Summer Fun

We are having a great summer and I just can't believe how fast it is going by. I haven't posted many pictures, so this is going to be a picture post.

Alexis took this picture of our friend Leann that lived with us for a couple weeks before she moved back to Vermont. We wish her the very best and hope she makes it back our way someday.

Alexis on a ride at Scandinavian Festival.

Alexis took this picture of the Salt Lake Temple when we visited my Mom for Mother's Day.

Memorial Day at the Sullivan's new indoor pool. Alexis is under the waterfall.

Alexis posing in Palisade Lake.


Denali, the beach babe, resting by the pool at our hotel in St. George. Greg was there for a conference and we went with him.


Campbell Weed, my friend Paige's little boy. Denali enjoyed playing with him while his Mom and Dad were at the temple.

Alexis in front of the monkey cage at the Willow Park Zoo in Logan. She makes a pretty good monkey!


The Arave family came to live with us until they could get into their own place. We went to the Mormon Miracle Pageant with them. They ended up only staying with us for a week. Their house sold in Mesquite and they found an affordable house to rent. But we had a really fun time while they were living with us. We did have a little bit of sibling rivalry, but Alexis and Chase love playing together. They really enjoyed swimming lessons at the Manti pool.


Denali loved playing in the lockers while the older kids were in swimming lessons. She found a cheetoh in one of them and yes, she ate it.


Alexis floating on her back in the whirpool.

My brother Aaron and his family are moving from North Carolina to Alaska. They drove through Utah visiting family and friends. We loved having them here and already miss them. We went to the park twice, played in the sprinklers, went to the drive-in and played lots of board games. I am sad that all my siblings will be together without me, but am hoping to be able to visit often.


Nathan trying to spray everyone else with the sprinkler.


Aubrey cooling off. Look at those long, tan legs. Isn't she gorgeous?

Princess Caroline and Princess Denali ready for the ball. Aubrey loved dressing them up and they loved the attention.


Aaron had quite the load. Denali was in the infant carrier behind the bike and Alexis and Caroline were in the trailer. They went on a quick ride around the college. Aaron looks so much like I remember my Dad, except Aaron is much taller than my Dad was.

We woke up early on July 4th to attend Provo's Freedom Parade. It is a big parade and the girls really enjoyed it. Especially the donuts for breakfast. I can't go to a parade without crying when the veterans and military vehicles drive by. I am so grateful for the free country we live in and the men that work so hard to keep it that way.

It was our weekend at Grandma Dart's cabin in Strawberry. So after the parade we spent the night there. My mom came and Greg's brother Jeff, his wife Anna, and our sister Caitlin met us there. On Saturday, Greg's grandpa Jones had his birthday party at the marina. We shared good food and good company. Grandpa took the girls on a boat ride on the lake.


There isn't a bath tub at the cabin, but the kitchen has deep sinks, perfect for bathing. Denali is always picking on her sister.

Highlights from the past week: trying to get my house put back together after having company, Denali breaking through at least 4 teeth, Alexis and Mom sleep overs on our love sacs in the basement while Greg has been out of town for work, eating pizza and mac n cheese for dinner so I don't really have to cook while Dad is gone (Alexis thinks he misses all the fun), Denali dumping 2 containers of fish food in three different rooms and down the toilet, the neighbors gave us some tadpoles and we are watching them grow their tales, Denali smearing diaper cream on her face and in her friends hair . . .

Here is a slide show of our house. I want to post pictures as rooms get more finished. I still am working on hanging photos and have more painting to do.

Alexis loves to sing and dance and Denali trys to keep up. Notice in this video that Denali usually says the last word of each sentence Alexis sings.

All About My Husband

I was tagged over a month ago and hadn’t done it yet. I thought being Father’s Day this past week it would be appropriate to tell about my husband, so here goes:

What is his name? Greg Dennis Dart, it is Greg, not Gregory
How long have you been together? We have been married for 6 years.
How long did you date? We met in August 2001, got engaged December 23, 2001 and got married on 02/02/02.
How old is he? 28
Who eats more? That actually is a toss-up. I think I eat as much or more than Greg.
Who said I love you first? Greg did, but I said it back.
Who is taller? Greg, he's 5'10"
Who can sing better? I love to sing and Greg doesn’t. But I love hearing him sing to the girls.
Who is smarter? Definitely Greg! We have friends that call to try and tell Greg something that he doesn’t already know, but Greg always does. School is very easy for him. He is finishing his Masters program at least two semesters earlier than most everyone he started with.
Who does the laundry? I do mostly. Greg helps fold sometimes and when I get behind, he will wash it too.
Who pays the bills? I do. I actually love paying bills. But Greg knows exactly where we stand with finances. There are no unknown debts or expenses.
Who sleeps on the right side? I do right now. At our apartment, Greg did.
Who mows the lawn? Greg does. He got a lawn mower for his birthday. I told him that I will mow it if he will show me how to start the mower!
Who cooks dinner? We both do. Greg is a really good cook. He doesn’t need recipes, he just adds spices he thinks would be good and they are. I have to have a recipe. Anyway, we share cooking duty and I am so glad that he is willing to do that.
Who drives? Greg
Who is more stubborn? I am definitely more stubborn.
Who kissed who first? I actually kissed Greg first, which isn’t my personality.
Who asked who out first? I am not sure about this one. We were best friends instantly. I knew within two weeks of meeting that I wanted to marry him, so I told him I just wanted to be friends! Our dating history is long and perspectives on our story differ some. Anyway, we didn’t really go on dates we just spent time together. He did take me to Salt Lake one time and we had dinner and went to a movie and had a great time.
Who proposed? Greg did. We were home for Christmas break and I thought I might get a ring for Christmas. It was December 23 and I came home from work. When I went inside Greg was there and had made a really nice dinner for me and my mom. He had made a fire in the fireplace and everything. After the nice dinner he had a letter for me. I read the letter and still didn’t suspect anything. It was very sweet. Greg used to write a lot of poetry and I had gotten poems before. I told him thank you and gave him a big hug and then he got down on his knee . . .
Who has more friends? Everybody likes Greg. He is just any easy person to love and get along with. His students call him a big teddy bear. But I would say that have more friends or at least closer friends. I need friends and to talk to people and Greg is content to work and do school and be the great Dad that he is. We have some really great couple friends that we both enjoy getting together with.
Who is more sensitive? I am. I cry at commercials sometimes, even when I am not pregnant. We watched P.S. I Love You recently. I cried through the whole thing and Greg . . . fell asleep.
Who has more siblings? That depends on if you consider biological siblings or step siblings too. I have 3 sisters and 1 brother. Greg has 2 brothers and 1 sister. But I don’t even know how many step siblings he has. Some of them I have not even met.
Who puts the kids to bed? We both do. Whoever seems to have the most patience that evening puts Denali to bed. Alexis usually wants Mommy to put her to bed, but I make Dad help sometimes. I usually do the bath and Greg gets them in their pajamas.
Who wears the pants? We both wear pants. Oh, you mean who’s the boss? Neither of us or maybe both depending on how you look at it.

I have a really great husband who works hard to support our family and make us happy. He absolutely loves being a Dad. I actually had someone that was in our Ward, but I didn’t know, come and tell me that she knew how much Greg loves being a Dad just by watching him interact with our kids. It was a great compliment and it is so true. Living with 3 drama queens can’t be easy, especially because he grew up with two brothers. But he was meant to be a Daddy of girls. The girls’ favorite time of day is when “Dada” gets home from work. Thanks Greg for all that you do, we love you the most!
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So we still have been busy, but who isn’t? We moved into our house on June 4. A friend of mine from younger years in Alaska, Liz Lewis got married in the Manti Temple on June 7. Another great friend of mine from Alaska, Paige Weed and her husband came from Washington to come to the wedding. Greg was doing the wedding photography and I offered to watch kids. So I got to play with little Campbell (Paige’s baby) and loved it. Lisa Keay also stopped by to say hello. Lisa, Paige and I were three of the very few LDS students at our school in Alaska. I have really great memories of young women’s camp (polar dip, year of the killer bees) and youth conference (sleeping in Sister Batt’s camper and staying up all night singing “Have I Done Any Good?”) and stake dances (we drove two hours to attend stake dances and once almost died in a blizzard driving to a stake activity). . . I wish that we would have been able to spend some more time together visiting. So I was so happy to see them and so bummed, because I didn’t get to see Liz! However, I did get to see all her wedding photos and she looked just gorgeous! George is a lucky man and Greg had a great time taking their photos because they are such a fun couple.

I spent the next few days unpacking, cleaning and organizing because it was my turn to host Bonko (or Bunko, I’m not sure). I had a great time and hope everyone else did too. It was fun to show off the house. We also made our first trip out to the Manti pool. Denali is a fish and doesn’t mind getting her face in the water, which is terrifying to me. Alexis is already a good swimmer. She will put her head all the way under and kick arms and legs, she just doesn’t travel very far. Alexis has already made friends in our new neighborhood. The look on her face when the neighbor girls asked if she wanted to play was truly priceless. And then she realized that some of our neighbors are in her primary class, she was ecstatic. On Friday, the 13^th we drove up to Orem for me to take my state C.N.A. test. After I realized the date, I considered changing my appointment. I was very nervous and didn’t want to jinx myself. We stayed the weekend for Father’s Day and scored at some yard sales. We got a dresser for Alexis for $10. It needs painted, but I have a ton of left over paint from her room. Our awesome friends from Alaska, the Willis family, just moved to Provo. We shared two dinners and watched the parade and fireworks for Orem Summerfest. I am so happy that they are close and we will get to see them often. I want Alexis to marry one of their boys, it doesn’t matter which one. Then we were off to Logan for the week!

Greg had a week long class at Utah State and we went with him. We stayed at the University Inn right on campus. They have yummy continental breakfast and give you free Aggie ice cream. Yum! The girls and I went: shopping for things for our house, to three different parks, playland at the mall, Logan Aquatic Center (which has a big twisty slide that Alexis did all by herself), the Willow Park Zoo (which has the cutest monkeys ever), and we went to grocery stores that had little kid shopping carts. I think that was actually their favorite part. I couldn’t get them to leave the stores without tears. I even managed to get some homework done during Denali’s naptime. We spent the evenings enjoying dinner’s out with Dad and visiting some friends. It was a fun little vacation for us while Dad was in class, but I am tired. We got home tonight, Friday, June 20 and our friends, the Araves, move in tomorrow. So I have to get the downstairs bathroom put together since someone will now be using it. We are excited to have them near us and we think their house is sold (cross your fingers). And I mean cross your fingers for their sake, not mine. We are happy to have them stay with us as long as they like! I need to post more often, so they aren’t so freaking long. Sorry about that. Oh, and I passed my test, I am a Certified Nursing Assistant. Yeah!

Catch Up!

I have been wanting to post about all that has been going on, but we've just been too busy. So here is the quick, but still long review:

We started our Memorial day weekend early with a visit from our friends, the Araves. They are moving here at the end of June and came up to look for housing and all that fun stuff. Chase, their son, and Lexi get along so good and had so much fun playing together. We just wish we would have had better weather. That Saturday was the Scandinavian Festival in Ephraim and Alexis was in the parade with her dance group. She loved throwing candy to everyone. She enjoyed a few rides and we ate some good food. We made it home before the rain came in the afternoon. After church Sunday we went to Salt Lake and spent the evening with my mom. Alexis loves visiting temple square and we got to see all of the flowers. The Dart family has a big get together on Memorial day. We visit the cemetery and put flowers on the family spots and then off to the Sullivan family house for breakfast. The Sullivans just finished a huge remodel on their home, including an indoor pool. So everyone enjoyed great food and swimming. Their home looks beautiful and we are happy they shared it with us. That evening we came home to pack and clean. Tuesday we spent the day at Palisades. The Sullivan cousins came down here to camp and golf. Greg went golfing with the guys and the girls and children played at the playground. Alexis and Denali enjoyed putting their feet in the lake. Aunt Toni made us a really yummy dutch oven dinner that night too. We are so spoiled. The rest of the week was spent packing. We learned on Thursday that we needed to be out of our apartment by Monday. Greg had to leave Sunday night for a work conference. So, the Trythall's were nice enough to let us move all of our things into to garage. We packed and moved stuff all day Saturday and I had to work all night. Alexis also got to go to her friends, Issac's jungle birthday party that day. She had a blast and even got her own copy of the party theme music. We've listened to it probably 50 times. I went to teach Primary with 3 hours of sleep and came home from church and cleaned for 5 hours. I was exhaused, but the girls and I got to go to the conference with Greg in St. George. We swam every day and enjoyed the sun. We bought some paint for Alexis' room and visited with our friends the Araves some more. It was a great little vacation in between moving out and moving in. Which leads to the exciting news. We are spending our first night in our new house. Yeah! We are so excited to be in. It is almost bitter sweet for me though. The Trythall family is so great and I know how much they are going to miss their home. I sort of feel like I am kicking them out on the street. We are grateful for their friendship and to share their home and continue to make memories in it. So I have a busy rest of the week of painting and un-packing. I will post some photos as soon as I get caught up with everything else. Or before, because who is ever caught up with everything else?

Oh, I almost forgot to mention: during all that, we made one trip to the doctor's office and one trip to the emergency room. Denali got croup and an ear infection on top of it. When my girls get croup it hits really fast and hard. She was struggling to breathe and it was scary for a couple days. She still is coughing pretty good, but is doing much much better. Anyway, believe it or not, that was the quick version.