A Night to Remember

There are some moments in life that are so sweet, I wish that I could somehow capture them, not just in a picture or a video, but everything about them, the smells, the sounds, the air and of course the sights.

Last night there were several of those moments, the moments we come home for. Moments where I just stopped and gazed at my beautiful family, listened to the children laugh as they danced…

Watched my brothers and sisters engaged with their little ones and their spouses.

These are the people I love and for one night most of us were together in one place. This rarely happens now that I live overseas.

I don’t know what else to say, other than the time that I have been home has been priceless and this has got to be one of my favorite memories so far, so many of the people I love, all together at this joyous event, the marriage of our gorgeous cousin.

A Marriage that brought two families together, below is a picture of her dancing with her beautiful family, her husband, her three sons and her new step-daughter.

These are the moments in life that I just want to freeze and put in a jar and open up when I am feeling blue. Days when I am feeling like I am missing out on something in life, I can always look back and remember times like last night.

Being Home

Being Home has been awesome and overwhelming and fun and now that I am sick, I finally have time to write about it! And after seeing many of the fun things that I have done in the past four weeks you will get why I am not well.

Let’s start at the beginning, I was welcomed home into good ol’ LAX, by lots of hugs. Including my first hug with mom in almost two years!

I also got to meet my niece Scarlett for the very first time and hug these beautiful girls!

Celebrated Father’s Day by making my dad his favorite dessert, Strawberry Shortcake

After a week with my family, Curtis’ family welcomed us back with a pool party

After about two weeks in California, we finally got a good beach day in! We started the day by hiking in the beautiful mountains and then relaxed on the beach all afternoon 

A few days later we headed out to Vegas with my parents.

Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t go there to gamble. We didn’t even touch a slot machine. The idea of sitting at a slot machine doesn’t appeal to either one of us, but we did enjoy our time there at this great hotel.

On our second night we went to the Venetian and relived our days in Venice 

But this time we actually went on a Gondola Ride!

After that we did what we came to Vegas to do! We went to watch “The Phantom of the Opera.” My dad got us VIP tickets with backstage passes because his cousin plays the Phantom. His cousin got sick and wasn’t there that night, but we still had an amazing time and really enjoyed the show in this beautiful theatre!

When we got back we got another beach day in with our wonderful friends Danielle and Nate and their new baby Landon

The fourth of July quickly approached and we spent the day celebrating with family and winning the bake-off at the annual Block Party!

Those were Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes! Delicious! But the winning item was actually No-Bake Black Bottom Pudding Pie. There are no words to describe how amazing it was!

It was a really fun family day!

The next day we headed out to Mammoth to see Angela, Alan and Lucy! We had such a great time there, we did many things, including canoeing

Spending a day at the pool with Angela & Lucy

We even got a little time to ourselves out by Twin Lakes

Just before leaving, we went to “The Stove” with Angela & Lucy

Then this weekend we went out to see Curtis’ sister Theresa! She is doing so well and we are so excited to see the things that G*d is doing in her life! What a blessing this was and a huge answer to many pr*yers!

The whole family was together again for the first time in two years

So, that is most of the things that we have done since we returned and our time has been so wonderful. We are looking forward to more great times as we continue our time here.

On another note, one of the things I love to write about is cooking, and I have gotten to experiment with it a lot more since I got to the states since I can buy so many more things here! So here are some of the things that I have experimented with since I got back. I Made this guacamole the weekend we returned for my family and I Made these amazing Mint S’more Brownies twice!  I also made this Zucchini Pizza last night for my brother’s family.

It has been so much fun to be a little bit more flexible with what I bake since all of the ingredients are at my fingertips. I am just trying to take advantage of it while I have the opportunity.

Anyhow, I hope that you try some of these delicious new recipes and that your summer is going as beautifully as ours is!