Life as We Know it

Having my grandmothers pass away was sort of the big event of April. I still really struggled with accepting Seattle as our home, but it started to get better as sunny days would pop up here and there. I think it was so hard for me, becasue I haven't ever lived in such an extremely "cold" place. I don't mean that its cold, but more that it stays pretty much below 70 all the time. I'm playing catch up, but I am writing this on June 12th and it is 52 degrees. But thats normal! Everyone is totally cool with it. I know other places are colder, but mentally to me, April should mean spring (and yes the occassional snow storm like Utah does so well) and May get s little nice, and by June you can play in the sun all the time. Its been hard, but hopefully it will get easier.
I knew the best way to keep the blues at bay, or at least try, was to keep doing activities like we had been. There were some beautiful days in April and we took advantage of them.

We wanted to go on a hike but didn't feel up to anytihng bigger than Swamp Monster. We pulled into the parking lot and it started to POUR! I got so mad. Like so mad that I started laughing hystarically. I just couldn't stop shouting "I HATE SEATTLE!!" and meant every word. I'm sure I offended so many hikers. Ethan, like always just kept saying the most positive things, "Yes babe. The rain is old, but look at this cool moss" "Arizona wasn't this green" "Our drive to this hike was only 7 minutes. Thats cool" and so on. I tried so hard the whole hike to make sure my hatred didn't taint the girls because truthfully they are in heaven when in the woods, or as Madison says, on a "height!" they love it and I never want them to stop loving it. I have to learn to be more mature beacuse the good is great.

We found this awesome "fort" and that was fun to climb into AND around the time we found this fort, it stopped pouring and was oinly drizzling which the girls loved

This was my "I'm going to appreciate all this green some day so I better take a picture" picture

for real though, look how green? This is 7 minutes from our house. I wish I could just love love love it all the time. I am trying to hard. I promise. I really want to be like my girls. They embrace everything with open arms.

Cool fog approaching

Madison has mastered the climbing wall. It was scary to let her learn because its about 6 ft tall, but she can now do it and slide down the "fass (fast) slide" at the part (park)

One sunny day, I took the girls up to the tulip festival. I have been wanting to go to the tulip festival since I was a kids but we just always lived so far away. It was fun to make it happen and a great reminder that not everything has to be "RIGHT NOW!!!" Lots of things should happen when you can take advantage of them, but there is lots of life to live and lots to learn and you never know when you will come full circle to try activities that you wanted to do as a kid.
After the tulip festival, which wasn't too crazy and GORGOUES!, we drove the extra 30 minutes to Deception Pass. AMAZING!!! If it wasn't 2.5 hours away, I would take all guests there. It was so much fun. And when we pulled into the park, the sun popped through the clouds and it was warm enough to take jackets off and just sit and throw rocks. We were all much happier people afterwards

Kelsey jumped out of the car and started SPRINTING for the water" WATER!!!!," she cried. She was so excited

Madison was excited too. She isn't as willing to touch the water, but she wants to be near it. She loves to throw as many rocks back into the water as she can. She "rescued" a solid 46 rocks I think that day

"Please don't get too far in Kels. I only brought boots" When will I learn that she just can't help herself. Luckily, we were almost done with our trip so it didn't matter that she was soaking wet :)

Kelsey aksed me to draw AZ. I was so proud of myself that I hung this on the fridge

Madison LOVES to be sneaky. Whenever I am upstairs, she sneaks down stairs and finds something to get into. Her hiding place is alwasy behind the couch and her "go to" for being naughty is my "backpack" or pruse as most would call. I can not tell you how many sticks of gum she has consumed and how many lotions she has rubbed on her legs. It drives me crazy. No matter where I put my purse, she finds it!! Sneaky girl!!

On the way home from Grandma Farnsworth's funeral, the girls and I split the trip up into two days. We drove through Boise and stayed in a hotel and then finished the drive the next morning. They girls were so awesome. I was so proud of them.

Park at the hotel

Boise temple

Eating dinner at 3:30 becasue we were starving. The girls will hate me some day for show this pictures but I love it so so much!

When we got home, this was waiting for us along with books and flowers. It was so good to see Ethan again.

Easter with the cousins

the funeral

When we were visitng the Snelsons, we lost Madison. Apparently she got stuck on Carson's bed and instead of jumping off (thankfully) or crying for help, she just laid down and fell asleep

Inside joke, but this is the firdge almost every Saturday. Its pretty ridiculous.

Siena's birthday

My beautiful Grandma Nelson

I missed Kay so I ate apple salad

Back in November, at my very first Relief Society activity, I won a picture session with Lelani Dong in the ward. I was excited but didn't think much of it. I just assumed, she would do a mini session or be an aspiring photographer. Both things were perfectly fine with me because we don't get family pictures very often, but oh how wrong I was!
Lelani is one of the most talented photographers I have ever been around. I LOVE her style and she is so soft in her approach. She just lets you basically set yourself up and conduct yourself as you normally would which helped capture such a natural look. AND she got us the pictures literally the next day. It was just such a great experience overall.

Lelani asked us to help her with an "all white" project she was creating so we all wore white. The point was to show how one dimensional it is compared to when you all wear different colors, but this may be the best picture smile wise! It was also the first one so I guess that makes sense.

I got so awkward with the lovey pictures. She captured some cute moments but it just felt so weird to kiss in front of a camera. It was weird on my wedding day and is still weird. I'm just not a public person. Lelani was so cute about it though and once she could tell that I was so uncomfortable, she just rolled with it and got some cute laughing pictures.

this was also really awkward for me because my casual face always just looks ticked off. I was SHOCKED to see that she was able to capture a face that didn't look mad at the world. I actually love this picture

I thought these were interesting. She had us stand all together and then would zoom in, or walk up to different members to capture different moments. Very different to me but I totally loved the results. I'm telling ya! This girl has some serious talent!