30 years.

the parentals celebrated their 30th anniversary on july 30. we are pretty excited for them. it's a pretty huge thing these days. well... we, the children, made them a book of 30 reasons why we love them. and  i have to admit... it was pretty fantastic. we sure do love them.

my dad gave my mom a pearl ring [us girls might have picked it out]. btdubs, the 30th anniversary is the "pearl anniversary"...

and mom gave dad personalized and pearlized m&m's... with their little faces on them and everything! they were fantastic...

funny thing is, that's all they thought they were getting, BUT! us kids had started planning a surprise party for them a couple of months ahead. dad actually knew about it... but mom sure didn't. [a little bit of background info on our family. we don't do surprises and we don't really do secrets... in fact, i can't remember why we even decided on a surprise party. we like to talk to each other. and we are really good at it. so i'm still pretty shocked that we actually kept it a surprise!]

we sent out invitations... see how adorable they were?

and then changed the date, so we sent out another on... still just as cute. 

skip ahead to the day of... i was freaking out. aunt nancy was coming into town and mom wasn't wanting to leave the house. we had to work fast with nancy to get her out of the house.... then she didn't want to put makeup on. we finally convinced her to put mascara on... good thing too or else she wouldn't have been happy with us. they finally left the house so I could start decorating... Austin did an ice and dr. p run. it was much needed. 

kelsey came in a day early from utah and austin and the sanders came up and we were working feverishly to get everything ready in 3 hours. amazingly enough, everything came together just how i envisioned it. 

the guests showed up, then the parent's showed up... and mom was super duper surprised. we definitely won. the night continued with lots of laughs, stories, and yummy yummy food [and fabulous decorations].

the toast...

thank you to all those who made our parent's surprise party a success. we sincerely appreciate your love and friendship. 

and to mama and daddy... you truly are the perfect example of a happy couple, proud parents, and an eternal marriage. 

we love you!!

summer birthdays...

in our family, we have 3 birthday's within 1 month... mine included... which, btdubs, was awesome this year. i got to go to dinner and a movie with my bestie bests on my birthday, pizza with the besties on saturday, sunday dinner [and presents] with my besties and fam on sunday, and then a baseball game with the besties and family on monday. it was a bit of a palooza. and it was fantastic.

anyway. getting back to the moral of this story...

apparently we are all getting old and need help blowing out our birthday candles... and who comes to the rescue? our lovely miss hayley! i don't think i could have blown out all 25 of my candles this year without her help... thanks, jellybean!

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and just for fun... thanks y'all for a great birthday :)

oh mama...

so... apparently our family is prone to kidney stones. both the mom & adrian have had multiple. welp... it's the mom's turn again. she's been having a very familiar pain for the last few months. she knew she had a kidney stone... and has just been waiting around to see a doctor & get this taken care of. she had her appointment to get it checked out and she got this wicked cool cd of all the images they took. and i'm not gonna lie... i didn't understand a good 97% of it haha... but we did find a couple that looked like something.

yeah so... see where her liver is? and her kidneys? and see that HA-UGE white blob in the middle of the kidney on the right? yeah that's a 1.6 cm kidney stone. yuck. needless to say, she's hurting something fierce. now we wait until she can get lithotripsied (and i'm pretty sure that's not a word. she needs to have a lithotripsy procedure? treatment? meh... screw it. i like "lithotripsied"). anyway... i liked the pictures so much, i just knew i had to blog them. hahah...

happy birthday!

august 18th was my mom's birthday... although we ended up celebrating on the following sunday. we made fajitas and invited fun people over for dinner... and kelsey & i made a killer cake for dessert. it was a white cake with a raspberry filling and buttercream frosting [per the mom's request]. it was fabulously delicious.

happy 50th birthday, mama! 

i love you! :) 

hodgepodge of happiness...

ive forgotten to blog a few things... so this is a little ketchup blog. 

be prepared. its gonna be awesome.

:)

so... last night we [a group of 40 of us] went to the gaslight theater. grandpa keith leaves on tuesday... so this was our last hoorah. it was a great time! we love the gaslight more and more every time we go... and this most recent trip was no exception! :)  we couldnt have asked for a better night! we sure are going to miss grandpa when he goes back to washington for the summer...

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also... i forgot to blog about the fair. i haven't been able to go to the fair in YEARS! i've always been busy with school... so this year was especially fun! apparently im not a big ride rider... but i still had fun! we even got to see the freak show at the fair... complete with a 6-legged steer, a 2-headed baby named rob & rob, and the bones of a dwarf that terrorized the southwest back in the day [he even looked up ladies' skirts!] hahah.... good times.

::

also... here is my one picture of me & nicole from country thunder. ps... for all of you out there who dont know what that is... country thunder is the largest country music festival in the southwest. its four solid days of amazing country artists. we camped out and had a blast! we saw keith urban [nicole's favorite], willie nelson, jason aldean, and my favorite of the weekend... luke bryan. oh freaking baby. it really was a fantastic week! 

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and the most exciting news of all!! okay, maybe its not the most exciting... but i sure love it! i have a few little tiny baby summer squash starting to grow! woot woot!

the end. 

:)

happy birthday!!

happy birthday mom!! :)

today is mom's birthday!! and this morning i went down to mayfield's to get flowers for her... from grandpa neilson... lol, i got to pick them out (and i wanted something nice and bright and colorful for her!) and the lady put it all together in this awesome bouquet! tonight we are going to marie callendar's for dinner! yay!!

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oh... and i am home! our flights went well, we had a good time with our layover in la... and then we had a fun birthday party for devin at the townsends house and then yesterday we went to church and then had sunday dinner and cassandra, adrian and dustin, and nicole got to come!! what fun weekend!! :)

*we flew southwest... and this was while we were in la... pretty colorful plane, dont you think?

*this was after devins bday party... i only had my phone with me, and i was so sad i didnt have my camera!! it was so gorgeous! it was a beautiful full moon and it was so bright and there was lightning everywhere! amazing!! :)