10th Anniversary Photo Shoot

For our 10th Anniversary, I wanted to make something thoughtful for Charles that would require one photo of the two of us for each year of our marriage.  I thought that would be simple enough, because I'm pretty organized with our pictures.  After going through the first 5 or 6 years of photos, I had to give up.  I couldn't find a single one!  Not a professional shot, and not even just a casual snapshop!  How pathetic are we?  I'm sure there are pictures somewhere out there... just not from from my own camera.  So for our 10 year anniversary, I scheduled a Couple's Photo Shoot.  Neither one of us like getting our pictures taken... but we thought it was important for our kids.  I just saw a wedding video of my parents for the first time, and it was... priceless.  :)

This one's my favorite because I like to imagine we are playing hide-and-seek from the kids to have some alone time.

10th Anniversary in Park City

This year we celebrated our first DECADE of marriage.

I decided that we needed to do something new.  Not just dinner and a movie.  My friend Jamey and I had been trying to plan a double date to Park City but we could never get our schedules to match up.  So we were forced to go on our own.

Our plan was to ride the Alpine Slide and the Extreme Zip Line over at the Olympic Park.

Shoot, I thought even just the ski lift up the mountain was fun!  I want to take the kids on it.

While we were riding the lift we could see and watch people going down the zipline.

 

Charles gets a little queasy on things like this, but I was determined to do something fun and exciting.  He's having second thoughts...

To break Charles in a little bit easier, we decided to ride the Alpine Slide first.  It's a huge slide going down the side of the mountain. You ride down on top of... like a big skateboard with a handbrake.

This is what the board looks like.

I wasn't able to get a picture of Charles coming down because he caught up with me, so I had to find one from the internet.

It's really fun!  I thought this was the same Alpine Slide that everyone talks about, but apparently there are more than one.  I went first.  I wanted to catch a short video of the ride to show the kids, but it slowed me down and Charles caught up to me.  Next time... I'm gunning it the whole way down.  No brakes!

Then we rode the lift back up the mountain to the Extreme Zipline.

Since I couldn't take a picture of us doing it, I took a picture of the people in front of us.  They strap you into your seat and you just hang there against the door...

... until the door opens.

The Zipline was exciting, but we both enjoyed the slide better.  Next time, we want to bring the kids down the slide.

After our rides, we watched some of the skiers train.  I had wondered how they learn to do all those flips in their ski jumps.  Now I know.  It was pretty cool.

As we were leaving I started browsing through the Olympic souvenirs they had in their store.  I came so close to buying a shirt that had this printed on it:

How perfect is that?  It's like they knew we would be there celebrating our 10th anniversary.

After that, we went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, Settebello.  I think our last few anniversary dinners have been there.  Okay... maybe we are getting boring.

Crystal's Visit

I was soooo excited to find out that my girl, Crystal was coming out to Utah again.  Her timing wasn't the best, (she came almost the exact same days as Grandma and Grandpa Socci) but I will take what I can get!

One day we took the kids to play at Jump N Bounce...

Then we spent the rest of the day hanging out at our house.  We love these boys!  My boys have so much fun with them.  Crystal sure is an awesome mom.  She works so hard for these guys, and does an amazing job.  I don't know how she does all that she does, all by herself.  Crystal, you're my hero!  And you need to move here.

Then another day we met up at Copperton Park to let the kids run around and play so we could get in some girl time and I could hear all about Crystal's dating life.  :)  She has a great wingman when she goes out.  Her name is Jennifer and she lives like 2 minutes away from me.  I'm so glad Jennifer moved away from Crystal to live out here, because otherwise, I probably wouldn't see Crystal as often as I have.  So thanks Jen!

Okay Crystal, when are you coming back?  Hmmmm???

Lego Camp

One week while Ethan was here for the summer, he and Jaden got to attend Lego Camp.  It was about 3 hours long for 5 days. 

They each were given a laptop to use and a Lego kit to build and program their robotics.

It was pretty sweet. 

Charles went to check it out at the end of class one day.  He was so jealous!  He went straight home to check out how much it would cost to have our own program and kit at home.  Haha!

Ethan and Jaden had a great time.  At first Jaden wasn't sure if he wanted to go to Lego camp because... he thought it was camping.  Once I assured him that he did NOT have to sleepover anywhere, and that it was only a few hours a day, he was okay with it.  But once he got there, the time flew and he wanted more.

This wasn't Ethan's first camp.  In fact he had just completed a Mad Science camp the week before.

These kids are so smart!

Kaleb really wants to do this year.  And I think Charles does too.  :)

Pioneer Day

On Pioneer Day, the kids talked Grandpa into doing one of the many things he does best... shoot bottle rockets!

Kaleb and Bradley were on one team, and Jaden and Ethan were on on another team.

Brynnlee got to play with Grandma while the boys worked on their bottle rockets.

When they were done, the boys insisted that I take many... many... pictures of them with their rockets.

First we have Team Ethan and Jaden...

Lots of posing...

And we had to get the bottle rocket from every angle.

Next we have Team Kaleb and Bradley.

Kaleb took care of the posing.

Very nice.

Then while we aited for Grandpa to get the launcher set up Kaleb wanted to get in some jumps shots.

No, not basketball..

Actual shots of him jumping.

He had a vision.  And was determined to capture it.

Here we go.  Setting up in the field...

Get ready to launch...

And pull!

Awesome!

And then go fetch.

Ethan was pretty funny.  He recorded a theme song on his DS to have playing in the background whenever it was his turn to launch.  Sometimes there were technical difficulties with the DS and the water in the rocket would all run out before he could fix the problem.  The timing was all pretty tricky.

Here's Bradley watching a launch.

Brynnlee didn't last too long out there.  She preferred to watch from the window.

Afterward Mom and Dad made a yummy BBQ feast.

What a fun way to spend the holiday. :)  Thanks Mom and Dad!  That night we went home, and then watched a bunch of fireworks from our backyard.