the stream in the background.

It was so cold that night!  We had two blankets, but I was still cold and did not sleep very well.  Louis woke up just after 6 and I woke up just before 7.  A few minutes after I woke up I heard someone ask Louis if he had jumper cables and could come help them.  Apparently this girl's friend had gotten drunk, then got scared and turned her car headlights on all night long!  

We ate breakfast and searched for deer.  Not to brag, actually yes I'm bragging, Louis spotted 0 deer and I spotted 3!  He said he's always going to take me hunting with him now.  We took a nap since it was a little warmer and we could comfortably sleep, then packed up and headed out on a little hike.  

We then headed home to shower and get ready for the temple and dinner.  We like to do sealings on our anniversary and this year was extra sweet because of the couple we ended up being with.  I'm going to share here what I already shared on Facebook.  We were in the sealing room with two other couples.  One of them was celebrating their 33rd anniversary and that day they'd done baptisms, confirmations, initiatory, an endowment session, and sealings.  They also said that they had not been to the temple together in 5 years because they have a highly special needs boy, and until recently they weren't living by family.  The other couple we were with had been married for 62 years!  It was sweet to see the love they had for each other and how the husband took care of his wife.  It was nice to share our anniversary celebration with them.

We had a gift card to Chili's so we went their for dinner and afterwards got a Redbox movie to take back home.  It was such a great anniversary together, we both loved it!

I am so blessed to have Louis as my husband.

He is patient, funny, kind, strong, hard working, can figure anything out, spiritual, and so accepting of everything that I am. I'm grateful I have him for eternity.

Up to Boise With Louis

The week after Valentine's day Louis randomly suggested that we go up to Boise, just the  two of us, to visit my grandparents.  It was totally spur of the moment and Louis' Mom was so wonderful to watch our children last minute.

Louis and I started out by going to the Boise temple to do initiatory.  We weren't together in the temple and when I was done with initiatory the Sister's asked if I wanted to go to the Celestial Room.  They said that they would send a message to Louis so he would meet me there when he was done.  Well it turned out that Louis was already done so he never got the message!  He ended up waiting about an hour for me to get out!  I kept waiting in the Celestial Room "just a few more minutes" waiting for Louis to come in.  Finally I decided to leave and found Louis in the waiting area.  

He had multiple temple workers come ask if everything was okay or if he wanted them to go find his bride.  

Whoops!  I had a nice relaxing time in the Celestial Room though.

We then went and visited with my grandparents.  They've moved into a assisted living home and Louis and I had not been to visit them since they've been there.  We talked and decided to go to Marie Callenders to eat dinner.  Louis and I had never been there before and we were not disappointed.  After dinner we headed back to my grandparent's.  We had a really great time talking and learning things about my grandparents that we didn't know before.
The next day we found a church to go to in the morning then headed back to my grandparent's and had lunch with them.  Then we talked for a little bit longer and headed home.  It was a short, but wonderful mini trip together.

The Tickliest Wickliest Dad in the World!

Oh how these children adore their father!  Louis is such a fun Dad!  He is always being silly with the kids, tickling them, wrestling them, throwing them up in the air or holding them upside down.  He is also their protector.  The kids know that their Dad will always keep them safe.  

This year for Father's Day I got Louis a book called Tickle Monster.  I thought it was perfect because Louis is always saying tickley wickley!  It's just a made up phrase that he has been saying for a long time now.  The girls think it is just so funny!  Avery also thought we should get Louis some raisin cereal (Raisin Bran) to put in his present so we did.  Louis' present was also filled with little drawing the girls had done for him through out the week.  The kids love their Daddy and loved being able to celebrate him on this special day!  We love you Louis!

Love Day

In our family for Valentine's day we do a family celebration!  For the last three years we have had a candlelit pizza dinner all together and we love it!  I've made a heart shaped pizza for this before, but this year we went with Little Caesar pizza.  We all love this tradition and it's so fun being all together!  Since Valentine's was on a Sunday we did our candlelit dinner on Saturday.

I had prepared some foam hearts with each persons name on one.  Before dinner we went through them and we all said a reason why we love each other and wrote it on their heart.  I'm happy that we have a home full of love and that we appreciate each other for what they do and who they are.  

After dinner we played pin the heart on the Valentine!  Avery's favorite game for any party is this game!  We've played many versions, pin the beard on the Louis, pin the glass slipper on Cinderella, pin the bow on Minnie, etc.  This was a surprise for Avery and she was so excited!  She set up the game and told everyone how to play and we had fun.  

When we had all had several turns of pin the heart on the Valentine we settled down on the couch and read some scriptures about love.  Our favorites, 

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."   John 3:16

"But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him."  Moroni 7:47

Then is was off to bed for the kids!  

On Friday night Louis and I exchanged our gifts.  Louis' gift was sweet, he had printed off a bunch of Harry Potter coloring pages for me and a note that said it was to color while we had a Harry Potter marathon since I had just finished all of the books.  So that will be a fun date night in the future!  I got Louis a new brown coat as well as a cuddle kit!  I've done this for him once before.  It's everything we need for a perfect night of cuddling, a cozy blanket, a movie, and some chocolates.  So after the kids were in bed we snuggled up on the love seat, watched a movie, and ate some chocolate.
It was a really nice night together.

My Louis

We celebrated Louis' birthday a little over a week ago!  He is now 28 years old.  Or if you ask Mary, he's just 8!  I've probably put this on here before, but Louis feels like his birthday gets over shadowed by conference, so over the years I've done a lot of birthday weeks for him!  We did more of a low key birthday week for Louis this year, but we did kick it off with a party!  

The idea of a party popped into my head about two hours before Louis was supposed to get home from work, 

so I am quite happy that everything turned out so well!

We filled in the heart with pictures of why we love Louis!

I felt pretty proud of how the cake turned out with how little time I had!

Louis when he walked in the door and saw his surprise!

Mary helping Louis check out one of his presents.

His favorite one he uses it all of the time!

Singing happy birthday

 We love our Louis and he is a blessing in our lives!  He keeps us having fun and being silly!

Bro's Backpacking Trip

Louis and some friends from work went on an overnight backpacking trip last weekend and he had a great time!  He had been looking forward to it so much for almost a month and it was so cute!  

Don't tell him I said it was cute.  Actually go ahead and do it, I told him several times!  

It was so fun watching Louis get excited about something that he loves!  Especially with all of the overtime he's been working.  

Louis headed out last Friday around 2:00 and picked up his friend Jason then they headed up to Tony Grove.  Navigating around a bunch of cows along the way.  I'm not exactly sure where they hiked to, but they started from Tony Grove and hiked 4.5 miles to a lake.  When they got up there set up their beds; Louis and Jason had hammocks to sleep in, their friend Jeremy had a tent, and their other friends Nate and Dustin weren't staying the night because they had things to be at in the morning.  After their things were set up they had dinner and s'mores.  

Louis slept pretty well in the hammock, but did end up waking up a little after 6 in the morning.  That morning they had breakfast, Jeremy went fishing, and then they headed back down!  

They had another hike planned before heading back, but decided against it.  

Louis came back home happy, dirty, and sore.  I'm glad he was able to get away for a night and do something he enjoys!  

6 Years

6 years of marriage

2,191 days

313 weeks

52,584 hours

3,155,040 minutes

189,302,400 seconds

And an endless amount of LOVE

Since our anniversary was on a Tuesday (the same day of the week we got married!) we waited until Saturday to have a date.  On our actual anniversary we exchanged gifts and of course took our  annual anniversary picture!

As you might remember, Louis and I are doing a no spend month this month.  We knew that would mean we would need to be creative for our anniversary date.  Earlier in the year Louis and I bought a Cache Valley direct card.  It is a card that has coupons for a bunch of places here in Cache Valley.  Included with this card there are quite a few of coupons for free things.  Louis and I used some of them during our date!  We started out at The Pizza Factory and got a free bread twist, I also signed up for their e-mail list which gave us a second free bread twist!  Then we headed over to Zeppe's and got a free Italian ice, orange cream all the way!  We then headed over the The Book Table because we had a coupon to get a free scrapbook grab bag.  We sat in the parking lot, ate our bread twists and Italian ice, and talked.  It was actually quite nice as lame as it sounds!
We headed into the Book Table and got my grab bag then looked around at the hundreds of awesome toys and games they have upstairs!  They also had a table full of games that were opened to try them out so we played games for a little bit.  It was so fun!

After the Book Table we went to Chugz for a free soda.  This place is weird!  First of all, we couldn't even figure out how to get into the place!  There are like three different entrances.  You can go in through Plato's Closet, you can go in through the back, or there's a walk-up window also in the back, but set back so you can't even see it.  The red cream soda was good though!

After Chugz we went over to Fizz N' Fryz for another free soda, (we want to go back here to try their fries) then we headed over to Cafe Rio!  There aren't any coupons for Cafe Rio on our Cache Valley card, but Cafe Rio does have a punch pass and when you get 10 you get a free meal.  We had 10 punches and so we were able to get a free meal!  Which worked out perfect because we usually can only eat half of a burrito on our own so we were able to split the one between us.  

After Cafe Rio we went across the street and did some window shopping at Staples and Best Buy.  We need a new laptop.  Seriously ours is falling apart.  Our screen could detach at any moment.  So we looked at the laptops they had and a few desktops.  We're not sure if we want a desktop instead of a laptop since Louis is no longer in school and doesn't need to be taking a computer around with him.  We saw a few options and we'll see what we decide to do.

That was the end of our date we headed back home and had an epic marshmallow shooter war with Louis' sisters!  It was a fun end to our anniversary date!

Geocaching

Last weekend Louis and I went on a date.  Like an out of the house not just downstairs after the kids are in bed date!  Since it's our no-spend month I had to come up with an idea that was free, I turned to Facebook for some ideas from friends and one friend suggested geocaching!  I knew this would be something Louis would love this!  And I was right, he did!  It ended up being lots of fun!  If you haven't done it before I suggest trying it out.
To go out geocaching you first have to download their app, we got the free one and there were plenty of caches on there.  You pick a cache to find and it will have a short description of where it is, a hint, and the GPS location.  Louis and I went out to find 6 caches and we ended finding 5 of them.  From what we had heard there would be a container with a paper you could sign and little trinkets in it.  You can take one and leave something else.  Only one cache that we found actually had something in it for you to take.  That one was the most fun and the hardest for us to find (not including the one we didn't ever end up finding!)
After we were done we went and sat outside the temple, it was wonderful!

This one was a part of a Christmas series, it would be fun

to go back out sometime and find the rest of them!

This one was right next to the door of Chili's and we were

nervous looking around for it so close to the entrance!

I saw this tiny pencil on the ground and new the cache had to be close!

Louis ended up finding it!  Can you see it?

Love this man!