The Rainbow...

When I arrived home after picking up the girls from daycare, I started unloading things from the car and went inside, while the girls took their time getting out of the car. As I was putting some things away, I hear Avril burst through the door shouting, "mommy, mommy! Come look!!" She said, "rainbow, mommy its a rainbow by our house!" I followed Avril out the door to take a look and see for myself.
I whipped out my phone to take a pic of this beauty because it was so vibrant and beautiful I wanted a keepsake to remember it. As I stood there looking at the colors of the rainbow with my kids, I had a moment of realization that this was the sign of a new beginning. God was keeping His promise to me that the rainbow does truly come after the storm. My years of heartache and sadness were coming to an end and there was hope again. I looked up what a rainbow symbolizes (googled it):
A rainbow can symbolize peace or a new beginning. A rainbow also is a sign of good luck and fortune is on its way.
In the Genesis account, a rainbow appears right after the great worldwide flood brought in order to remove sinful and evil-minded man from the earth. It symbolized God's mercy and the covenant He made with Noah (representing mankind) not to destroy the world in such a way again:
How cool!  This pic was taken right from our front driveway.  The girls were running around and jumping with excitement at their discovery.  One of my favorite memories...

I feel so blessed to have two happy, sweet, adorable little girls, and a beautiful home for us to live in.  Grateful that God gave me this moment of peace, beauty, and hope.

Date Night

I convinced my coworkers to cover my shift so I could head down to Salt Lake and meet up for a hot date!  Mike bought tickets to a comedy show at Abravanel Hall... for Daniel Tosh!  They were incredible seats right up front, as you can see from the up close and personal pic :) 

Daniel Tosh...making us laugh!

We were completely starving after the show so we wandered on over to PF Chang's for dinner.  It was delightful!  I have such a great time with this guy!

And I forgot to mention that I received a gorgeous bouquet of flowers at my work:

The card with the bouquet that was delivered :)  Heart melting...

Summer Fun!

Here we are about to partake in some yumminess at the Parkinson house...

We thought it would be a blast to take the girls to the local Aquatic Center to cool off and get wet!  We were right, the girls loved playing in the kiddie pool and we enjoyed watching them smiling and laughing, having a good old time!

Avril clings to her froggy floaty

Us girls about to get in the water.  Though their faces don't show it in this pic, they were excited :)

Notice mommy's pink nails painted by Avril :)

McKel really started to become attached to Mike since he toted her all around the pool with him.  She was one happy little girl!

melts my heart...

All smiles...

You have good taste mommy :)  I like him.

Brrr... its cold!!  Wrap me up and keep me warm!

I think we should go home and jump in the hot tub now!

What a fun day.  It was nice having someone there to help with the girls.  One mom chasing around two little girls at the pool all day can be a difficult task.  Having Mike there made all the difference.  We played in the water, snacked on snowcones, and had a lot of laughs together.  This guy is fitting right in with our little family :)

Pizza! Pizza!

We discoverd that Logan, Utah has like zero out of a hundred pizza places available to eat at on a Sunday evening. But we promised the girls a pizza night out so we were determined to find something. I think we drove all over town to about 4 different pizza places, only to drive away in disappointment after seeing the closed sign in the window. About ready to give up, I remembered one more place to check, right in downtown Logan on Main Street. The Pizza Factory! To our surprise, we finally saw the lit up OPEN sign. Sweet Victory! Not only was it open, but it is fantastic pizza! Mike keeps saying how he wants to go back there, and we most definitely will.

I really did try my hardest to snap a photo of the girls here.  They just wouldn't have it.  No way they were both gonna sit still for the entire second it takes to snap a photo.

This is one of my favorite photos of Mike and I.  Both happy with big smiles!  Pizza Factory, we will be back!  Thanks for the deliciousness.

Fairytale

Lots going on in the month of May. We are trying to jam pack all the fun we can in to the sunny months since you never know how long they will last in Utah.

Me in my hoodie trying to protect my hair from the May showers.  We were on our way to Home Depot to buy plants for the garden!!!  Mike was kind enough to buy and plant lots of plants in my garden.  Made me so happy :)

Saw this and had to save it.  Says exactly how I feel.  Never thought I would find someone who makes me happy again.  The hole in my heart is healing up.  I feel like I've won the guy lottery.  I've met someone who leaves me in awe every day.  Love him.  So glad I found him :)

Even the girls just love having this guy around.  Avril has found another person to help read her bedtime stories.  Mike reads to her one of her favorites:  How Many Kisses Do You Want Tonight?... a gift from Aunt Star one Christmas.  Having a person to help out with the girls is a dream come true for mommy!

Mommy reads bedtime stories to the girls.  McKel, of course, has her "baba" with her, ready for the bedtime routine.

Ready for another amazing sunshiney day!

McLovin this guy!

I decided to test Mike's manhood and see if he was manly enough to tote two little girls around the neighborhood in our little big red wagon.  He passed with flying colors.  The girls had a blast.  We spent the day at the local park and made sure to have the girls release as much energy as possible.  This makes for much pleasanter night-times for mommy...

Woo Hoo!  Its time for a ride!!

Next time Mommy is hopping in... there is TOTALLY room for me in there!

A short video of cuteness:

At Cafe Rio, ready for a quesadilla and dulce de leche treat!  Very hard to say no to those big brown eyes...

McLovin the memories we are making... Sure does feel like a fairytale!

Garden

For what seems like forever, I've been dreaming of having a garden at home.  I promised the girls we would plant pumpkin and watermelon seeds and then we could pick them and have yummy treats.  I dreamed of growing spinach and kale straight from behind my house so that I could make my protein shakes in the morning and not have to use the store-bought produce, but know it was garden fresh!  I dreamed of having Mike's yummy salsa and using my fresh garden tomatoes to dip my tortilla chips in to.  Well... gardening takes a LOT of time!  Here is a picture of me trying to clear the backyard land for my garden:

See?  A LOT of work!!  This was fun though, made me feel pretty tough girlish.

Mike helped me plant watermelons, tomatoes, an artichoke plant, cucumbers, and cilantro.  Adrian added some peppers and peas.  The weeds grew the best out of everything.  But we did end up with lots of produce, so I was pretty proud it was all home grown!  Pics of our final products to come in a future post....

A Perfect Weekend

My first official post on this blog begins with my first official date with Mike.  And so our love story begins... and continues...
I am back-tracking with this new blog, because we are actually preparing for a wedding now, and the whirlwind of the past 6 months has made me quite a bit behind on blogging.  But I don't want to forget all the amazing memories we have made thus far, so I am attempting to put them all down on this new blog.
Mike and I joke about our first date, because he was fortunate enough to meet my entire family, my kids, and even my ex-husband all on our first weekend we spent together!  And he still stuck around, which meant to me he was a keeper for sure!  He not only fell in love with me, but fell in love with my two princess daughters (and how could he not?).  They could tell he was the missing male in our family right from the start.  Avril was smitten by Mike right from the get-go, and McKel was a little slower to give her heart away (very typical McKel), but after spending some quality time with this guy, McKel joined the rest of us and welcomed him in to our family.
After spending hours and hours in captivating conversation, and since we both love being active and out enjoying the sunshine, we decided we would go for a hike up the canyon.  I had the bright idea of taking Mike to go see the wind caves.  After driving through the canyon for over an hour in search of the wind cave trail, we decided to throw in the towel and abandon our trail search.  We instead found a nice walking trail and talked and talked more as we walked.  I am trying to remember all the little details of our first weekend together and mostly what comes to mind is the wonderful conversation, which I'd been craving for entirely way too long.  We just connected.
Sunday we thought we would enjoy the perfect weather and pull out the bikes.  We were so excited that we both shared a love for biking as well.  We took the girls in the bike trailer, brought some picnic items, old bread to feed the ducks, and we were set!  The girls had such a blast.  They kicked off their shoes and wiggled their toes in the freezing water.  McKel has quite the arm, she would throw the bread at lightning speeds directed straight at the ducks.  I think they were afraid of that tough little girl, and rightly so...McKel is just full of strength.
We enjoyed our PB&J sandwiches, soaked in some rays, and fed the ducks until I thought they could eat no more (which wasn't the case, ducks apparently never tire of old bread).  It was just what Mommy needed, after feeling alone and sad for what seemed to be an eternity.  It really was the most perfect weekend... filled with so many smiles.  It was the weekend that ended the years of sadness, and opened the door to many future years of joy.

Here is Avril enjoying her PB&J.  I remember she had like 3 sandwiches that day!  Growing girl... she just glows with that adorable smile.  Love her to pieces.

Mike was helping McKel with her throwing skills.  White pants??  Bad idea for muddy little girls... actually probably a bad idea anytime for McKel ;)

Avril and Mike doing some duck-watching.  McKel climbs rocks in the background...

Just look at this cutie pie!  Yup, this is how you turn white pants in to brown...

Happy to be out in the sun...

Love this shot... such a splendidly gorgeous day out!

A mama and her baby ducklings out for a swim :)

These are genuine smiles, so happy to have found a best friend :)

Here we are trying to match the bride and groom faces on Mike's shirt.  Think we did a pretty stellar job!

After our bike ride/duck feeding adventure, we were invited to have some authentic Adrian-grilled food over with the Adrian, Arlene, and Britt Parkinson crew.  The girls just so cute I had to take some shots of them....

Just look at those beautiful big brown eyes... oh, so sweet!

3 starving girls!

Thank you for the delicious food!!

The master cook

JJ and Grandma Joyce in matching shades of blue!

Concludes our weekend of bliss... more memories to come....  :)  :)