I went to see "Julie & Julia" tonight with some gals I live by. I seriously laughed so hard, it was very cute! Just what I needed!!

Word to the wise....not a man show......

What were we thinking....

When we bought our house we were coming from a quarter acre, full sun backyard. So buying a house with a great backyard was a HUGE deal. I walked through this house to the window in the kitchen and looked out at the backyard and knew this was the house for us!
Funny how living in your house for a little while changes your perspective.....

This is our top tier, funny how you don't realize that your swingset is going to need to be stained every year....haa haa

You can't see it in this picture but this is how you get the lawn mower to the bottom tier, it is a steep little hill and is one of the reasons I don't mow the lawn.....ok... so I probably wouldn't mow the lawn even if it was just one tier....I did say ONE of the reasons....

These are the stairs that go down to the bottom tier. That vine you see grows all over the stairs and has to be cut back a couple of times a year....it's a super fun job....full of creepy spiders.....and wasps....
I think some of the problem is that we live by lots of old people that get up at 5 am and work on their yard until dark.....Jason and I aren't really work hard on your lawn type of people.....nope, not that type of people....

The basketball court is on the bottom tier. It is usually covered in toys and weeds. I.... ok we (I put the boys to work hee hee) had to sweep and weed it today....fun, fun, fun....

These are the stone stairs that go down to the bottom tier. We thought they were so quaint before we moved in........see how the stairs above are all cover in vine, oh, and the stairs are not at all kid friendly.....sadly.....

We have a wooded section of the bottom tier, I love this part of the back yard, the scrub oak is fabulous and it is shaded.

There are three tiers here....two with lilacs on them....interestingly enough Isaac is SUPER allergic to lilacs, had a really bad asthma attack this spring after playing in the back when they were in bloom....awesome.....the bottom tier has some kind of bush in it, I have not been diligent in weeding and so it gets really overgrown with weeds and it kills the bushes....hee hee, we have lost like 4 already.....

We thought the deck was so cool before we moved in, now that I live here I have nightmares of some child falling off it and dying.....it is now off limits to everyone.....everyone...... pretty sad because the view is fantastic.....
Ok, so I was having a really bad attitude about my yard until I started to blog. It looks so nice in the pictures and now it is so clean, and unweedy. I am feeling pretty lucky to have a great back yard for boys.....I think I need to be more grateful for what I have....that might last right up to the time I have to spend another day in the yard with the spiders and weeds.....

The Beach!!!

We went to the beach with Jenny and Tyler last week! Yes, Utah has beaches, totally man made but who cares??? The boys had a blast and it was fun to get to hang out with Jenny!

Louie loves his Cars goggles.....

Isaac jumping off the pier......

Noah jumping off the pier.....

Trouble......

Silence when you have a two year old is not a good thing unless they are sleeping.....

This would be an entire BOX of kleenex tissues, some soap and a hand towel...all completely wet in my bathroom sink......
I need a nanny.....and a housekeeper......

Swim, Bike, Run

We did our mini triathlon on Saturday! We drove up to Wyoming and slept over at our friends sisters house. I didn't sleep at all that night, some nerves, mostly just sleeping with Louie. We thought it was going to be a 13 mile bike ride and 300 meter swim but it ended up just being a 6 mile bike ride, 250 meter swim and 5K run. It was a perfect first triathlon! Jason finished in 52 minutes. I finished in 67 minutes and Sally and Ben came in just after that. I would have finished a little sooner but I ran the wrong way and had to turn around and come back to the right trail, aghhhh! I underestimated how hard the swim was going to be. I trained for swimming and thought it was going to be a piece of cake. When I came in after the bike ride I was already tired and breathing heavy, I didn't wear my contacts and so I was blind as I was swimming and I forgot to put my nose plugs on. I seriously thought of quitting as I was drowning in the pool but managed to finish.....whew.... I got a stress fracture in my right foot from running too much (go figure) so I hadn't run for like a month. My foot did hurt a little but amazingly I did great on the run (other than my little detour at the start). As I was racing I can truly say that the only thing I was thinking as I was biking, swimming, and running was......
What the %&#$ am I doing???

We thought this was a funny sign...don't we just look like total athletes?? I know... I should have taken my helmet off for the picture but the race was starting in like 1 minutes, people were already lining up.....

Jason decided to do the race at the last minute, he swam a week before the race and never ran one time....go figure he would come in before all of us who had been training for like 4 months.

I must say I am glad that is over. We are still training, we now have our sights set on doing another one in September!! Wish us luck!

My baby is growing up....

We put Louie's crib away! It is a sad day for me....he hopped out of his crib and we knew it was time. He was pretty excited about his big boy bed. He has given up naps, but seems to be doing pretty good at night!