One thing that I love about life is that no matter how old you get, you still regularly experience "firsts". Over the past few weeks, I had my first drink from a whole coconut (worthy of a theme party, I think!)..

Saw my first 3d movie (not too bad, though sometimes my eyes felt a little boggled)..

and randomly joined a slip-and-slip party with a bunch of strangers at a park (how can you resist after a good run with a friend??)

August was full of a few not-so-much firsts as well. Three baby showers (if only I could count the money I have spent by now on other people's babies. You all owe me, by the way!)

Helping friends move..

picking up after storms (though this doesn't happen nearly as often since I moved to the mild state of Utah!),

And harvesting nice flowers from my garden.
A few other highlights..

Helping the kids get ready for school at the Dream Center..

Another inter-church bbq for the Christian community in Salt lake..

Attending free concerts in downtown Salt Lake..

And mountain biking up in Park City..

Summer seems to be coming to a close soon. Already the days are getting shorter and the mornings cooler. Looking foward to seeing what new things September holds!

cabins and road trips galore

Once again, it's been a month since I've posted anything. I have a good reason though.. life has gotten in the way. Summer is busy, too busy to spend in front of the computer. Sooo, I'll try to summarize the month as well as I can.

The first theme of the month is ROAD TRIPS. Only a couple of weeks after my Phoenix trip, it was time to head back to Iowa for my grandma's 90th birthday. Most of you have never met my grandma, but she is one cute little lady. She was thrilled to have made it to ninety, and kept breaking into the giggles throughout the day :). I unfortunately don't have a lot of pictures of the trip because I forgot my camera charger, but here's a couple of the first day I was there..

A short 2 1/2 weeks after my Iowa road trip (yes, I drove), I headed out again to Lake Tahoe. My dad had a work conference there, so I met both parents for a few days. Lake Tahoe is gorgeous! We enjoyed a catamaran outing, and went Kayaking with my dad.

Then in typical vacation-with-my-dad fashion, we wento down to Yosetime National Park the next day...

and Salt Lake the next..

We like to pack a lot in!

The weekends I have not been on road trips, I have mostly spent at CABINS.

It's really quite nice having friends with connections :). The first weekend was an all-girls over-nighter celebration the birthday of my friend Callie. You never really get too old for slumber parties..

I unfortunatly don't have any pictures from the next cabin trip, but it was a bit more adventurous. We got lost for about 3 hours, was surprised by a sudden thunderstorm in the middle of the night (wouldn't have been remarkable except we decided to sleep on the deck!), and enjoyed a river rafting outing. Since I enjoy surprises of all types, I thought the whole trip was quite enjoyable!

Now hopefully you understand why I haven't been blogging so much lately. I think I'm about done with trips for awhile now, so we'll see what Salt Lake has in store for the next month!