Showing posts with label Mother's Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mother's Day. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Mountains, May, and Mother's Day

 May was full of some amazing moments!


For Mother's Day, the kids drew me some exceptionally stellar cards. I love Kate's "jellyfish" family!



























Jon had the kids list some things that they love about me. It just made me melt! By far the best gifts ever. :)

For dinner we had a garlic herb salmon over brown rice with asparagus and homemade artisan bread. It was so delicious that I forgot to take a picture before we ate it all! My mom came over to share dinner with us, and we wrapped up the evening with a rich dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate buttercream, which was all made from scratch. It was seriously the best, and will be the only chocolate cake recipe I ever use for the rest of my entire life.


I even made cupcakes out of the extra batter so that the kids had easier to devour hand-held desserts. It was a hit!


My mom also got me this gorgeous bracelet: *swoon*


And I got this really awesome card from Jon's parents in England. A lady in their ward hand makes them!


It was really great getting to spend the day together :)
Mom, Kate, Me, and Wynn:


The most surprising thing about Mother's Day was that it was a nice and sunny morning (we even got to take a family walk after church) and then hailed like crazy during dinner! It was extremely windy with marble size hail coming down for at least 5 minutes. It was nuts! Thankfully things cleared up again for mom to walk back home :) I'm glad we didn't have anywhere to drive that night.

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May also brought a fantastic weekend at the first annual Ammon Scottish Festival, where Jon competed in the Highland Games :D This was at the coaxing of his good friend Stephanie that he works with at Porter's. She's legit.




Jon was super out of his element, but he kept trying! He got a marked distance/height in every event, which was cool. It was really fun to watch the games and spend our day outside. We only got rained on a little bit in the afternoon. Totally worth it. :)





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Near the middle of the month, my mom and I took the kids to Utah for a few days where we visited my Grandma Carolyn (the kids' last-living Great-Grandparent). We had an excellent time exploring Provo and enjoying the company of my Grandma :) We were also able to see my Uncle Carl and cousin Nathan Hardy. The kids had a blast!



View of the original Provo Temple from Grandma's porch:


This cracked me up! I asked Kate to make sure she took off her shoes and put them by the door... she took me very literally. ;)


Gram playing blocks with Kate:


Uncle Carl hiding under the coffee table with Kate and Tortoise:


Family selfie! (I love Kate's arm around Edwin. She totally did that on her own)


One of my favorite parts of trekking down to Utah was getting to see the Webers who now live in Springville:




Their backyard opens up to this awesome park with a stellar playground and mountains just behind :D



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When we got home from Utah, my dad came to visit for a day. (ignore Kate's evil glare here, and the fact that my dad is sleeping...) It was a whirlwind trip, so I wasn't very good about taking pictures.


We have been so blessed by friends and family this month, we have really felt the love!

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May wrapped up with some picnics at the temple:


date nights:


space helmets:


Helping make dinner:


and FINALLY some warm weather, which means the return of evening walks and excellent Idaho sunsets. There is just no way to accurately capture how fantastic the sky is here. It is incredible:


I guess you could say we've had a pretty nice month! Idaho is treating us well :)


Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Mother's Day Weekend

The Alston's had a fantastic weekend!

First - we headed up to Plumas Eureka campground on Friday to stay the night. Jon made chili in the dutch oven for dinner. Soooooo good!


I didn't get a lot of pictures that night because we were pretty tired. Mike, Amanda and AnnMarie came up at the same time as us and we stayed in the Bear Scat Flat cabins. Jon's parents were planning to come up that night too - BUT Jon's sister Beth flew in from Idaho as a surprise for Mother's Day! So they didn't quite make it with her flight being delayed 6 HOURS! They came up the next morning and had breakfast with us instead :)

Saturday we spent the day helping with site renovations, spreading bark and cleaning up the campground.


What is a weekend at home without a little work??


AnnMarie cleaning off picnic tables:


Doesn't Jon look handsome when he shovels??


Jon's family has camped at Plumas EVERY year since before he was born. Jon's parents have known the ranger up there for years, so it was really fun to be able to see the campground before it opened and really feel like we were able to help preserve a part of California history.

Plumas was originally a gold discovery site and still has the original standing stamp mill:


Although it is not open for going inside, we were still able to get pretty close just to look around and take pictures. It was nice to be the only ones up there! Margo loved hiking and getting to look around :)


View from below - the warped wood of the old stamp mill:

Baby Alston also really enjoyed his/her first camping trip! While we were there I officially made it to 29 weeks. I think camping looks pretty good on this baby!


Although it was a short one-day trip we had a lot of fun. We're hoping to go back for Memorial Day weekend!

On the car ride home, Margo settled herself in the back of the Explorer with the sleeping bags. Jon snapped this picture while I drove:

What a freakin doll!! I love this pup.
 
Back at home on Sunday we went to church and spent time with Beth. Jon did a book binding project for a co-worker of mine (pictures to come soon) and I made this picture frame for my mom!
 
Many thanks to Laurel of LKT Photography for the awesome pic :)
Jon helped me with the staining since the frame was originally a light pine color and I painted on the words. Jon finished it off with a sealer and voila! (original frame was from Beverly's. MAN I love my work!)
 
For Jon's mom we got her a gift card to Mimi's cafe so that she and Steve can enjoy a fantastic breakfast date!
 
Jon was super thoughtful and got me a mini cupcake maker! I was hoping to take pictures of us making the delicious mini cupcakes on Sunday, but we didn't have any olive oil - so no pictures yet... but I guarantee it is adorable and I will be making cupcakes very very soon! I'm so grateful that I can keep working towards my goal of being the best baker in the world!
 
Jon's parents got me an AWESOME swaddling blanket for the baby :) It is SO cute in green, brown and orange with an elephant on it! I'll post baby stuff pictures when I do a post on the nursery.
 
My mom got me this beautiful necklace for Mother's Day!


It really meant a lot to me because she always wore pretty heart necklaces when we were growing up and I remember picking out heart necklaces for mother's day for her. Wearing it made me think of my mom - but also how my children will look at me. It made me feel official :) My dad also spoiled me with a pound of See's candy. Holy cow I am surrounded by sweetness!

And one last picture of the chickens :) They crack me up! I think this one is Goldie. I was outside taking pictures of Jon working on the book project and happened to see Goldie sticking her head inside the coop haha. I guess they were playing peek-a-boo. Silly chickens...


Happy Mother's Day!!