Beautiful Lake Tahoe

What a wonderful week we've had. Well actually it has been kind of bitter sweet. Shaye has been gone all week selling with the rest of the office about 2 hours south of here so us wives have been left to fend for ourselves:) They will be home tomorrow night and we will all be grateful for that. So since we had some extra time to ourselves and to make the time go by faster a few of us thought we would go over to Lake Tahoe for a couple days. It was the perfect little get away. I have never been there before and it is really beautiful! The lake is beautiful, plus the mountains and the trees just make it even better. We had a wonderful time relaxing on the beach and the kids loved playing in the sand. It is only about a 3 hour drive from where we live so I hope to go back with Shaye, he would love it!

Here's Mikkel, Traj and Davie Marshall getting settled on the beach. It was the perfect day with the best weather, we were all so pleased.

Me and Mikkel enjoying the wonderful sunshine. I'm so lucky to have her out here with me, she is the best. She helps me so I can't be lonely, I always have a friend:)

Traj and Davie playing in the sand. Someone else had started digging this hole in the sand and they were loving sitting in it.

So cute

This is the view of Tahoe from the top of the Harrah's Hotel where we had dinner that night.

Me and Whitney McDonald the next morning on the beach. We couldn't get enough of it, it was just so nice down there.

Later we did leave the beach to go on a nice little hike in the woods. Here is me and Traj between this huge fallen tree. It fell right over the trail so they just cut out a walk way instead of moving the tree. Much better idea since the tree was HUGE. All the trees were really big. Traj was loving everything about our trip. The beach, our little cabin room we stayed in and our hike. He kept saying. "This is pretty neat." He's so cute:)

Mikkel and Trajen loving the new little lake we found on our hike. This was Fallen Leaf Lake, or something like that. It was also very beautiful and hidden in this little valley.

Here are the happy hikers. Me, Davie, Trajen, Liz (with Carson in the pouch), and Whitney.

Here's Lake Tahoe from the overlook at the top. Seriously it is just beautiful. I love this little island out there, and the water is just so blue and pretty.

Loved you Lake Tahoe, hope to come back soon:)

Wonderful Day at the Beach

This weekend we were so lucky to spend some time relaxing on the beach this weekend. Most everyone from our office went down to Stinson Beach, just outside San Fran to enjoy some sunshine. When we first arrive it was quite foggy and I was thinking I needed to break out my jacket but the fog moved out and the sun came in, it was perfect! I must say we very much enjoyed ourselves and the weather turned out the be just right!

Loving the sun and the sand!

Here's Shaye trying to get warm after a dip in the ocean. The water was very cold but that didn't stop all the guys from going for a swim, a couple times:)

Here we are just relaxing on our little towel. I must have not be ready for this picture to be taken, it looks like I'm still talking.

The beach is always better with little Trajen. He LOVES the sand and is just so cute, he's so much fun to have around.

Shaye was loving the beach. He loved playing in the water and he even caught some little crabs while exploring in the rocks. Here he is having fun with all the kids. They all wanted him to cover them with sand. He was more than happy to help them out with that request:) Yeah for a great day at the beach!!

Happy 4th of July!

Sorry I have been a little slow to get my 4th of July post up, I don't know why I have been slacking? Anyways here are a few pictures from the wonderful holiday. It was a little sad because I was missing out on the always wonderful Brown Family Reunion. Mikkel and I almost bought tickets home at the last minute so we wouldn't miss out but in the end didn't. Next year I will be there, I can't stand to miss another one! Besides missing out on the reunion it was a good fourth with plenty of fun!

This is me and our friend Tosha getting ready to watch the very fun parade. It really was great! My favorite was the high school band. They were really very good and I just enjoy the good music and there cool synchronized moves. And the parade went right past our house so we didn't even have to go far.

Here we all are enjoying lunch in the park after the parade. We really are so lucky to live right next to this nice park that always has fun stuff going on. They had people performing so we just enjoyed the fun atmosphere. Here's me, Tosha, Ashley Johnston and some of the kiddies.

Later that even after the guys got done working we enjoyed a tasty BBQ at the park while we waited to watch the fireworks. I brought some little snaps for Traj to play with. Here we are throwing them on the ground and enjoying the loud SNAP!

Me, Traj and Davie

The guys had organized a football tournament and the winner received movie tickets. Sadly Shaye was not on the winning team but he tons of fun!

Somehow it was freezing that night and we were not really prepared for how cold it was going to be. Here is Mikkel and I freezing and missing our family! At least we had each other:)

And finally Shaye and I right before the fireworks began. It really was freezing and windy and I look like a mess. We also had a sprinkler scare but luckily someone found the valve to turn them off before we all got soaked! Happy 4th to all, hope you had a wonderful day! I'm only a week late in wishing that but I do hope it was wonderful:)

Long Lost Friends Are Found!

Where do I even start I have had a most wonderful week. You could ask Shaye, I couldn't sleep at night I was so excited! It was like Christmas. What was I so excited about you ask?!? Well I had a most special visitor coming this week that I haven't really seen in YEARS! My most wonderful friend Joni Martin and her two beautiful kids came to stay with us! Seriously I was so excited I could hardly stand it! I haven't really spent time with my dear friend Joni since we graduated 7 years ago! After Graduation she moved to Logan for school, got married and has been living in California for years now. I also went many different directions and it is just so hard to keep in touch with everyone. Anyways she really was such a dear friend to me all through high school and it was so so nice to catch up. It is amazing to me how those special people in your life that you just connect with no matter how much time and distance comes between you, you can just pick up where you left off and still be wonderful friends! We played with her cute kids at the pool and around the house but the best part was when everyone went to sleep and we stayed up chatting to no end! It was just like old times, we had fun remembering  the old days of dance competitions and high school boy friends and the silly things we thought were so important. It was so wonderful and we plan to get together again since we only live one hour apart while we are living in Cali. Here are some pictures of our happy  reunion:)

Here is the beautiful Joni and her sweet kids Oliver and Eliza playing down at the pool.

Everyone sitting around my house visiting.

Trajen always loves to make new friends and he was so cute with Oliver. He brought over the movie "Cars" to share with the kids and the boys shared this chair. It was funny, at one point Traj put his arm around Oliver as they sat there a little awkwardly, neither one of them knew what to do. So cute:)

This was the best part of the night. Just like old times we made some delicious brownies to snack on while we chatted:)

The next morning we took the little kiddies to the park to play. Here they are taking a break to enjoy their fruit snacks. Everyone loves to snack with friends:)

Here is me and my favorite little guy. I must say that it has been so fun for me to be out here with Mikkel and Trajen this summer. They are so nice to let me play with them everyday. I love it when he says he wants to come to "Ashley house", (even though he really likes to come to my house cause Shaye lives here too:) They like to have pillow fights and play hide and seek. We just love him!

Sorry about the little Traj tangent, this post was about Joni:) I'm so glad you came Joni. Please, please come again! And we will come down your way soon. I am so grateful for wonderful friends!

Six Flags and Jelly Belly

Last week I was lucky enough to get to go to Six Flags with a bunch of wives out here. It was so fun and the best part, it was free! Some of them have session passes and they were able to bring a friend for free. It pays to have good friends right?!:) It was really nice of them to take us and I had a great time. Here are some fun pictures of us enjoying the rides.

You got to love waiting in line. Actually we never really waited in line. One of the wives brought her little baby so we had a stroller and we did the baby swap. It was a wonderful thing, we just kind of went to the front of the line and said we were doing a baby swap. I'm sure the workers were wondering why it took 6 people to take care of one baby but they let us do it and it was great. Rides are always better when you didn't have to wait in line. 

Here I am before the first ride of the day. Some how I wasn't prepared for how bumpy the rides would be. It was fun but I did come out with a headache. I guess I'm just getting old:)

Look at us on the front row ready to scream!

Another fun thing last week was our trip to the Jelly Belly Factory. Trajen loved this place for some reason. All the kids did, it was pretty funny. I had been to the one in Chicago, which I actually liked better. There you rode on a little train and here we had to walk around the tour. It is always better to ride:) We had a good time though and ate plenty of jelly beans!:)