This last week has been a busy one because Liv and I celebrated our birthdays!! Liv, the lucky duck, has gotten to celebrate throughout a whole week! This last weekend we went to Salt Lake again so I could meet the two new babies 
(Jaxton Hansen and Annalisa Lynn Taylor)! While we were up there we got to celebrate our birthdays together with my dad, Linda, and Aaron! 
On the 14th, her actual birthday, she got to unwrap presents from her mom and dad as well as her grandma and grandpa Young! Then we had cake and ice cream, yum! I have to say, though, I absolutely LOVE how Liv blows out her
candles... she stays as far away as possible and then gives little tufts of air! Eventually someone has to help her, but it gets done!
Then today we had a "Butterfly Tea Party" with what Liv calls "Juice-Tea"! Her friends came over late
morning to make their own butterflies, had sandwiches as well has cake and ice cream (and none of the kids wanted sandwiches, just the good stuff)! And, of course, a super cute butterfly pinata! The girls loved beating that thing, and I was very impressed by some of their swings. Liv was as gentle as ever, she tried to
"kill it with kindness"
as we always call it! So it was a great week for the two of us! Another year down, and a new one beginning!
This year's trip to Lake Powell was the most enjoyable I've had for a long time! I think that has a lot to do with Linda... Liv was her constant shadow and Linda welcomed it happily! Those two spent a lot of time looking for seashells and playing games
with the family! Every boat ride we went on the kids wanted to sit on Grandma's lap, and Linda made it work so both grandkids could sit. Since she was willing to play with the kids it took a lot of stress off of me so I was actually able to relax from time to time! Todd was there for the first few days, yay! We actually went a day early and camped on a beach. We were to find a beach to park the houseboat on for the week, but that turned out to be a difficult job! It was a packed weekend! But we were very pleased with the beach we ended up on (Kris and Lyle, the usual beach finders, eventually found it for us!) But Todd headed home on Tuesday because summer session of school was starting :( I was very proud of him for being responsible, though, and skipping the rest of the trip to take care of business! But I was devastated to discover that earlier that day somehow all of my pictures had been deleted off of the memory card :( I still have no idea how this happened, and it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Gary Boy had somehow pressed the buttons necessary to do this. So you'll see little pictures of Todd because of this, totally bums me out!
