More Family pictures!

Its a little difficult to get 7 kids ages 5 and under to all look at the camera and smile for a family picture!!

We did our best!!

Family Pictures

 Wes and I on the deck at my parents house.  This was one of the only times it was clear enough to see Mt Rainier, so we had to take advantage!

 A picture of all the girls in the Russell Family

 We had to get one with Mitzy in there!!

We left Wes home alone with all the kids one night after they all went to bed...Benson woke up!  We came home to Wes and Benson watching Toy Story 2!!

Christmas

 Santa comes to visit the house on Christmas Eve and gives us all a little gift so here's Wes sitting on Santa's knee!!

 Wes and I were worried about how Mitzy would do just roaming free at my parents house because they don't have a fence or anything, but she did great!!  My parents used to have a dog and she would always lay right here in the garage so Mitzy just filled her spot over the holidays!!

 Benson giving Savanah kisses in their matching Christmas PJ's!!

The little outfits we got for Baby Perez.

We've missed Emy and Trevor's family so far, but they are coming the 29th, I can't wait.  We had a great Christmas morning, it's nice to have kids young enough that they don't wake up and want to open presents at 4am!!  We opened presents around 8am and then had a wonderful breakfast.  Then had a relaxing day and ate the Salmon Wes caught for dinner that night, blackened Salmon Caesar salad, it was outstanding!!

Wes's best Christmas present ever!!

Wes caught his first Salmon on Christmas Eve!! Last night he organized a trip with Carson and  a family friend, and was so excited about it he couldn't sleep!!  They woke up at 4:30 am and got home around 3:30pm!!  He had quite a day but he was literally like a kid on Christmas morning!!  He also got to open one of his Christmas presents early, my parents got him a sweet Cutco fillet knife that he got to use after catching his Salmon!!!

Cafe Rio

Wes and I love this Mexican Restaurant in Utah called Cafe Rio where they have this awesome sweet pork salad.   So yesterday I found a copycat recipe for the salad on a blog and made it myself.  I used a dressing recipe that I already had, but I used the beans, rice and pulled pork recipes.  Everything turned out awesome, surely the best meal I've ever made!!!  I was really proud of myself because usually Wes makes the great meals in our house!!  The link to the website I used is the Favorite Family Recipes just type in Cafe Rio in the search bar and you'll find it!

Will it Blend?

Type "will it blend" in to youtube and you'll get all kinds of videos about this sweet new blender Wes and I bought!  We were at Costco this last weekend and the Blendtec rep was there showing off their blender.  Wes was sold after they made a delicious soup with just tomatoes, celery, onion, avacado and a few spices!  After we brought the blander home, all Wes wanted to do was blend stuff!!  It makes awesome smoothies, ice creams, and soup!  And there are tons more recipes we can't wait to try!!  Merry Christmas to us early!!

Wes's Birthday

Since Wes turned 30 this year I had to do something special for him...so I booked a suite at the Hotel Lusso.  Our 3 year anniversary was on the 5th so I thought it would be fun to stay at the same place we stay the night we got married.  I set up a scavenger hunt for Wes at our house that led him to the hotel, which he seemed to like.  So that night we went to dinner then had his favorite...All American Chocolate Cake with ice cream.  The next morning we got breakfast and went to visit his mom at work.  We had a great time and the Hotel Lusso is always wonderful place to stay!!

Green Bluff

Last weekend we went to Green Bluff with some friends and picked some fresh apples.  Honey Crisps right from the tree were so delicious!!  We spent the day with Ben, Kim and Jen, Joel and Ava.  We had a beautiful day I think it got up to the 80's we were sweating just walking around!  We had a great time with friends and ate some great food!

Carson's triathlon

Carson coming out of the water after swimming 0.9 miles in 28 minutes!!

Wes and I in CDA in August for my little brother's triathlon

CDA to Sandpoint

This is Steph and I on our second leg that was all hills!  We were
smiling but working so hard!!

When we reached Silverwood we got to ride the rollercoaster in the middle of the night!  It was really scary in the dark!!

This was right before the final leg, Steph and I were all finished and happy we weren't walking anymore!!

This was after the 1st leg, it was the wildest wig competition (that's the green thing in my hand) and also 90 degrees outside so we were dying!!

This is the team after taking 1st place!

This is Ashely and I (Ashely made the tie die shirt by the way which turned out awesome)

Here's all of us at the beginning of the race smiling and not really knowing what we were in for!

These are my girlfriends from work Ashley and Misty, we all started working L&D around the same time.

Steph and I enjoying a couple PB&J's and water after our first leg!

A couple weekends ago I did the CDA to Sandpoint walk relay.  There were 12 people in my group and we walked in pairs,  3 legs that added up to about 15 miles. The relay started at 2:00pm on Friday and we finished around 10:30am Saturday.  It was way more hard core than I thought it was going to be.  I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but running is way different than speed walking!  Running would have been a relief!!  Steph and I started the relay off in CDA with a 6.6 mile walk where we averaged 12.5 minute miles!!  We were pretty exhausted but had a few hours to rest up before our next walk of 4.8 miles of straight hills! We then walked our final leg of 3.7 miles at about 3am which was pretty creepy because we were in the middle of nowhere walking on dirt roads with head lamps!!  Overall we had a pretty awesome time and we beat the second place team by 27 minutes and had the fastest walking time the relay has ever had!! 

Semi-pro...

This summer I played for the Black Widows soccer team in Spokane.  They are in the WSPL, which is a national league for semi-professional soccer, we played some teams from Cali and a team from Portland.  I think our team ended up being 3rd place in our division, which isn't too bad for the first year of the franchise.  Overall I had a good experience, but....I felt SO OLD!!!  I was playing with all these girls that are all still in college and just between seasons, doing their summer training!  Needless to say I just felt really old and slow compared to them!!  I even had to drive one of the rental cars when we made the trip to Sacramento, because I was one of 2 people that were over the age of 25!  It was really fun to play soccer competitively again, I've really missed good outdoor soccer! It would have been awesome to have been able to have a team like this back in my prime when I was in college!  This is a picture of Drake (Christian and Heather's son) with me in Sacramento, when they came to watch me play, he's so dang cute!!

Family Reunion

I spent the last week at Ashley Lake Montana for a family reunion for the Russell family.  Here's Chelsea and I with her newest addition Nash and Emy's little girl Amelia.  We spent our time sitting by the lake, playing with the kids and visiting with family!  I feel so blessed to be a part of my family and love each of them so much!  

Here's Jena and Carson doing the "Bum Bum" dance for the family talent show, which was pretty hilarious!!

New York Pictures!

Finally here are some pictures from NYC!!!

I haven't changed much...

I've always had a sweet tooth and I've always been able to fall asleep anywhere!!

NYC (no pics)

I know you are probably all expecting pictures...but I don't have any yet!  Jena brought her camera and she took all the pictures!  Highlights of NYC (not necessarily in any order)...

*Wicked!!!   It was amazing I loved every second of it!
*The Lion King- the costumes are unbelievable!
*The LDS church down town Manhattan- Amazing how much noise there is in the city, and how quiet and peaceful the church was!
*China Town- So many handbags, clutches, and sunglasses, so little time!!
*H&M- My new favorite retail store!  They had the cutest clothes and great prices!
*Parson's costume design- We saw the making of (and some finished products) of Broadway costumes!
*The FOOD!  There were just so many choices, I wish I could have tried everything!  We had some outstanding desserts such as Chocolate Mouse Cheesecake and a warm chocolate chip cookie with ice cream being two of my favorites!
*The empire state building on a clear night
*Our cruise to the Statue of Liberty
*Hanging out with mom and Jena and being goofy!

The travel sucked!!  I was delayed by 3 hours on my way to Salt Lake.  Then we were delayed 4.5 hours at the Newark airport which I would have to say was the lamest airport I've ever been to!!  That delay caused me to miss my connection to Spokane so I got home Friday afternoon instead of Thursday night!  It was all worth it though!!  Thanks mom for inviting me!!

Another fishing post...

So Wes had a great weekend, he went fishing ALL day Friday....and when I say all day I mean he was on the water by 6:30am and he didn't get home until 12:00am!  He and Ben caught 1 fish each on Friday, but Wes caught the biggest bass of his life!  Needless to say he was ecstatic!  Then I was busy all day Saturday so he and Ben went for about 4 hours that afternoon, and Wes caught 4 bass!!  He was like a kid on Christmas, I've never seen him so excited!!

While I was waiting for Wes to come home from fishing I took Mitzy for a walk to the park and even had her off lead for a while!  All the kids at the park wanted to use the chuck it and throw the ball for her and she was really good for them!!  She didn't jump up on anyone she came when she was called and those kids really wore her out!!  I was so proud of my little girl!!

A real airdale cut...

Mitzy got her first real airdale haircut today, she looks so much older without her puppy coat!  Her hair is way shorter now, so she wont get so hot outside!  We had to get her looking nice because Jena is coming to town tonight!!  I'm so excited to hang out with her!  She'll be here for less than 24 hours but we'll get to hang out next week in NYC!!!

Fishing

Wes would fish everyday of his life is he had time and I allowed it!  Here is Wes, Ben and Dave with their catches in early March.  Wes caught the biggest and smallest fish this trip!!

Wes and his baby...

You know how they say dogs and their owners start to look a like?  I think they could both use a grooming!!

 I know the picture is a little blurry, but I had to post it anyway because is was so cute!

Wes's pride and joy...

While I was at home with my family in Olympia, Wes got some of his guy friends together and went on an overnight fishing trip!  Here's our boat that Fred, Wes's step dad, gave to him, and there's Mitzy in the back.  Overall he said it was a fun trip and the boat ran really well so needless to say he's getting pretty pumped about summer!

My sister Emy does what's called "Love Month" every February for her huby Trevor.  So everyday in February she does something for Trevor to show she loves him.  I know, what a great wife, eh!!  She emailed her family and friends a bunch of ideas to do for thier spouses.  I didn't get around to doing something everyday for Wes, it's quite a challenge while working full time 12 hour shifts, some days we don't even see each other!  Anyway one day I did make him a heart shaped oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.  Which I thought was really cute and even more delicious than my normal cookies (which I don't mean to brag but are amazing cookies!!)  He thought it was cool and I think I maybe ate more of it than he did, but it's the thought that counts!!