PINE VALLEY!!!

Oh I'm so excited for this coming weekend. My family is headed down to Pine Valley, Utah. (Kinda in the mountains between Cedar City & St. George) Its just gorgeous down there and I have so many memories from that little place. Its been a annual tradition in my family to go down every 24th of July. Of course as we've all gotten older, its harder to make it down there EVERY year, but we try! My dad's side of the family are part of this tradition and I'm very excited to see family I haven't seen in a long time.

Its going to be beautiful weather, lots of fun & games, plus peaceful time in the breath taking valley. I'm making a stop in Enterprise of course to see my Aunt & Uncle and I'm attending a wedding in St. George for my buddy Travis. Plus we're doing family photos and going to Tuacahn!

What a perfect way to spend my weekend. My ENTIRE family will be going and some of my cousins I can't wait to see. Yay for Pine Valley! We're leaving Thursday night, so I'll post some pics when we return.

Here's the church. Just seeing this photo,

my whole childhood flashes in front of me.

This is the Pine Valley reservoir.

Everyone will be fishin' at some point. Isn't it beautiful??

The Cox kiddos

Okay this blog is mainly pictures. But they were so fun, I had to share.

We had a "birthday picnic" for my mom's birthday tonight at the West Jordan Veterans park. We all brought our own meals, spread out a blanket & had a good time. My brother Chad wanted to go back to the hospital to see Kelsey and my mom & Kelly went along. After Kalie & her family went home, we stayed and played. KJ and Joe played Frisbee, while Andee & I took Garrett, Lauren and Caleb all throughout the playgrounds. Man we were exhausted. But we had such a good time and got to take some silly photos in the process.

That Lauren is such a ham. Anytime a camera shows up, she either wants to take the picture or decide what faces we get to make.

These kids are just a blast to hang out with. Enjoy our silliness!!! (sorry, there's a bunch of pictures. I hate slide shows...they take too long to download!)

LAUREN!!!

Aww, cute girlies

Silly face!

Lauren wanted us to do "scary" faces....we tried, okay?

With Lauren behind the camera we tried scary faces again. It worked, I'm scared.

Lauren is quite the photographer. We're center & everything.

CALEB!!!

He wouldn't smile.

He made my ride along. Yeah, my legs hurt from trying to keep myself up! Not an adult toy.

Caleb took a turn taking photos. He's still learning!

GARRETT!!!

(he didn't want his picture taken, so this is all we got)

We got Popsicles from the ice cream man.

This is supposed to be Dora?!?!

And Spongebob. Wow, they should really work on those!! hee hee

And of course pictures of me & Andee. Lauren is the best

photographer. She picked the faces!!

What a good night. Thanks Chad & Amanda for letting us be apart of their lives this week. Its been a blessing to get to know them and share in their joys. We're serious about the BIG sleepover. When Kelsey's better its gonna be a part-TAY at the Blackstroms!! We love the Cox Family!!!

Kelsey

My sweet niece's condition is progressing in the positive. I was delighted when I heard good news today. I was over at my brothers watching their kids today and I was lucky enough to be there when Amanda returned from the hospital.

They have taken Kelsey off her paralysis medication and have taken out the machine that was pumping her blood. She started moving her fingers and toes, even tried opening her eyes!!! Amanda said she was holding her hand and felt a squeeze!!

I know it isn't a full recovery, but its such a relief to hear she's reacting well to her antibiotics and possibly moving her extremities. There is more to come and I'm anxiously waiting. I just can't wait for the day where I can sit and talk to her again. They are going to keep her sedated and on a ventilator (sp?) to help her lungs. So its still a waiting game.

Chad & Amanda have stayed so strong through this ordeal and I admire them so much. It was an honor to help them out today. Their kids are a blast to play with. I had my nephew Jesse as well and him & Caleb were ALL over the place. Lauren stayed close by me and loved hide-n-seek. Garrett is the "man" of them all and enjoyed his senority! We played out in the water and he had the best aim with his water gun...the other kids really enjoyed that!

I love those guys!! Thank you Chad & Amanda for letting me come to your home just to "hang" all day. It was a good day.

Kalie posted about Kelsey today as well and it inspired me to share some cute pics. I have an adorable niece - such a teenager! I'm anxious for the future and only hope it continues to stay positive. Good luck Kelsey, stay strong! LOVE YOU!!!

My mom and Kelsey at "Love Bunco 2005"

This was at Andee's bridal shower. She "stuffed!"

Her "self portrait" face

(Plus her new haircut. That was a fun day!)

She's so stylish, I love it!

June is over...Wait, what???

I can't believe it has been 4 weeks since my last blog. That is so unlike me. I'm a weekly blogger. I guess I felt nothing in my life was "blog worthy." Well I'll play a little catch up.

June...well let's see. I worked. Changes were made at work that has required some adjustments. Um, Father's Day came around. Celebrated with my dad and family. Then the last weekend in June my family went camping up at Strawberry. My first camp out of the year. We had a good time, lots of card games and Scrabble. I got dirty, didn't shower for 2 days and was eaten alive by mosquitoes. (Not my idea of a good time, but my sisters made it fun!!)

Okay what a good catch up. That small paragraph was my life in June. See now why I didn't blog?

Now we're in July and so many things have happened that are blog worthy. First, my 13 yr old niece, Kelsey. Unfortunately she got real sick last week and is currently in the PICU up at Primary Children's Hospital. She is progressing, thank heavens. She was put in a medically induced coma last Friday so they could do some extreme blood work and she'll stay in that state for a few more days. I was able to go up and see her with my sisters and parents yesterday. It was so hard to see that poor girl surrounded by all this intense machinery and tubes coming out of everywhere. I just felt so helpless. I made her a silly fleece blanket in her favorite color, pink. It seems like my efforts to make her feel comfortable are useless, since she's in a coma, but it sure looks warm and comfy on her lap.

Read more about her condition on my sister-in-laws blog. They have been posting updates about her progress and information about what happened as well. Please read. They can explain it better than I ever could. www.twogetherfourever.blogspot.com

We are praying for her and trying to help Chad and Amanda out as much as possible. She's a sweet little angel that doesn't deserve this heartache. I can only hope things get better and she won't be in that dreaded hospital much longer. She's got a long road ahead of her.

Of course Independence Day was last weekend. Friday night my sister Jessica, performed at the Real Salt Lake game with her drill team. So we all got to watch the soccer game, awesome half-time events, David Osmond sing and the fireworks show. I didn't watch much of the fireworks, because Kalie and I were too busy watching this little guy, my newphew Jesse.

Mouth open and everything. Man he's cute!!!

Saturday I had to work for a little bit, but I met up with my Dad & Nancy afterwards to go to the South Towne/Sandy annual parade. Lots of candy and water guns. Pretty fun. Then we had dinner together and separated to go to different firework events. Joe and I met up with our friends Alex & Haliee and saw the West Jordan show. A little sad and disappointing. The show started 15 minutes late and only lasted a short 13 minutes. Kind of a bummer, but good conversation took away from the disappointment.

Then yesterday was full of excitement. Joe and I had breakfast with Ciara, Mitch and their adorable little Evie. So nice to catch-up and laugh together. We need to do that more often C!! Then it was up to the hospital to spend some time with Kelsey and her parents. After bawling my eyes out, it was time to head back home and prep for a get together I was planning with more friends. Joe cleaned up the backyard deck and I bought party lights!!! We had a good time.

So there it is. Today is the 6th of July and already more excited than June. We have a trip down to Pine Valley with the Snow fam over the 24th weekend. We're gonna do family photos, so the WHOLE Snow Clan is going down. Kalie & Jesse and Robyn & Jarron. We're excited to have their families enjoy our traditions.

Hopefully more blogs to come. Come on Elizabeth, hop on my band wagon!!