He's Home!

Oh my gosh it has finally come! Tyler is home finally! We have been putting on a sticker a day for the past two years and it was so exciting to put on the last sticker! It looks so much better filled than empty! He came home on Friday night at 9:30. I was watching his flight and had planned on leaving Usana when there was a half an hour til his plane landed. It would be worth missing George to be able to see him step off the plane. Well... for some reason the stupid plane was early! So I got to the airport, parked at the wrong terminal and literally ran through the entire airport. This might come as a shock to some people but I am not really a runner. I kind of get a sort of asthma whenever I even jog. Well I was fullout sprinting! It wasn't really a pretty sight. People were telling me to slow down and yelling other random things. It was pretty embarrassing. And even after all that, I missed him by like a minute and a half! I was so ticked! I missed George and I missed Tyler. Oh well. It was still really fun at the airport!

There were so many people that came and supported him at the airport. It was so nice of everyone! Tyler said that one of the missionaries that he was traveling with asked who all of the people were. Then he turned to Ty and said, "are they all here for you?" Then some random person walking by asked the person that they were with if Tyler was some sort of celebrity because of all of the people around him. It was pretty funny.

I think that Tyler was a little overwhelmed. But he kept saying funny things. One of the best phrases was... Morgan is like a young woman now. And then Karen informed him that she is not like a young woman, she is a young woman! It was pretty funny. Everyone has grown up since he's been gone.

I thought that this was such a cute picture of our future missionary Jayden. Everytime that I looked over at him he was just holding his poster and staring at Tyler. It is pretty crazy because I will always remember when his dad, my cousin Korey, came home from his mission. It was so exciting to me and such a good example to me and all of my cousins. I hope that now Jayden will always remember Ty coming home and keep a mission as one of his goals.

This picture sums up how excited Colton seemed about Ty coming home! I hope that it was everything that he had been hoping it would be!

Kate was the only one that was not completely ecstatic about Ty coming home! But I thought her face was so cute while she was crying.

Here is Tyler with both of our grandpas.

Logan had been waiting all day to see Ty. He had text me about a billion times to see when we were going to be home. He must have been waiting on our corner or something because he showed up about 2 seconds after I told him to head on over. Here he is with his souvenir South African jersey.

We had a couple of birthday presents waiting for him on his bed. The first was the 7th Harry Potter book. The book came out about 2 weeks after he left and he was pretty bummed about it at the time. So my mom bought him one when it came out and kept it in mint condition until he got home to read it. And he also got an iPhone. I love mine so much that we decided Ty needed one.

One thing that Tyler requested for when he came home was cake batter with brownies ice cream from Frosted Rock. So Steph ordered it and Steph, Dave, Braden, Annie, Colton, Mary, and Todd came over to eat it with us. So it was a good time for Tyler to give Colton his souvenir soccer jersey and shorts. Colton says that he is not going to wait for a special occasion to wear them.

Here we all are eating our Frosted Rock. We're only missing Jaron, but soon enough we will all be together again! It was so fun to all be there hanging out.

The next night was the Weber State fireworks. I probably say this a lot too but I really think that it is my favorite night of the whole summer. We go every year and I love it. Alyssa and the Peterson boys came with us. I didn't remember to take pictures until we were on our way home. Oops. Our hair is kind of going crazy because the windows are down. Tyler made the comment that it was just like old times except that Josh was the one driving and we didn't have to hold Jaydn and Morgan's hand as we crossed the road! Crazy how time goes so fast!

I am so grateful that Tyler is home now! It has been a way fun weekend with so many fun memories. I know that there will be many more to come. I am so glad that he went and was such a good example to all of us. He has so many stories that he has started to tell us. I love hearing them all. And while I am so grateful that he went and was able to have that experience, I am even more grateful that he is home now. I love him and missed him so much! Welcome home Ty!

King George... Kind of!

So I know I probably say this a lot about a lot of different singers but I love, love, love King George, aka George Strait. He hasn't performed here for 11 years so I figured that he would never be back. But he came! Yay! I have been waiting for this moment forever! When I heard that he was coming on the 17th I was not too happy because we knew that Ty was supposed to be coming home around that time. So I waited until Ty told us that he was coming home on the 18th. Perfect! So I bought the tickets. Then... a little over a week ago we got a call from Tyler's mission president and he told us that for some reason (I can't remember why) they had to send Tyler, and the other missionaries that were traveling with him, home a day early. So now I had George Strait tickets for the night that Tyler was coming home. Great! I decided to go and leave early. I just had to try and see him!

The concert was at Usana and we had general admission tickets so that we could sit on the grass. So we had to go early so that we could get a good spot.

I think that I say this everytime that I go to Usana but this had to be the hottest time I have ever had to sit out and save a seat. Obviously we were very hot and tired. Ha ha.

But then we remembered that we were going to see George in just a couple of hours and perked right up!

Julianne Hough was the first person to perform. She did really great. And I also think that she is darling.
Jamie and I are loving the fun concert and being on the grass in the semi-shade. It was really hot out on the asphalt.
Here is Blake Shelton. I heard on the radio that someone said he looked like he was going camping. I thought he looked cute. And he was fun. I forgot how many songs he has that I love.
We are all loving being at the concert. Usana is always such a fun summer activity.

Sadly, this is all that I got to see of George Strait at the concert. I was watching Tyler's flight on the internet and I had decided to leave Usana when there was a half an hour til landing. So I had to pack up and leave while Blake Shelton was still performing before George had even thought about coming out. I was pretty sad as I was leaving. But it would be worth it to see Tyler getting off the airplane. Ha. Maybe he'll decide that Utah was so much fun and come again soon! If not I guess that I'll be traveling to see him!

American Idol!

For Lynsie's birthday this year I bought her tickets to the American Idol concert. I am so glad that I did! We started the night off by stopping at Dairy Queen for dinner on the way down. Lynsie was pretty ticked because she thought that we should definitely be eating somewhere better on the way to the concert.

When we got there we had to go straight to the stand and bought our t-shirts! While we were waiting in line I saw this kind of crazy, kind of white trash lady that had on an I Love Adam shirt and had on Adam jewelry and lots of Adam stuff. I made the mistake of commenting about how I loved all of her jewelry and how I also loved Adam. All of the sudden she whips out about 20 different Adam key chains and asked if I wanted to buy one of them. I asked her how much they were and she told me $20.00. I was totally in the concert mood and I get really into my fandom and so I didn't even blink an eye. All of the sudden I NEEDED that Adam keychain. So... I bought it.

It really is super sweet but I don't really think that it was worth $20.00. Oh well. It made me happy at the time!

Here we are waiting for the concert to start! We are so excited!

This is the shirt that Lynsie and I bought. It was so cool! We were pretty sure that we were the biggest American Idol fans there!

These were some of my favorite moments of the concert.

I'm really glad that we got to go to the concert together! I am so glad that Lyns and I have gotten to be such good friends. I am grateful that I am friends with both of my sisters. I have so much fun doing things with them and I love them.

Take A Look!

I don't know if anyone has noticed the countdown clock on the side of my blog but I would like everyone to take a second right now and check it out... Can you believe it? There were days when I never thought that this time would come but at the same time, these past two years have flown by! So much has changed but at the same time it seems that nothing has changed.

It is crazy to think how our family and friends have grown since he left. Braden met and married Annie since Ty left so Tyler and Annie have never even met. And to me it feels like Annie has been in our family for a long time. We have had babies born since he has left. All of the little kids will be so much bigger to him. I have had a close friend pass away. There have been many, many friends get married. The more things that I start to think about the more it seems like so many things have changed. But it doesn't feel like it really. I am still going to school. We all still have the same jobs (thankfully) and it feels like we haven't really changed too much. I guess we'll see if it feels like it changed or stayed the same to him when he gets home.

We have been doing a lot to get ready for him to get home. Doing the finishing touches on the house and things but tonight we did something that was actually fun. We made the traditional welcome home posters! We all worked on them up at my Grandma Smith's house. I think everyone helped in someway or another.

We are all pretty excited about him coming home. But I don't think any of us are quite as excited as his "favorite cousin" Colton.

This is how he reacts whenever Tyler is brought up. He is continually asking what Ty is going to say when he gets home, what we are going to say to Ty when he gets home, how many more days until Ty gets home, etc. He has many plans made for Ty so hopefully he doesn't get disapointed!

From many of the pictures that Ty sent home it looks like he has definitely embraced the South African culture and fits in very well. But at the same time it always looks like he is still the same fun brother that we sent off two years ago. I'm sure that he'll have changed quite a bit but I hope that he adjusts quickly!

I know that Tyler will definitely be missed by all of the many South African people that love him, but we need him home! He has been gone long enough and we are ready! I can't even wait to see him when he steps off the airplane! It has been a good two years with many fun stories but I am so glad that it is almost over! Friday can't come soon enough!

It's Officially Summer! (Finally)

For Steph's birthday she decided that she wanted us to all go boating. So Todd took the afternoon off work and took us out to Willard Bay. I love boating so I was super excited. It rained pretty much all of June so this was one of the first real summer activities that we were able to do.

Normally I hate tubing because it scares me so bad! I volunteered to ride the tube with Colton so that I could be sure we'd be safe but that was a no go. But I decided to trust Todd when he said he wouldn't be too crazy of a driver while I was on. Here we are going pretty slow... I told him that this was a pretty acceptable speed but he said it was impossible to go that slow the whole time.

Here we are going much faster. I can't tell if my face looks like I'm having fun or not. But I really was!

Next was Lyns and Steph. They got going pretty fast

Somehow this is always what ended up happening when Steph and Lyns rode together. I would've thought that Lynsie was stronger than Steph but I guess not!

Colton stayed in his designated seat while we were tubing. But he kept trying to push us off the boat everytime we were carefully trying to climb in or out. Here he is trying to push poor Morgan off as she was climbing down. He almost got us everytime. Obviously he thought that he was pretty funny.

Morgan said that she was too scared to tube and that she didn't like it but finally we talked her into getting on and trusting Todd.

Steph said that Morg started screaming the second that the boat started moving. But as you can tell from the picture above... They were going slow enough for Steph to go "no handed."

Finally I got a picture of Morgan laughing instead of her screaming. So there is proof that she liked it! I am just proud that she gave it a shot even though she was really scared.

Lynsie thought that Colton looked pretty hot so she tried to help him out by dripping water on his head. I don't exactly know if he liked it or not.

Morgan decided that after her near death experience of tubing... we needed some relaxing swim time. So Lynsie decided to do some tricks for us. Here she is standing on the tube. While it may look easy... It really isn't.

Lyns and Steph rode the tube back in. They decided to end the day with one final trick. They are riding on their knees only holding on with one hand. Amazing!

Annie, Dave, and Mary were also here with us but they stayed up on the beach so that us girls could ride the boat. That was really nice of them. We had so much fun going boating. Thanks for inviting us to your birthday party Steph! And thanks for taking us Todd and Mary! We definitely need to do it again soon!