First annual Johnson/Cowley Reunion

This year Trevor's side of the family decided to have a family reunion which we are trying to make an annual tradition! Trevor's mom, Nancy, is awesome and planned the whole entire weekend and got a cabin in Zions that we all got to stay at. Almost all of Trevor's siblings came which was so fun since everyone is spread out. We went up to Zions on Thursday and relaxed until Saturday night. We actually stayed at an RV Park outside of Springdale that is right by the river. Loni and her family have an RV and were on their way back from driving across the county so they met us there and we rented the one cabin they had at the park. The cabin was so nice and was just like a hotel room but even better. The RV park had so many fun activities that we got to enjoy. One night they had s'mores around a fire pit, the next night they made brick oven pizza and we got to reserve the recreation hall and watch a movie. I loved that  we were so close to the river so we could just walk down there and let the kids play. We also loved being right outside of Zion so we could take a little trip up there for a hike at Weeping Rock, which the kids loved and it was so gorgeous! It was such a relaxing trip and so nice to get away and let all the cousins get together and play. Nancy did such an awesome job planning everything and I can't wait for next year!

Birthday Boy

Well another year has come and gone and Trevor is just getting older and not quite sure if wiser but I guess we will see. This year for his birthday I gave Claire a couple dollars and let her pick out what she wanted to get him. Then she helped me decorate the house a little and surprise him when he came home from work.  She was so excited to give him her presents and I am pretty sure he loved and will use ALL of it....

Claire chose a lovely birthday hat, some HUGE star glasses, then had to put her sunglasses on too for a photo shoot, some bubbles and a ceramic cat and dog which she painted so he could put them at his office.

kids these days

I think anyway that knows Claire can agree that she is a little crazy. She definitely is a little spazzy and a little sassy and has a mind of her own. If I take my eyes off her for one second I never know what I am going to find. As time goes by she is also getting smarter and more mischievous. One of her favorite things to do is take pictures on my camera. I have told her so many times not to touch my camera and I thought she finally started listening because I never saw her get it out or saw it lying around the house. Well....I was wrong. I went to get my camera out the other day and noticed that there were tons of pictures on there but I knew I had empty the memory card the last time I used it....this is just a few of the hundred that were on there....

She has obviously tried to pull a fast one by making sure to put the camera back in its case and back in the tub with all the electronics and back in the closet in the office. I guess I shouldn't get mad quite yet, maybe one day she will be a photographer.

Beach Time

In July we got an invitation to go stay at a beach house with Anthony and his family so of course we said.....duh...yes! Trevor was not able to take time off of work for that long, so Liesel and I made our own plans and decided to take the kids down and meet Anthony's family at the beach house they were renting for the week! We knew we were being very brave by packing up all the kids and driving down with just Liesel and I but we made the long trek and ended up having a blast!

The apartment was right on the beach, which was awesome! It was only a five minute walk to the water!
It was so nice to just be able to relax and just walk to the beach and hang out. The kids had so much fun and loved every second of it!

That was my view all week and I was perfectly happy with it! 

July 4th, 2013

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. Since I hate working the night on the 4th because I feel like I miss the fireworks, I signed up for the day shift but was sad because I missed all the fun activities during the day. Usually we go to the park and eat breakfast and do the bounce houses but this year we just looked forward to the night time events and made sure we had plenty of fireworks to set off!
We headed to Grandma and Grandpa McMullin's for dinner and to watch the fireworks. Claire had a blast running around with the cousins and the neighbor kids. She loves fireworks and we even have a few left over that we can maybe set off another night!

LAGOOOOOON

I love Lagoon. I love all rollercoasters and theme parks. I have been waiting forever for Claire to be tall enough to go on rides. She has been tall enough to ride some rides at Disneyland and now finally tall enough to ride some rides at Lagoon, so it was time to take a road trip. It was a quick trip and had just enough time to go to Lagoon for one day. We decided to do the water park too so we spent half of the day on rides and half of the day in the water. It was the perfect way to spend a summer weekend. 

Maggie Cowley

Ohhhhh Maggie.... the cute little puppy Claire got from Santa Clause is not a puppy anymore. I swear she is growing by the second and getting more mischievous all the time! It has taken me awhile to get used to having a dog and taking care of another baby (she is harder than a real baby!) but she has won over Claire and Trevor's hearts so I guess we will keep her....

 Maggie can't let Claire have all the fun 

 best buds

 thinks she is a small dog that can fit anywhere

 Maggie will always be one of Claire's patients 

Doing what she does best....causing trouble

Tiny Dancer

Our little tiny dancer finally had her spring dance recital. We were so excited to see her in her costume and finally do her dances up on the big stage under the big lights! She kept saying how excited she was and that she was not nervous so I was curious to see she would stay that way once she got up there. When she got on stage she rocked it! She did not look nervous at all and she was having so much fun. There was a few times she was dancing the to beat of her own drum but overall she did so good and I was so proud of her! 

She did such a great job and she would not stop talking about for weeks. She loved being up on that stage and having everyone watching her (which worries me a little). She is definitely a little performer. 

A week before the recital she had her pictures taken which I thought turned out so cute. 

SAN FRANCISCO

Since the beginning of the year I had been wanting to go on a trip. Any trip...any where! I just needed to get out. I thought of a few different places and out of all the places we have never been I chose San Francisco! It was more of a last minute trip, just like almost every trip we go on, but I think we put together a pretty fun vacation.

Because we were only going to be there for about four days we didn't want to spend two of it driving so we decided to fly. This would have been a great idea if we hadn't have missed our flight out. We got there 50 minutes before our flight and they won't even print a ticket for you after 60 min till flight time.....bummer. Luckily we got on a flight later that day but we spent a FUN (sarcastic) 6 hours at the Las Vegas airport. Lets just say the airport is not the most entertaining place for a three year old. Finally, we got on our plane and ended up in San Francisco! (thank goodness). When we got there and got to our hotel it was a little overcast and raining but that was not stopping me from wasting the rest of the day so I drug Trevor and Claire on an adventure to China Town. It was so weird walking down the street past all these brand new clothing stores and restaurants and then all of the sudden you hit china. Claire thought China town was the coolest place ever! Trevor loved all the shops with all the trinkets (I know....he has a chinese money frog statue on his nightstand).... I was a little grossed out once we saw all the food markets and a little creeped out of all the bums, but other than that we loved it.

The next morning was beautiful day so we decided to go for a walk and look at all the cool houses and streets. Well we walked and walked and walked and ended up at Fisherman's Wharf. The wharf had so many cool shops and beautiful views over the water.

There was an awesome aquarium that we wandered into that Claire loved!

One of the highlights of our trip was riding bikes across the Golden Gate bridge. I don't even know the last time I rode a bike so it was touch and go at first but turned out to be awesome! It is the best way to take in all of the views. We started out at the Wharf and went across the bridge into a little town called Sausalito. It was so much fun and such a good day! Sausalito is the most picturesque town and to end the adventure we got to ride a ferry back to the wharf.

Once we got back to the Wharf we walked around and found a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum and a wax museum that were quite interesting.

The next morning we went back to Wharf to go on our tour of Alcatraz. When we got there it was hard to do the tour because Claire did not want to keep stopping and listening so we did our own tour and wandered around the whole area. The views on the island were so awesome. I guess if you had to be in jail somewhere at least it had great scenery!

After the tour we headed over to the Golden Gate park, which I did not realize is so big. I really wish we would have had more time to spend there because you could easily spend the whole day there and only make it through half, but we walked through some of the trails until we found a cool park which Claire did not want to leave!

We didn't have much time at the park because we had tickets to a Giants game that night! The Giants stadium was awesome. One whole side of stadium is surrounded by water and there are people in kayaks floating around waiting for home run balls. The game was so much fun and the Giants won!

I was sad for that day to end because I knew the next morning we had to go home. We were definitely tired and felt like we needed a vacation after our vacation but I was happy we got to see and do everything we wanted to. The flight home went a little bit smoother and it felt good to be home.