Aaron and Joshy's birthdays.

Aaron turned 29 on the 29th of Novemeber, that makes us feel pretty old!!! He had a good birthday and we went over to enjoy a yummy meal and cake cooked by Kimberly.

Joshua turned 5 on 27th December and we along with the Kimberly's family celebrated with him at Hollywood Connections with yummy pizza, cake and ice cream.  It was a real fun place where we skated, went on rides and played mini golf.

Mum and Olivia come to visit, a 50th birthday party, Kimmy’s 26th birthday and much more!

We were so excited to have Mum and Olivia to come and spend a couple of weeks with us, they arrived on Tuesday 21st September after flying to Paris before flying direct to Salt Lake City. It would appear to be a good route as they were able to fly from Birmingham which is just 40 minutes from their home and they arrived mid afternoon.

Kimmy, Aaron, Rachael and Josh

Jess, Ben, Jack and Lucas

Aaron, Jess and Beth with Grannie

               Grannie with her great grandchildren              

Jessie, Beth and Aaron !

  Mum was tired and her legs and feet and had really swollen but after a couple of days of rest she was pretty good. Mum was so happy to see Aaron, Kimmy, Josh and Rachael the day arrive they arrived as they were able to come over for dinner. Mum hadn’t seen Josh for 2 years and had never seen Rachael.

My lovely friend Heather who made me the most delicious birthday cake
                          

Friday 24th Jess, Ben, Jack and Lucas arrived, Mum hadn’t seen Jack since he was a year and again hadn’t seen Lucas. That night we had a belated birthday party for my 50th (just a month later) and were so excited to see some friends that we hadn’t seen for some time, many who knew Aaron, Jess and Steve’s Mum.

          Aaron and Jess, can that lad ever be serious?
     

Aaron (still not behaving himself) with our good friends Katie and Craig

                             
Saturday 25th we had a family photo shoot in Lehi near Aaron and Kimmy’s home, which was a lot of fun and we got some great photos with Mum. Beth also went of her first home coming dance with a young man named Joey Jenson.

Joey and Beth

                                                                  

 Sunday 26th Ben had to fly home for work, but we had a birthday dinner for Kimmy before he had to leave. Kimmy turned 26 and we were excited to have in our home to celebrate her birthday!

                           Birthday girl Kimberly 26!                        

Kimberly and Aaron

Kimmy with Josh, Rachael and Jack

     Our Lucas         

Olivia drove back to Denver with Jess and the Boys to spend a few days and flew back in time for general conference.          

Waiting for conference to start

 

After conference

We tried to pack as much in as we could without exhausting Mum before they left for home on Friday the 8th of October. We visited Temple square, welfare square, this is the place, 2 temples and Olivia even got to go to school with Beth. We were very sad to see them go :-(

Mum and Olivia at this is the place

Beth and Liv

Temple square with Mum and Liv

Celebrating my 50th in Disney, California.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO SEE BIGGER IMAGES

On Sunday 22nd of August we left straight after church for Las Vegas, where we spent the night breaking up our trip to Disney, where the the next day we met up with Aaron, Kimberly, Josh and Rachael. We were all staying at the same Holiday Inn not far from Disney and we were able to cooled off in the pool before having a lovely meal in the Disney village.

The next day Tuesday 24th August was my 50th birthday and lucky me I got to spend the whole day and evening in Disney! It was hot, but thankfully there weren't as many people there as I thought there would be! We had a wonderful day, went on lots of rides, got soaked to the skin as Steve and Aaron decided to have a water fight on 'Splash Mountain'. One at each end of the ride, with Beth, Josh, me and a complete stranger in the middle. To say we were wet would be an understatement, but thankfully we dried off pretty quickly!

The highlight was being treated by Aaron and Kimmy to a lovely birthday meal at Ariel’s Grotto, that over looked the lake in the California adventure park, before watching the amazing light show. All I can say is it really had a the 'WOW' factor. We returned to our hotel exhausted.

The next day we went to Huntingdon Beach, were Steve and Aaron were daring enough to go for swim in the ocean. The waves reminded me of my childhood holidays in England when we would go to Cornwall and Wales. We then drove to Palm Springs for a few days, but we came to the conclusion that we won't got there again in August as it was just too hot. But in spite of the heat we had fun in the pool and played lots of Monopoly! All in All we had another fantastic week in California.              

Our trip to Denver for Lucas Blessing

After a busy few days we left for Denver on Thursday the 29th July, it was good to see Jessie, Ben, Jack and of course Lucas. Our journey took longer than before because we took Maizie with us and needed to stop more, she was really good on the journey.

Beth and Maizie taking a nap on our journey

Maizie and Reagan (Jess and Ben's dog) didn't get on too well when they first met, Reagan is a very busy and bouncy dog and Maizie was nervous around her and kept running away so Reagan would chase her, but they got on better as the time went by and they really started to enjoy each other’s company.

Lucas had changed and filled out in the 10 days since I had seen him, he is a real sweetheart and he doesn't cry very much at all.

Fun at the firefighters Museum in Denver

Ben had to work on Friday, so we went into Denver down town and visited the firefighters museum, before taking a nice walk down the main street to Cheesecake Factory for a yummy lunch and of course cheesecake.

Yummy lunch at the Cheesecake Factory

On Saturday we went for a hike high up some mountain it was at over 10,000 feet elevation and the scenery was stunning on the drive. I managed to get a red neck and chest as it was cooler up there and some cloud and didn't think to put sunscreen on! We had a picnic lunch and watched the dogs play in lake.

The beautiful scenery on our drive and hike

Carolyn and Dave (Ben's Mum and step Dad) arrived that afternoon and we had fun spending time with them eating pizza and catching up.

Dave, Carolyn and Lucas

Sunday was the blessing of Lucas at their little branch where the family nearly doubled their size. Lucas wore the same outfit that his Dad Ben did on his blessing day and unlike Jack he didn't throw up and have to be blessed in a onesy!

These photos were taken by Jess of Lucas in his blessing outfit

I really felt of the spirt in that meeting and it reminded me of our time in the Coalville branch some years ago. It was a great to apart of Lucas special day and spend time with our extended family.

Late afternoon we continued to socialize as Ben's family joined as for a BBQ
at Jess and Bens.

Jack and Auntie Beth hangin out

That evening Steve and I went for walk in the neighborhood and to our surprise we saw a bull elk in the literally a few minutes from where Jess and Ben live. It was just standing then sitting in some long grass opposite the local school and it was not fazed by us at all. We called Ben and Dave who promptly got in the car and came to see for themselves!

All in all we had a really fun and spiritually filled few days with the Carneys and our cute pumpkins Jack and Lucas.

I loved my cuddles with Lucas

We were up and on the road early by 6am as we wanted to get home in reasonable time and once again Maize was really good.

Sleeping again, that's all these 2 do!

We look forward to seeing Jess, Ben, Jack and Lucas at the end of September when Mum Presbury and Olivia come and visit us :-)

Lucas chatting to his Grandma

Bed time for Master Jack

Say cheese

Beth goes to EFY

Beth got to go to EFY in Provo the week of the 10th July, we hadn't planned on her going this year, well to be honest we just hadn't given it any thought.

Part of the group Beth was in

But we had gone to look at some couches nor far from where we live and although they weren't suitable we had a good chat to the Jones family.

Beth and Florencia

We got talking about all sorts mainly what had brought us to live here and then Beth was asked if she had heard of EFY and if she would like to go!

I thought that was a funny question knowing just how quickly they get booked up usually months before, but Chris told us that his company produced all of the promotional material and that he could get Beth in if she wanted to go.

Carolina and Beth

He said in return he would like to video Beth about her experience at EFY for some promotion material, nothing to do her accent of course!

Monica and Beth

So she went and of course she had a fabulous spiritual fun time making many new friends who sadly all live in different states the nearest being California.

Needless to say I think she will be wanting to go next year.

A crazy Beth