Keystone, South Dakota

Where you can

ride bison

get this close to a bear

and see Mount Rushmore from this vantage point,

all in the same little town (well, Bear Country USA is about 15 minutes further, but pretty close anyway). My mom decided to fulfill her lifelong dream of visiting Mount Rushmore this Labor Day weekend and took all of us with her.

please notice the striking resemblances in the faces above and below

It was nice getting Danilo back for a couple of days. He's been missing a lot since the semester began (we know it's going to be worth it, and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel... it's called June).

Thanks to Mom for the idea and the education we received on the history of Mount Rushmore and to Dad for driving 11 hours there and 11 hours back. It was an uplifting weekend being with people I love in such a neat place. My soul filled with gratitude for our country as we watched the evening program at Mount Rushmore after which any past or current service men and women in the audience came forward as the flag was lowered for the night.

All of these patterns....

...were found inside our room or outside in the hall of the hotel where Danilo and I celebrated our anniversary. I had never stayed anywhere so beautiful and so I tried to capture the smallest details.....as well as the whole effect....


This was Little America where we enjoyed the honeymoon package which meant sparkling cider, chocolate covered strawberries and a beautiful balcony view of downtown Salt Lake.
I am so thankful for my husband and his efforts in planning something that would make me feel so special to him (and you bet he got a dang good deal--it wouldn't be true Danilo style otherwise).
Happy Anniversary to the love of my life and the man of my dreams!!

so this is summer

We didn't do much playing outside with newborn Grace last summer, so making up for lost time paired with seeing the excitement of summer through our baby girl's eyes has made this summer a very memorable one! Some of the highlights were...

swimming

hike to Waterfall Canyon

our first 5K

Gracie's first s'more

meeting my dear friend Brooke White
(thanks to Danilo who relentlessly pulled me to the front of the crowd for a picture....
and really, if we ever got to spend some time together, I think we would be very good friends!)

Our Baby is 1!

The night before Grace's birthday, I flipped through some pictures of the first few months of her life. She has become a precious part of us!! Her dad and I love her so much! This is how we spent her first birthday.

At the zoo, where she was completely enthralled with the animals, and where every animal says, "ARF ARF!" according to Gracie. Even the tortoise.


That evening we had a barbecue and presents and cake in Danilo's parents' backyard with our families and the Grays (we shared a wall with them before we moved out of our townhome and love them).

A major tantrum was thrown when we took Grace off of her new Dora car to eat some cake

Took her a minute to get the idea, but once she did, she went for it

Gracie, I love to be your momma!!

Change of Address

I was making breakfast one Saturday morning in our little townhome when I noticed a foreign object on the kitchen counter. It was a realtor's business card. Someone must have been through our home, probably the night before while we were in Salt Lake, and SHOOT! What did it look like when they did? Pretty decent, I discovered as I went in and out of rooms. Just not with that fresh, clean look you like to achieve before a prospective buyer walks through. Checking my email a couple of hours later, we found out that whoever had come through wanted our house and had made a darn good offer, which we accepted.

Thankful to have the move over (and thanks to family for their help!! That's the hardest thing I've done since giving birth!), we are now in my parents' basement waiting for our home to be built, which means some of my favorite people in the world are right upstairs. It is ridiculous the amount of fun I am having with my sisters.

Not having grown up in the United States, Danilo has never really picked up on the custom of not wanting to spend time with his in-laws, or even joking about it, actually :). I think that's something unique to our marriage that I am really thankful for. He's genuinely thankful for a place to live and is always looking for a way to do his share around here.

Grace, as you can imagine, is being very well taken care of.

The Whole Reason We Went to Florida

was so that we could come back to this....
That's not the whole truth. Oh how anxious I was to get back to my baby when it was time, but we also went so that Danilo and I could have fun together. And we did! Just a few pictures to sum up the trip...

I could insert some witty remark about us being
Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, but I'll resist :)


My genuine reaction to the Rockin Rollercoaster

I'm sticking this here because my husband looks so darn cute


We had never been surfing before. Still haven't.


Epcot


With the Lunas (left) and the Lopez. Lidia Luna arranged most of our trip, took us to the parks, and she and her husband invited us for dinner twice. What gracious and generous hosts we had!

I am very thankful to our families for making it easy to know that Grace was being well taken care of. Don't plan on us going anywhere without her for a very long time now, though. Not even Disney World tops Gracie!

mail

Sometimes I don't post for awhile because I am grasping at something interesting enough to blog about. That hasn't been the case. There has been so much going on the last month or two that I've been grasping at a way to blog about all of it. And then the mail came yesterday, and it almost sums up the whole story.

I am a state delegate. Quick explanation on what that means: I've been searching for ways to become more politically educated because I love my country and don't want to be ignorant of what's going on. I've tried talk radio, I've tried different news channels, the newspaper, and the internet and still felt like I wasn't on board. So we attended our caucus meeting in March where a total of seven people showed up (I know I've heard of much heavier attendance at caucus meetings this year than in years past, and our chairwoman said ours was no different, in fact, the numbers had doubled. I've heard other caucuses filled high school auditoriums. We partially filled a living room :). The purpose of a caucus is to elect county and state delegates that will represent your precinct, or part of your neighborhood, at the county and state conventions where officials are elected from the party. This is where and how it really is about we the people. Sitting there at the caucus I thought, maybe this is my chance to get involved. When nominations went up for a county delegate, I raised my hand, a motion was made and seconded. When nominations went up for state delegates, I raised my hand, a motion was made and seconded.

Governor Herbert at the county convention

Since then my phone, email, mailbox, and doorstep have been flooded with efforts from candidates at the county and state level to secure my vote. We've met quite a few of the candidates at the county and state level (or at least stood a few feet away to hear them speak) and whenever I bring Grace with me, she usually catches their eye :). The county convention was held last month and was SO COOL! And now I've got a few more days to ponder which candidates will get my vote for senator and governor at the state convention. I have since learned that it is generally more difficult to be selected as a delegate, especially if there are more than ten people in the room :), and that it's even more rare to be selected for county and state, so I have been very thankful for this opportunity. An education in politics was what I was looking for and boy have I ever received one!!!!

We are building a home!! We've hopped in and out of the housing market a few times the last few months with the plan of probably buying an existing home, until we stopped into an Ivory Homes model home. Their incentives are as great as their homes are beautiful. The papers have been signed.

for sale

We start building towards the end of the summer and our townhome is up for sale. Let us know if you're interested!!

We are leaving the state (just for a few days)! I haven't made it farther than Park City since Grace was born, and I don't think Danilo's been anywhere but Salt Lake. We're taking advantage of our hard earned sky miles to spend a few days in Florida. Grace is staying with each set of grandparents, and after all the research I've done on babycenter.com and phone calls I've made to discuss leaving my baby for a few days I have come to the conclusion that this is going to hurt me more than it hurts her and it will be good for Grace for her mom and dad to go have some fun together!

The only thing going on that the mail failed to mention is that Danilo graduated as a radiology technologist (the same day my sister Hailey graduated in elementary education). He will begin specializing in MRI in the fall. We can see the end from here!!
Grace is looking forward to being able to spend more time at home with her dad (so am I)!