50th Anniversary

This February my in-laws celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary! Since it was easier for everyone we decided to celebrate this summer. It's been 10 years since we've all been together and we had a wonderful time!

I was the decorator for the reception. My budget was only $250. It wasn't easy coming up with decorations for 10 tables, the cake table, the book/photo frame table, and an arch for Mom and Dad Allan to stand under on that budget! I did it though and I was happy with the results. I picked the colors yellow, black, and white. I didn't want everyone to have to go and buy new clothes and I figured everyone would have black and white and I chose yellow because it's close to the 50th anniversary color of Gold and it's fun and summery. I had more than one person tell me they didn't think the color scheme would look very good but changed their minds once they saw it and thought it turned out great!

My awesome sister, Tahnie, came and took all the pictures for free! How awesome is she? Thanks so much Tahnie!!! You're the best!

The photo frame signing table! This sort of freaked a lot of people out. They didn't want to sign a photo mat! We actually had to tell people to sign it. I even had a framed sign that said, "Please sign".

The cake. I was dissapointed how this turned out. The bakery did the damask design with a gel and stencil instead of fondant. Oh and there was a big old smear on the back that they didn't bother to fix. Because of this smear they picked up the fondant 50 on top of the cake and turned it but they didn't bother to smooth out the icing on top. On the fondant 50 they didn't kneed the gold color into the fondant and instead painted it on the 50 while it was on the cake resulting in gold paint on the yellow and streaks of white on the 50. Speaking of the yellow; it wasn't stirred in enough and there were a lot of white streaks. I went and talked to the manager who was going to talk to the decorater and get back with me. That never happened. I've been in a couple more times but never when the manager is there. So if you ever need a cake DON'T get it at Flour Girls Dough Boys in American Fork.

The Table Decorations! I made copies of their wedding picture and framed them. All the siblings got to take one home afterwards! All of the candle holders had fake tea light candles in them. It made a beautiful effect.

It was so much work. Just like doing a wedding reception. It was so worth it though to celebrate two of the neatest, caring, generous people I know!

Congrats Mom and Dad Allan! We love you!

School

My kids are loving going to school. They could hardly wait to wear all of their new clothes and see their friends. I'm lucky that my kids get to ride the bus to school, because only the kids that are in the Life Skills class and their siblings get to in Eagle Mountain. I'm also loving that my kids are on B Track this year. At their school there are two different starting and ending times. A Track starts at 8:15 AM and B track starts at 9:15 AM! We get to wake up a 8 AM which is wonderful for this non morning person mother!

Aubrie was thrilled to start Kindergarten! She was sad that she had to wait a whole week past her siblings to start school though. They test the kindergartner's the first week of school. Which Aubrie wasn't able to go to because she was throwing up the day she was scheduled. Luckily she started feeling better about three days before school started so she didn't miss her first day of school! She's also very happy that her best friend, Gracie, is in her class!

Hailee also started preschool! My baby is growing up! She loves going even though she is the only girl in her class. She goes to a small in home preschool and there are only 5 kids in the class. I love it because it's more one on one time for Hailee. She goes in the morning and Aubrie is in afternoon Kindergarten. So no free time for me yet. That's ok because I now have some one on one time with Hailee and Aubrie.

Sterling was taking first day pictures and somehow didn't get a picture of Christian. It made me so sad! Christian is loving 4th grade and has a wonderful teacher. She's in her 70's and reminds me of Ms. Stacy From Anne of Green Gables!!!

Things I've Made

Over the summer I've made a couple of things that I thought I'd share. First I made a purse! It's reversible and I was so proud of myself that I didn't have to undo any stitches. I did it all right the first time and a reversible bag is pretty tricky.



I also made myself a shirt by upcycling one of Sterling's size Large T-Shirts! It was a fun way to get a "new" shirt for free! I have plans for some of Sterling's other T's!!!

I also made 25 new hairbows for my girls this week!

Pony Express Days

We've had a fun week at Pony Express Days. It started off on Sat. May 30th with a pancake breakfast. The kids really look forward to this and we always have a great time!





Then on Monday we went to Family Fun Night. They had booths with free games, pictures with Minnie and Mickey, and free popcorn and cotton candy! Then we got to enjoy a comedy show by Jason Hewlett. He does celebrity impersonations and he's really good at it! He performs in Las Vegas. We thought we'd get rained on but were lucky and it started raining as we were getting in our van to go home.






On Thursday we got to go to the Carnival. The kids wait all year to go to this and were thrilled to go!













The girls loved going on the boat ride!













Christian and his friend Aiden on the Ferriswheel.














Christian, Aiden, and Emilee on the Swings. Emilee was scared at first but then ended up loving this ride.













The mini Train was a big hit with the girls!














Christian and Aiden getting ready to ride the Gravitron!

On Sat. we went to the Pony Express Days Parade. It started almost an hour late, so it was a little hard to keep the kids happy, but they were so excited once it got started and they got plenty of candy. I even got a T-Shirt! It was a busy and fun week for us!

Welcome Summer!

Emilee's class had an end of the year BBQ and awards ceremony yesterday. It was for the parents and siblings of the kids in the Lifeskills class. Emilee's teacher, Mrs. Cannon, is in the brown behind Emilee. The BBQ was a lot of fun!

Emilee won the award for Best Cheerleader, because she's always cheering on the other students!

To Welcome the kids home on their last day of school I painted them a, "Welcome Summer" banner! I wish this picture showed all of the banner. It has a sun on the left and a red flower on the right. They loved it and it was a great start to the summer!

10th Anniversary!

Sterling and I had our 10th Wedding Anniversary on Friday, May 22, 2009! My mom was nice enough to watch the kids so we could go to The Anniversary Inn in Logan, UT.

We stayed in a super cute room called Joanie's Diner!

It had a Jukebox full of 50's music!

Here's Sterling behind the counter at the diner!

Me and Betty Boop!

Here I am in the phone booth!

I love the attention to detail in this room!

Ster and I sitting at the booth.

Me behind the counter.

Me on the cute 50's couch!

The Bed. Don't you love that bedspread?

The jetted tub with the two towels folded like kissing swans!

We had a amazing time! We went to see Angels and Demons and we both loved it. 5 stars. We both love Indian Food, so we ate at the Tandoori Oven, since our first choice was booked for a wedding. It wasn't too fancy but the food was wonderful! It was a fun and memorable 10th Anniversary!

The Eagles

Saturday Sterling and I were able to go to The Eagles concert! We left the house at 4:30 PM so we could go to dinner before. We went to a restaurant we've never been before called the Indian House. I highly recommend it. It's on State St. in Sandy by the Rio Tinto stadium. We started off the meal with Deep Fried Vegetable Balls. They arrived sizzling and were served with two sauces one sweet and one more on the tart and spicy side. Both tasted wonderful and added a lot to the veggie balls. We both ordered the Vegetable Coconut Korma. I ordered mine mild and Sterling got the medium. It was a yummy coconut sauce made of onions, cashews, golden raisins, coconut cream and spices all mixed with cauliflower and carrots over rice. The spices were just right and it tasted wonderful. For Dessert we got the Peshwari Naan which is Indian bread stuffed with coconut, cashew nuts and raisins drizzled with honey. It had some different spices I couldn't identify (sage maybe?) but it was Yummy! We then headed to the Rio Tinto Stadium, found parking, and then our seats. We thought the show started at 7 PM and couldn't believe how sparse the crowd was at 10 to 7. We then took out the tickets and saw the show actually started at 8! Oops! Better to be an hour early than an hour late. So we walked around the stadium for awhile to pass time. The opening act for The Eagles was Michelle Branch! She did a great job. The Eagles took the stage at about 10 to 9 and had fans on their feet for most of the show. They did a great job and had great energy considering their age (in their 60's). Joe Walsh is an amazing guitar player. Very fun to watch. They had a huge arched screen behind them that had cool light effects and graphics and/or video. It was fun to see how many ways they used that.











This is what the screen looked like during Hotel California! They didn't allow camera's inside the stadium so I got the concert pictures off the SL Trib site!

We left during the second song, after they came back on for the encore, to beat traffic. It worked and we got out without having to wait! They performed for almost 2 hours and we got home at 11:30PM. It was a great date and even better because The Salt Lake Tribune gave us the tickets for being in a newspaper advertisement for them (see two posts below)!