Lake Powell

Every year my boss takes our office out to Lake Powell to spend the day on his houseboat. We had a lot of fun swimming, riding jet ski's, and just cruising around the lake. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Emily was so relaxed floating in the water that she almost fell asleep. She didn't like the sun in her eyes though.



Emily and Dad chillin' on the houseboat.


Emily taking a quick power nap before the real excitement begins.



Emily has always been a fan of real strawberries. She loves them so much she did not like it when the last of the strawberry was eaten, she wanted more. Her face was classic when she was eating it. You did not dare take it from her or she would give you a mean glare.

Yum, this is why Emily loves strawberries. We love the after effect strawberries have on Emily's face once she is done eating them. Both her and Dad were really sticky.

Russell and I waving at Emily from the wave runner. While Emily was being good, we went off on a little wave runner adventure while one of my co-workers and friend, Stacy, watched Emily. Russell and I enjoyed sometime fun time together out on the lake with the wave runner.

The wave runners were really fun. We loved jumping the big waves of the tour boats.

Our family looking out over the top of the houseboat. (I hope we didn't blind anyone by our whiteness!)

The water was soooo nice. It was the perfect temperature, I could have floated in it all day. While everyone was going off the slide or jumping and diving off of the side of the houseboat, Emily and I were just floating around.

Here's Emily and Russell driving the boat. We had a really good time at Lake Powell.

After a fun day of boating, we went out to eat at the Rainbow Cafe at Wahweap (I think that was the name). After dinner, the waitress asked us if we wanted dessert. She said that the Berry Cobbler was "Life changing." So Russell had to try it! Our friend Stacy Richan(boy) said he would pay Russell $5 if he would totally act out his "life changing cobbler experience" to the waitress. When the waitress came with the cobbler, Russell took his first bite. Then he totally started acting! When the waitress came back, Russell got emotional. He told the waitress his life had changed and he owed it all to her. The waitress was totally playing along to, she said she had the same experience when she had it. It was so hilarious. The waitress said Russell should win an Oscar for his act. Needless to say we came home $5 richer.

We had a great vacation. Thank you Rick for taking us out!

Our Fun Weekend

This past week was very eventful. First, we discovered Emily was getting her first tooth! It is so fun to hear it when we hit it with a spoon. She is funny though because every time we try to look at it, she thinks we are trying to get something out of her mouth so she clenched her jaws and won't open her mouth. We were lucky because Emily never seemed to have any of the "teething" signs that I had read or heard about so we didn't even know she was getting a tooth. Hopefully it will be like that for the rest of the teeth. This is the best picture we could get of the tooth. Then Thursday (July 9) night I went outside and watched the Space Station fly across the sky. It was pretty cool. It looked like a really bright satellite going across the sky. I tried to take a picture of it but it didn't really work. (The Space Station is the bright light at the top of the Cyprus tree.)

Friday (July 10) I decided to take the day off work so Russell and I decided to take Emily on a Family outing. First we had to do some errands so we went to the college to check on Russell loan status for school in the fall. We found out we qualified for an $800 grant which is very nice. We have never qualified for grants before. Unfortunately that will not even come close to paying for school so we still had to get a loan, but what can you do we have to go to school. Then the fun started!

First, we went to the Splash Pad and River at the St. George Town Square on Main Street. It was a lot of fun and Emily had a blast splashing in the water. I was really surprised at how many people were there. But I guess they all had the same idea we did, "Find a way to cool off!"

Emily loves the water and loves splashing. The little stink wouldn't keep her hat on though!

Emily loved sitting on the waterfall and having the water run on her. Once she was swatting at the waterfall and the water splashed into her face and took her breath away. Her face and reaction was priceless!

After the splash pad, Emily was getting hungry and tired so we went home to get her feed and down for a nap. Russell and I also took a quick nap too. When Emily woke up she was happy and we were ready to go again.

Next we went to feed the ducks and geese at the pond in Bloomington Hills. This was the first time Emily had seen the geese. She thought they were pretty cool and would kick her feet and hands every time they came close.

We tried to have Emily throw the bread to the geese but she wanted to eat the bread instead! I was so mad I didn't get a picture of this but Russell was feeding the geese and had the bread in his hands and one goose just came and took the whole piece out of his hand! He tried to get the bread back but the goose ran away. It was really funny.

After we ran out of bread, we went to the Bloomington park to play and have lunch. It was a hot day but in the shade it was OK so we spread out our blanket and had a picnic.

Emily loves apples and was trying to bite this whole apple with her one tooth!

When she had finished with that, she decided to dig in the cooler for some more snacks.

After lunch, we played on the slide and swings.

Weeeeeee!

We were starting to get hot and tired so we went home. We had a great day spending time together and playing as a family. That night, Russell had to work at the Ivins firehouse so after making dinner, Emily and I drove out there and we had dinner at the firehouse with him. We had fun and I think Russell enjoyed having us come visit him too.

Saturday (July 11) Russell's brother, Tyler, had his first All-Stars baseball game so we went to see him play. His game was in Cedar City at 2:30. While we were watching the game, we were glad it was in Cedar and not St. George or we would have melted! The game was really fun to watch.

Tyler and Emily after the game. Emily was hot so all she wanted to do was drink that water bottle. She would scream if you took it away!

On the way home from Cedar, Emily was really cranky and the only thing that would calm her down was Oreos. As many of you know, Oreos are the messiest treats EVER! But she sure looked cute with Oreos all over her face and hands and shirt and car seat and seat belt and bib and everything!!!!!

This weekend was really fun. With Russell working nights and me working days, we hardly ever see each other so this weekend was really what we needed to regroup and spend time together. I think Emily enjoyed having both mom and dad there too instead of just one or the other. We need to do more things like this more often. We have really tried to do more things as a family this summer because when school starts in the fall, Russell will be spread really thin. Russell was just accepted into the Paramedic program at Dixie and the course is suppose to be really hectic. With class, clinicals, studying, and working full-time, he will always be running and trying to find time to get everything done. I am going to try to be very supportive but I think it will be hard for me too. It will only be a year so we will make it through but until then, we are going to have fun!

Emily's New Favorite Game

Emily has discovered that if she drops something we will pick it up for her. Because of this, her new favorite game is to drop her cup on the floor and watch us pick it back up for her. She laughs and laughs; she thinks it is the funniest thing ever. Emily will even throw her toys in order for us to pick them up. The best is when she is in her stroller and she drops something down by her feet and then she kicks and kicks her legs until that thing has fallen on the ground. Then, when we give it back to her, she does it again. I know it is a bad habit to get her into but it is so funny to listen to her laugh and watch her get so excited. Watch the video below and you will see what I mean! Also watch Emily's feet, when she gets excited, she wiggles her toes so fast. I don't know how she does it but it is so cute.

Morwood Family Reunion on Beaver Mt.

Over the Fourth of July, our family went camping on Beaver Mountain. It was the Morwood Reunion and is was great to see all of my cousins, aunts, and uncles. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful. On July 4th, while part of the family was on a four-wheeler ride, the rest of us had a horseshoe tournament. That was really fun especially when Russell or I would get ringers. We are not the best horseshoe players but we had fun anyway. We won two out of four games. In between games we took a canoe ride on the lake. I don't know if Emily liked being on the water or not because she held so still while we were on the water and didn't make a sound usually she is moving around and acting crazy all the time. On July 5th, we had an Independence Day devotional. My cousin spoke about the importance of freedom and did a really good job. So we didn't have to unpack in the heat of the day, we stayed on the mountain until 7 pm but when we got to St. George at 10 pm it was still 95 degrees so we have to unpack in the heat anyway. Bummer. The 5th was also my birthday and I got to spend it doing the things I love: being with my family and camping.

Our family in our matching shirts

Dunking cookies in milk.

Emily loves her bike stroller. It is a lot of fun riding with her.

Riding in the canoe. Emily didn't know what to think about that.

Eating watermelon...

...and drinking the juice (Nice cup Russell!)

Emily loved the puppy but I don't know if the puppy loved Emily. (She kept trying to poke his eye out.)

Emily thought she was so big playing dolls with her cousins

Manti Pageant

On June 19, we took a trip up to Manti, UT to see the Mormon Miracle Pageant. It was a lot of fun. The Pageant was amazing. I had not seen it for a few years and I had forgotten how good it was. The Pageant displayed events in church history as well as scenes from the Book of Mormon. It was interesting to see the scenes acted out on a stage. It helped me picture the Book of Mormon stories better. One of the best parts of the Pageant was the appearance of the resurrected Savior to the Book of Mormon people. The Savior was all dressed in white and the spotlights were directly on him which made him stand out above everything else. It was very beautiful. You could definitely feel the Spirit which reassured me that Christ really did appear to the ancient American people after He had been resurrected. The Pageant was great.

We were going to bring our camp trailer up and stay in it overnight at Fish Lake but last minute we decided to get a hotel room instead. We probably called five hotels before we found one with an open room. Everything was packed because of the Pageant. We stayed in Richfield overnight. The next day, we travelled up to Fish Lake to have a picnic and spend sometime in the cool weather before returning to the heat of St. George. It was a short vacation but well worth it.

Before the Pageant started, next to the beautiful Manti Temple. We took the last blanket spot.


The Pageant was just about to start.

Fish Lake Mountain (In case you didn't know, this is what heaven is going to look like!)

Cooking hot dogs for lunch.

Our Blog

OK everyone, we finally gave into peer pressure and started our own blog. We originally set up our blog back in September, but being the computer geniuses we are, we could not figure out how to post anything. Finally we gave up. A few days ago, however, we sat down and told ourselves we were not going to get up until we figured this thing out. After many hours we were able to post an entry. Once we had posted the first entry, the rest seemed to go a lot smoother. We decided to start our blog with the beginning of our lives together when we started dating and go forward from there. It has actually been pretty fun reminiscing over the memories we have made over the years. Our more recent blog entries will mostly be about our beautiful daughter Emily because she is our life. Below are a few slide shows of pictures we have taken over the last nine months and as you will see, they are mostly pictures of Emily. We hope you enjoy our blog and we are excited about sharing our life with you.

April 2009-June 2009

October 2008 - April 2009