Tuesday, June 28, 2011

New Obsession:

Instagram




Helper, Utah

The newest member of the Barker family.
It's an Ironrite Mangle Ironer which will soon be resident of mom's sewing room.

Arrival at Salt Lake airport.  
Wouldn't this picture be perfect for a SkyMall magazine?

Summer leaves

Salt Lake valley from the Living Room

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day!

This is my dad-

Here are ten reasons why I love my dad (in no particular order)-
1.  He pushes me to do my best but isn't disappointed if I fail as long as I try my hardest
2.  He took off work to come to ALL of my tennis matches in high school, even if they were away matches that he had to drive 30 miles to get to
3.  He watches the History Channel
4.  He fills my car up with gas before I even wake up in the morning
5.  He loves to go out to the airport to watch planes land
6.  His favorite literature is church literature
7.  He laughs at my jokes
8.  He makes funny faces
9.  He loves to talk about his childhood and his family
10.  He never raises his voice at his kids


Happy Father's Day to the best dad in the world.
I love you!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Og'dee'n

Yesterday I spent the day watching after three adorable kids.  In the morning I went up to the Ogden Country Club to pick up Johnny and Jackson where their brother was in a golf tournament (I might mention he won, congrats Josh).  I was a couple minutes early so I decided to go across the street to the cemetery and visit my grandma and grandpa Barkers' graves.  I don't know who, but someone had put flowers on grandma's grave a couple days before for her birthday.  They looked beautiful.

So after I spent a couple minutes in the Washington Heights Cemetery I picked the boys up and took the boys down to Union Station where they have an amazing gun, car, and train exhibit.  The boys loved the trains.  We spent about 3 hours there looking at the exhibits, playing with little train toys, and climbing on the trains outside.  Jackson didn't want to leave.


After coming home from Ogden I had just enough time to grab a quick dinner and head over to my cousins house to hang out with Caroline.  We had a jolly good time, as we always do.  We sent some pictures and voice messages to Rachel in D.C., got a treat from Hires, watched Monsters Inc., and read a book about a princess knight all before 9:30 pm.


I can't wait to spend a whole 24 hours with this girl and her sister next week.
Well now that I'm done blogging I'm going to curl up in a blanket and watch Tron and I Am Number 4.
Happy Saturday!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Starting to feel like Summer!

Last week I finished working full-time as a nanny.  Boy am I going to miss the little man.  The family moved out of the ward last Friday, which was the last day I worked full time because my employer is a school teacher and school got out for the summer.  These two pictures are my favorite from the last day on the job.  The first is Johnny adorned with keys.  He LOVES all kinds of keys.  While the movers were moving furniture we were playing with about 6 sets of keys on the kitchen counter.  He loved clanking them around and putting them on as necklaces, bracelets, and even rings.  I love his facial expression and fuzzball-hair in this picture.
The second picture is Johnny watching the movers pull up in front of the house.  He was in awe of the huge truck in the street.  Please note the shoes he's wearing.
Johnny found my rape whistle on my keychain and is obsessed with it.  I love how he laughs and how his face lights up when he whistles it.

It's nice to finally somewhat have a summer, where I have nothing to do in the day and can hang out with friends and family at night, but I miss this little tike and all of his antics more than I thought I would.

I have been occupying my time by sleeping in late, hitting up the gym, watching movies, and reading books.  Oh and I've helped in the yard.  My parents worked hard to clean it up in time for Brooke's homecoming.  She did a great job and had a pretty good turnout at the house after.
with the Dee cousins (minus Elisabeth) at Brooke's homecoming
Since the yard was clean, Erin, Brooke, and I decided to throw a BBQ last night.  We invited 200 or so people and a fair amount actually showed up.....except mostly Erin's friends.  Brooke and I contributed a whopping 12 guests.  I figured it would mostly be Erin's friends since she has lived here longer than we have and knows more people.  It actually wasn't as bad as I am making it sound, it was good to meet a few new people.  Plus, dad voluntarily put up twinkle lights in the backyard for us so we could have some light.  He said my Grandpa Barker use to put lights up in their backyard during the summer and they would sit on the back porch and enjoy the summer nights together.

Not all this week has been fun though.  I went down with mom and dad to Spring City to check on the bee situation.  A couple weeks ago we had a couple hundred bees in the attic.  Some dead.  Some alive.  Well we walk in the other day and there are about a hundred dead bees all around the mudroom and kitchen.  I guess it's a good thing because there weren't any anywhere else in the house and there were no live ones int the attic.  It'll be a mystery to where they came from and why they came.  But for now they're gone.  In addition to having to help  (ok, maybe watch) mom clean up bees, a mosquito somehow made its way up my jeans and bit me on my thigh.  I had a bite the size of a hoppy taw that hurt like heck.  The last three nights I've gone to bed with an ice pack around my leg.  Thankfully, it's now the size of a dime and almost gone.

In other news this week:  I played a match against Gardner (see above picture with Dees; he's the only boy).  And I finally bought my ticket to visit one of my best friends and roommate, Rachel Fisher in a couple months.  I'm flying into to Long Beach a couple days before school starts and then we're going to drive back up to Provo to move into our new apartment.  I can't wait!

Have a great week, I know I will (I get to watch little Johnny a couple days this week)!