All hands in

What we miss most from our old house was our backyard- we could spend hours outside together as a family, including helping with our garden that was just starting to flourish. Our new house has perks but not much to do in the backyard. We have such great weather 9 months out of the year and spending time in the backyard is essential!

With Bella homebound for the next week (tonsillectomy), we think it's a great weekend to start our new garden. As you can tell by the chairs positioned by the first phase of the garden, all 3 girls are super excited to watch and help! (Chet and I wish they were only big enough to help carry the 500+ lbs of soil that we had to unload from the truck! ;)

More pics to come!

The place to be today!

Finally- no school and perfect weather! What better place to go than the zoo?? We arrived early and just in time- the rest of the valley had the same idea and joined us at the zoo!
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We did our animal sightseeing and then met up with some friends from our old neighborhood. Since moving over a year ago, I have come to realization that our old neighborhood and friends were the best and we haven't yet found anything similar. We were sad to leave all our friends behind- especially Julia- but I assumed that she would find another good friend at her new school. Julia has a lot of friends at the new school but no one like Ashlynn- her BFF since kindergarten. They connected on the first day of school many years ago (as did Ashlynn's mom and I) and are very similar. Despite going many months without seeing each other, they reconnect so quickly and have so much fun together!

Life and love

Somehow I haven't blogged since December (!!) but life keeps happening. I think this happened last January/February- the holidays are over, nothing too fun to blog about. Hopefully we are back to fun, blogworthy times.

This past weekend I travelled to Boise, Idaho to cheer on my sister Suzanne in the Mrs. Idaho pageant! She is the kind of person who throws herself into whatever she tries and is always trying something new. She put her heart and soul into this pageant. No matter the outcome, I saw that she came away with life changing experiences and new friends.

Swimsuit competition!
Yes, she has 3 kids ages 6 and younger...
And yes, we have the same biological parents...
I just didn't inherit the same genes or self control. :)

The crown
Suzanne (in the middle) with the top 5 contestants. It was the year of the brunettes apparently!
She did AMAZING and was crowned 2nd runner up.
(Honestly, I was shocked that she didn't win.)

It was a fun weekend! I loved seeing my niece and nephews and Pat (brother in law) and the rest of Suzanne's family and friends. We also got to celebrate Will's 3rd birthday! I rarely get to go to my niece/nephew's birthdays in Idaho so that was a treat for me! I didn't have a camera so I had to borrow these few pictures.

As much as I enjoyed a quick weekend away (traveling by myself was quite a treat!), I was excited to come home to see my 4 Valentine's!
The girls and I LOVE celebrating holidays! I think I enjoy Valentine's Day even more with kids. The girls and I always get flowers from our favorite guy (Daddy). We had our Valentine's dinner at home on Sunday night and chocolate fondue for dessert on Valentine's night.
It was a big hit- can you tell??
Lots of LOVE from our girls
(The girls were still dressed in their leotards after ballet class.)