HE'S ENGAGED!

So my brother James dropped a huge bombshell on my family when two weeks ago he announced that he was engaged and that they were getting married September 5th! Kind of surprising for us because he only first told us about three weeks before they were engaged! Crazy!!!! Ne ways... below are some of their engagement pics I took for them at the Gardens!

Our First Family Vacation

In honor of both Anthony and I graduating, we declared the need for our first ever family vacation, just our family. We decided to take the boys to Salt Lake to see Hoglo Zoo and to also see Temple Square. Way adventurous, I know, but for two little boys who do not travel well this was big! We talked about for months and got Peter so excited to see elephants and giraffes. We left Thursday morning and traveled all the way to Salt Lake having to make only two stops. Early this summer we bought a portable DVD player at a garage sale for a steal ($10) and that saved our lives. The boys watched movies all the way to Salt Lake, plus took a nap! Our first stop was to This is the Place monument. Neither Anth or I had ever saw it before and decided it would be fun. Come to find out they have a heritage park there that is like a mini pioneer village where kids can do all kinds of crafts and other activities that are related to the pioneers. It was a lot of fun. I would totally recommend it to anyone!

Us standing in front of the monument! It just happened that it was Pioneer Day as well.


This was one of our favorites! It just circles around a little lake but it was fun!
Here we are waiting for us to go on our ride. The boys really were excited. I think that they were just a little bit scared of it all!

The boys at the old school house pretending to be in school! It was really hot that day and most of the buildings weren't air conditioned! Just like the pioneer's day!They had some people there who were dressed up in pioneer clothing and pretend that they were pioneers. It was awesome!

This is us at Denny's! It was right next to our hotel! How awesome is that!

Thursday night we noticed that Peter's eye was starting to swell shut. He was bitten by a mosquito on Wednesday night and his forehead had swollen up but it wasn't until Thursday night that his eye swelled shut! This is him on Friday morning! We decided that an emergency trip to Urgent Care was necessary and attempted to try and find one. Almost two hours later we were back at the hotel with a prescription to help stop the swelling. Come to find out, Peter is allegoric t to mosquitos and that his eye swelled shut because of gravity. The swelling basically fell into his eye. So on top of being blind, he got to be a cyclops! Poor guy! We felt horrible for him. The whole point of the trip was so that he could SEE elephants and now he couldn't see ten feet in front of him.

The boys at Hoglo Zoo and a lovely shot of White Alligator. They are very rare and very powerful!

Us outside of the Alligator hut. My family came with us to Hoglo Zoo and we were waiting for them to come out. Peter is looking through the map trying to find the elephants.

Andrew succumbed to the need for a nap during the bird show that we watched. He slept for almost all of the zoo. Oh, well! He probably won't be able to remember much of it anyways.

The giraffes were my favorite part! I could remember them from when I was a kid! They had a baby there! I forgot how big they were!

My brother Glen and his resemblance to the gorilla! Pretty close!

Anthony testing out the hand gauge! Anthony had the longest hands in his family and so this was defiantly a temptation to try out!

And the whole reason for the trip to the zoo...the elephants! And wouldn't you know that they were working on the exhibit and so this was as close as we could get! Peter could hardly see them! I felt so bad but he got over faster then I did!

Our last day was spent on Temple Square and at the Gateway! Peter walked into the square and we began to ask him, where the temple was and he looked around and said, "I can't see it!" By this time, his eye had opened up considerably...he just won't look up high enough. That and he was looking for the Moroni statue on top.

Us in front of the Hyrum and Joseph statues!

We decided to let the boys play in the water at the Gateway before we left to go back home. They had a blast! Peter was completely drenched! Andrew was a little more timid but got into it as well.

So overall, it was alot of fun and very tiring! I think that I am still recovering! Not really! I can't wait to go back and spend more time at the Gateway. They had this really cool looking Discovery Center there, kind of like a children's museum, that I really want to take the boys too! Maybe next year!

My HUNK!

It was Anthony's birthday on the 21st of July! I am so blessed to have such a patient and understanding and loving man as my husband. He understands and supports me better then anyone that has entered my life. He has faith in me and helps me to succeed simply because of his encouragement. So in honor of him, I tried to make his birthday as special as possible.
It began with a simple half truth about how busy his family was and how no one could come to a party on his birthday because they all had something else to do. The truth was that I had planned a surprise party at Porter Park for him, with all of his family. But because of increment weather, we had to move the festivities to his mom's house where I had to spin around lie in order to get him there. But over all it worked out and he alot of support and love.
The boys and I decorated his car with balloons and car paint. We even wrapped it in some streamers and wrote "NEW GRAD" on the back because he finally finished all of his classes!!!!! YESSSS!!!! WE ARE FINALLY and COMPLETELY DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ne ways... we had a lot of fun with his car!
Anth's Favorites! Crackers and instant oatmeal! What can I say? He is easy to please!
And new shoes to compliment my hubbie's dashing good looks! I love him so much and thank God every day that Anthony came into my life! I LOVE YOU, Anthony!

Five Wonderful Years!

Hey. This is Anthony writing. This summer we were able to celebrate our fifth anniversary. We ended up going to a few of the places we did on our HoneyMoon. It was a "coincidental" anniversary. I'll explain. One thing that was interestingly coincidental is that we stayed ad Mack's Inn in Island park, and we ended up in the exact same cabin as on our HoneyMoon. We even looked at a picture from our honeymoon to see if the number on the door was the same. It was. The other thing is that we went and watched Hello Dolly at the PlayMill Theatre in West Yellowstone and then the next day we saw the movie "WALL-E" in Idaho Falls the next day. The coincidence is that the movie WALL-E shows clips of Hello Dolly in it.

The cabin we stayed in at Mack's Inn.

We went and saw Upper Mesa Falls. It is pretty cool. There is a "micro-environment" there in that the moisture creates an environment where other plants that can't normally grow in the forest are able to grow there. The cliff wall on the other side of the waterfall is pretty neat looking. The picture's don't do it complete justice so I recommend going and seeing it in person. (On a side note I also recommend going and seeing the Teton Dam site in person. The huge canyon there is amazing!)

(this is Alisha Now) Another thing that was the same as our honeymoon was that we stayed at Shilo Inn our wedding night. We spent Friday night there. It was wonderful to have just Anthony and I on this trip. It was a great time to spend getting to know each other and to be with just us!
We walked through this park the day before we got engaged and took a picture at this same spot. It was fun to react everything.
The only thing that I didn't like reenacting was throwing up! I threw up on our honeymoon either because of stress or the heat and 60lbs wedding dress. Friday night, after eating a delicious snow cone from this new place, I began to throw-up and didn't stop until Saturday afternoon. I was laid completely flat for two days. The stomach flu is no fun!

Overall, it was a great anniversary and I loved every minute of time spent with my husband! I've married the best man ever but I'll post more about him in a little bit!

Policy Tech Party

Sometime in July (before the 18th) Policy Tech, the company that Anth works for, hosted a company party. We were invited to go to the zoo in Idaho Falls and then to a dinner at Freeman Park. It was a lot of fun! The zoo was nice and hot and the boys like looking at everything there. Dinner was really good too! They served Bajos! I have never eaten there and don't really like Mexican food but this was delicious. The boys liked it for the most part! Policy Tech is a company that Anth's brothers helped form about ten years ago and it crazy to see how much it has grown in the last year. It use to be about 10 people and now it has over 50! It's crazy! And I think that it is totally awesome that all of Anth's brothers work there as well! Anthony loves working for his family!


Andrew was really into this taco! His newest thing is to smack his lips when he likes something and lick his fingers! Where he learned such horrid table manners, while remain a mystery!
Peter is turning into a ham! He knows when I'm taking pictures and later he has been hamming it up and acting silly! Like he is now!

Monson Family Reunion

We had our annual Monson Reunion in Pocotello this year. My Uncle Willard was in charge and it was pretty fun! We got to go to the huge swimming complex that they have there! They even have a water slide, which I got to go down this time! After swimming we had hamburgers and hotdogs (standard reunion fare) and then sat around and talked for while. It was great to talk to my Grandma Monson because I have been working on her family's temple work. It's a little awkward because most of the my dad's family are not members. But it has been awesome to do the work!

Waiting to get into the complex!
James and Andrew
Anth and Peter! Our boys were a little gun shy until they got going and then they loved it!

"R" Adventure Hike

So, I'm not that big of a hiker and so when Douglas and Christy suggested hiking the "R" mountain for a double date, my knees were a little shaky! I hadn't been on the R Mountain before and was reassured that it wasn't that hard of a hike and that it would only take about thirty minutes to reach the top. So I agreed and was excited to be able to finally say that I had hiked the R mountain. Who lives in Rexburg and doesn't hike the R mountain right? Well, I don't how many of you have done this hike but it is a little on the steep side and if you have vertigo and a fear of heights like I do, it can be a little scary. We finally get to the top where I almost collapse from fatigue(did I mention that I am way, I mean WAY, out of shape) and then hike around the top to find a place to eat our picnic. It was a lot of fun and I did enjoy the hike. I was pretty sore for the next couple of days but it was great to get to know my new future sister-in-law.

View from the top of the R mountain looking down into the valley!
Us waiting for Anthony to come down so we can eat our sand witches, trail mix, and jerky.
It really is beautiful up there, once you make to the top. I loved the way the sunset turned everything into a thing of beauty!