4th of July

As some of you know, the 4th of July is my favorite holiday, so I was pretty excited to be out west to celebrate it. In the morning we went out to Tooele so Brent could run a 5K with some other people in the family. He did a pretty good job with not much training prior. I think he ran it around 23 minutes. After the race we watched the Tooele parade in perfect parade weather. Kennedy remembered the horses from Jackson and LOVED every time they came by. After the parade we headed up to the cabin for a fun weekend, which included the annual Oakley rodeo (again K loved the horses). It was a lot of fun and we had GREAT seats. We celebrated Kennedy's birthday up at the cabin with the Butler family and then headed down to the Noorda family in Farmington to celebrate it again. While we were in Farmington we picked cherries from the orchard and Kennedy loved them, but come to think of it, there's not a fruit that K doesn't like. Since being in Iowa, Brent and I have skipped out on a few work projects at the cabin, so it was our time to put in our dues. We stayed for a couple more days at the cabin working on moving an exterior window. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun and it felt good to put in a long days work. The 4th of July is the essence of summer. I LOVE IT!!!

Kennedy Discovering Pick-Up-Sticks

Pool Party

After spending a week down south we came back to Salt Lake to relax for a few days before we headed up to the cabin for the 4th of July. We got together with all the Butler cousins for a pool party...and as you can see from the pictures, Brent just couldn't let the kids have all the fun.

Road Trip Around The West

Brent returned back to West Jordan and was all fired up about school. He LOVES what he does...and I love that. Not many people can say that about their jobs. Anyways, so we were all geared up to decide where we want to live for the rest of our lives. We have a map of the United States on our fridge at home and throughout the past year we have learned about/visited a few places and began crossing off the states we didn't want to live in. Mostly the whole midwest and south was crossed out, which left the east and west coasts. We decided that we want to live at least in driving distance to family, so it was narrowed down to the west coast. We decided to take a trip around the west to check out S. Utah, Arizona, and a few places in California. We really like Seattle area, but just a little too rainy for me. We love the sun!!! So we made our way down to St. George and stayed with my sister. I have been there tons of times, but this time I was looking at it as a place to live and well....we FELL IN LOVE with it. We decided not to go to California on our trip, but instead we visited a couple of docs in Vegas and Mesa. Going to both those places confirmed our decision and we can't wait to get to ST. GEORGE. So after we are done in Iowa & then the internship for 2-3 years, we will set up shop in sunny St. George:)

Coeur D'Alene

Immediately after Jackson, Brent dropped Kennedy and I off in West Jordan, where we did a little remodeling at my parents house, while he made his way up to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. He worked the ironman triathalon there doing A.R.T. stuff on the athletes. He said it was gorgeous area (more than Jackson, so...I think we could have our second house there). It was a really good opportunity for him, he learned a lot, and had fun roughing it with a few friends from school. Here's a few pics.

Jackson, WY

We started our break out in Chicago, where we spent a day with Scott, Amy, and Bristol and then flew out to Utah. After spending the night in Salt Lake we headed up to Jackson, WY the next morning with the whole Butler family. We all made it into town for my cousin, McKenzie's wedding and somehow all fit in the same condo. It was fun to remember the 'good old days' when I lived there and to be back in the place where Brent and I first met. I LOVED living in Jackson and miss it a lot. We mostly did wedding stuff, but were able to sneak in river rafting, Bar J Wranglers, and the irresistible Mountain High Pizza Pie.

Summer Break

Do we still have a blog? Yep...just checking. I'm sure some of you regulars have noticed that's its been a little bit longer than awhile. Sorry!!! Well, we just got home from summer break and we had a blast!!! To start things off, this year Brent received 4 weeks off for summer instead of the usual 3 weeks (side note: I am so jealous of all you semester students who actually get a decent break during the year). Well, we were pretty excited when we heard the news and planned to be away from the midwest as much as possible. I think we counted and we spent less than 12 hours in Iowa during Brent's break. We were pretty busy the whole time and had SO much fun!!! The next few posts will give an idea of what we did during our four weeks out west.