the fourth.

for the 4th of july my family headed up to midway for the long weekend. we went to the outlets in pc, went to the oakley rodeo, had a birthday dinner for steph & garrett, watched lots of movies, hungout together, and watched the fireworks from the balcony.

[saw these 2 cuties there]

[birthday kids]

[last but not least, dad's favorite spot to veg in the whole world]

we had such a fun weekend & i'm wishing we were back up in midway right now!

the dirty dash.

a few weeks ago; me, ashley, liz, paige, paige's friend, and carly did the dirty dash. it's a 5k up in midway, utah. none of us had done a race before..... (us being liz, ash, carl, and i) haha, paige has done too many marathons to count. we all signed up in london, and didn't think anything about it. then we got home... and all got busy doing things in utah & kinda took a break from the 4 months of traveling. haha.. so you can only imagine how ready we all were for this race......

luckily, we all just did it for fun and didn't care about anything the whole time. we were laughing so hard the whole time. the race consists of a lot of obstacles... like: going up a hill of slippery mud, jumping over haystacks, climbing through things, jumping over tires, climbing over big wood walls (so slippery), a slide, running through total mud.. at least a foot deep, and at the end, a pool of mud. here are a few of my favorite parts: 1. shoving subway in our mouths on the way up to midway (we had to get energized hahaha) 2. our underwater cameras-- that we had to keep scrubbing mud off the screen so it would actually get a clear picture- the pictures are hilarious even though they aren't very good quality. i don't have the pictures on my comp yet, but luckily paige's friends husband took a few photos for us on his phone for us. also, we got some pictures from flo fotos who was up there taking pictures. 3. when ash's feet got stuck in the mud. and when she tried to get her feet out of the mud pile, her socks & shoes stayed in the mud while her bare feet finally made their way out. we found the shoes.... but her socks are still lost in there. 4. oatmeal pies (love you ash haha) 5. running next to horses & taking pictures of liz by them. 6. the big blow up slide towards the end of the race, where we all got off the slide and have never felt more uncomfortable. you know when you go down a big water slide & your bathing suit ends up giving you the worst wedgie? yup that, x's 20. (just think muddy water & dirt everywhere) TMI? 6. the end of the race when you jump in a pool of mud. and i look over and see liz floating in her back... ENJOYING it. hahahaha. 7. carl hating the mud pool at the end & couldn't get out of there fast enough. 8. the ice needle shower that we took after. numb toes & ash getting told by a random girl that she had mud all in & by her nose. um thanks for telling us? 9. finding more reasons why i love these girls so much. we have already decided that we are going to make this a tradition. so so much fun & too hilarious! 10. the dirt i found under my nails and behind my ears for a week after.

until next year....

Bradley J.

a few weeks ago, i went up to midway to clean with my dad. although cleaning didn't sound very fun to do on a lazy sunday, i am so grateful for the chance that i got to spend some quality time with my dad. the way up & down were filled with good chats. on the way home, we were talking about europe (it takes up about 90% of my thoughts these days)... and i was telling him stories and we were talking about other things that i hope to see there in my lifetime. one thing that i want to see so badly (liz & michael know how obsessed i am with it) is the neuschwanstein castle. while talking about future trips and plans.... my dad then tells me that he has been to the neuschwanstein castle in germany and all of these amazing other places.

i knew that he had been to some places around europe while he was my age- because he went backpacking for a few weeks while he was in college, and he also served his mission in belgium- but i can't believe that i had never really talked to him about all of his adventures and everything. and to be honest, i felt really bad that i had never taken the time to talk to him about it... and here i am blabbing on and on for days, weeks, months, about my journey i just had. and then i thought about how sad i will fill if when i'm older and my children don't even know that i went somewhere and they didn't take the time to hear about my stories.

so we spent the next 30 minutes talking about his experiences and his funny stories. and i loved every minute of it. he told me how him and 4 other friends left for europe during the summer, without making any plans for where to stay or anything. they went london, scotland, belgium, france, germany, and a few other places. they each brought a sleeping bag and were just planning on finding odd places to sleep (haha sounds SO sketchy). by luck, they were able to stay with some friends in a few places and they found places to stay haha. when getting to belgium, they stayed with one of the families my dad had been friends with on his mission-- and while they were there they told the family that they were planning on sleeping in their sleeping bags and just finding places to sleep-- well the mother ended up giving them a tent and for the rest of the trip they stayed at CAMPGROUNDS all around europe. haha. my dad also told me that after hearing a lot of my stories, he was reminded about all of the countless hours they would stay up talking and laughing. the sad part about his backpacking experience is that only one of the friends had a camera, and he doesn't have any pictures from the trip. i did find a few pictures from his mission that i love. now since being to belgium myself, and have tried these frites & seen some of the things that he talked about for years... it makes these pictures even more special.

so with all of this being said, i would like to wish my dad a happy happy father's day.

i love you and am so grateful for everything you have done for me. and here is to many more chats like the one we had a few weeks ago.

lately = london blues

i can't believe that i have already been home for two months. who knows where the past 2 months have gone. there is so much that i miss about london and although i thought adjusting back to life here in utah would be easy, it has been a lot harder for me than i thought it would be. i miss the city and especially all of my friends that i made there. while in london, i loved the life i was living and i was changing constantly and i learned so much about myself. now that i am home, i am still trying to take in everything that i learned there and make it fit with my life here. the past few weeks have been pretty relaxing. which is good because after being gone for so long it was really nice to lounge at home and hangout with the fam. here's what i have been up to lately: (this is for you rach & mar, since you're the only peeps who read this)

quick girls trip to phoenix. 1st girls trip with steph & my mom since steph is officially a married woman.. and it better not be the last girls trip. it was so much fun!

[steph & i with our little cousin, caroline, who lives in mesa]

[so ghetto... but we had to go! plus steph got a pair of tory's exactly like my black ones for $70! can't beat that!!]

steph graduated from the u of u.

mother's day. i have the BEST mom in the world.

midway trip with friends from london & going down to provo to see london friends.

[with the birthday girl.. and our creepy form of a candle, a sparkler haha. happy happy birthday ash!!]

[carly got engaged! now she has a beautiful diamond ring.. and us 3 still have our claddagh rings haha]

congrats carl! i love you!

got a new nanny job & i love it! never realized how hard it is to be a {mom} and how i have so much to learn before i can be a mom haha.

memorial day in st. george with the fam... so so much fun!

[had to try & keep the tradition alive of taking this ice cream pic at dq]

[only in utah would you see this car on the freeway]

so that's some of what i have been doing the past 2 months. i hope that i will stop feeling the london blues soon! haha, until then.. i am just hanging out & waiting for utah to finally heat up and offically feel like summer!

october.. i miss you slash don't miss you.

i love the month october. and this past october was such a fun and busy month.. but also a long month, and i am happy that it is november. not that i didn't love everything that happened during october, but because too much happened-- that i can't even believe that all of it took place in one month.

1. conference weekend. brock, katie (mary), and rachel

came up to my family's house in midway for one night. we played, went to dinner, watched a movie, watched the 1st session of saturday conference, and spent time together. this was the last weekend us 4 would be together till 2012!

2. i got a "little sis" in chio and she is too cute. her name is emma morris, and

i couldn't have asked for a better little sis. we have become such great friends & i adore her.

3. said bye to brock. seattle is lucky.

4. the next day i went on a trip to paris & belgium with my family. it was the funnest trip and i was so happy to spend time with my family. some of my highlights from the trip were:

[monet's garden in giverny]

[normandy]

[the eiffel tower]

[bike tour through versailles]

[rainy day in bruge, belgium]

5. my best friend is engaged to my other best friend. haha, but literally.. i love you both too much and couldn't be more excited for sam to join our family.

6. after paris, my family went up to midway for the weekend and did the heber creeper. it's our 3rd year in a row doing it, and i love love love this tradition.

[steph, me, carly briggs]

7. halloween. for chio meeting, we dressed up as willy wonka & the chocolate factory. all of the pledges were oompa loompas.. maria (pledge trainer) was willy wonka, and all of the actives had to be other characters from the movie or candy. luckily i remembered that my cousin caitlin had a "lolli pop head" from a few years back, and her family was nice enough to let me borrow it for the night. later that week, i dressed up as the typical every year don't know what to be eichers costume-- the sumo wrestler.

[caitlin as an oompa loompa]

[maria, me, rachel larson (grandpa joe)]

8. chio shindig.

9. me and maria took our younger siblings to thriller at kingsbury hall. it was so fun, even though we left early because it was getting too long haha. (thanks to garrett for taking the blame and letting us all pretend that it was only him that wanted to leave)

10. happy birthday to katie (oct 17th). even though i was out of town for your birthday, i am still happy that we could finally get together last week for your birthday lunch! happy 20th! hope this year is one of the best. i love you!!