Wedding pictures have arrived!

I know that this is way overdue, but you can't rush perfection! Or so I have been told, but anyway here are a few of the 500 plus or minus pictures.

A lovely morning at Oquirrh temple

Our family!!!

Reception center decorated with umbrellas and rainboots.

Morgan preparing to kill the cake. They cut the cake gently, and ate the cake nicely, there wasn't any chocolate splatters or strawberrie droplets on either the dress or the suit.

We started early in the morning and ended late in the evening. Food at the wedding breakfast, and reception was very good. Our guests came, gave their well wishes, stayed, enjoyed some company. It was a full house.

Thank you everyone for helping to make the day everything we could ask for. The little things that went wrong cannot even be remembered. There wasn't very many. The couple are in their apartment and settling into their new adventures.

Cheers!

Look at my spring time visitors!
We have lived here for 20 years and our pine trees are big enough that the quail have decided that it is safe enough to visit. These young boy birdies were clucking to their girls. I had 4 pair that I could see. Spring time antics! If I were the girl......I would go for the one with the cute feather doodad! (Haha, all the boys have cute feather doodads)

The Larsen last day of skiing family reunion at Alta!
We started out the day on Albion. Chase and Adam are snowboarders and not skiers. This was Adam's 3rd time on ski's and Chase's first time. So we began on Albion. With the help of a few pointers from Tom the two of them are skiing up a storm. They will need a little more practice before we haul their fannies onto black diamonds - but I see Freestyle skiers in the making.

In the Beginning there were 9....this is Chase's first lesson!

It really is a good idea to point your tips downhill! Chase caught on quickly and then he wanted us to follow him where???????

The sun was shining and everyone had a smile for the day! Chase, Morgan and Shauna riding the chairlift. Dad, Grandpa, Gary, Bullfrog, he goes by all 4, is 72 and his favorite run is to ski nonstop from top to bottom. Thigh burner runs.

After lunch the cry for Baldy Chutes was issued. We rode Sugarloaf chairlift to the top and headed west over the saddle then climbed to 11,068 feet in elevation to the top of Baldy Chutes. The 4 of us were the ones to answer the call. I will not lie. As soon as the call was issued, my knees started shaking and my heart rate went up. The climb is not the scariest part for me. It is the drop off the cornice (this time the cornice was pretty much gone and we just dropped off the ridge) into the chute and the first 5 turns that have my adrenaline going. But I have patient brothers and a Dad who encourage me. Not to mention the little voice in my head telling me to "just make the stink'in turn".

Thank you Tom for taking the pictures! I will work on my form next time.
We skied Baldy Chute and live to tell about it! :)
Online info tells me that there is 750 vertical feet in the chute with an elevation drop from 11,068 to 8,500 feet and pitch of 38-40 degrees.

This is about half way down the chute. Dad and Rodney are already at the bottom. The snow was fabulous, there was enough melt that there was some grab to the snow and no ice! The no ice-is my favorite part. It had been skied enough that there was small bumps formed in the chute. I loved it!
A few more runs to loosen up our legs and then we take our traditional last run of the day on High Rustler! The traverse to high rustler can be a little scary, some really fast skiers zoom by you, as you cross the top of sunspot, stonecrusher and lone pine. A lot of people gather on the rocks in the sunshine to throw snowballs at on coming skiers, fly kites and be happy, before they take their last run of the day. Mom (Froggy), Rocket, Tom and I made last run down High Rustler.

This is Froggy. I want to ski as good as my parents at 71 and 72 when I grow up! They rock!!!!
And Rodney on his tele skiis.

Then, we end the day in the parking lot having chips and dip, sloppy joes, salads, the biggest oreo cookies (Jamie made) and remembering the day! A few of Mom and Dad's friends stop by to grab a sloppy joe and say goodbye for the season.
Geri got to Alta about our 2nd run and Shelly brought up the sloppy joes. Our missing members were, Kevin who was home sick, Tiff and Rob are in Chicago, Josh is in Oregon and Arial was in St. George.

What a great day! Thanks everyone! Love the fam!

The End of another season!

Let's start with before the wedding!
Jamie, Morgan, Lyndsey and I were training to run the Riverton City half marathon. I was doing really well until I broke a rib. Have you tried to run with a broken rib, it doesn't work out so well. This halted my training 5 weeks before the race. So the night before the race, which happened to be only 1 week before Morgan's wedding. We like to keep a lot of things on our plates. I decided that I was going to run anyway and see if I could at least run the first 5 mile loop and then drop. When I woke up the morning of the race. I thought, this is the stupidist thing to do, So Kevin and I were the support crew. Jamie, Morgan and Lyndsey ran and did great! They finished better than any of them thought. With their limited training.

Jamie and Morgan -------- Lyndsey crossing the finish line

At the finish line! Lyndsey said, "Don't ever ask me to do that again!" But now she is thinking of the next race. Way to go ladies! You did awesome and I am going to train to run one of these! I am glad that I sat this one out. But I am going to run!

Move ahead one week and we have the wedding!
Tiffany arrived Wednesday evening! Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m. we were at Grandma's baking the chocolatiest cake ever. It was chocolate cake with chocolate ganache in the middle and chocolate ganache frosting topped with a chocolate bowl and covered with chocolate strawberries. "Death by chocolate" It took all day Thursday to bake, dip strawberries, frost and dip more strawberries!

Ingredients for the cake------Tiff creating some magic!

Rob, dipping the perfect strawberry. We were very good and didn't eat a single strawberry until Friday, when we were eliminating the ugly ones.

We didn't get all the strawberries dipped by the time we had to leave to go to the temple for Morgan's endowment session. Then dinner and we sent some people home to bed, while Tiff and I finished dipping the berries. We had about 300 strawberries all covered in chocolate. Yum, Yum! I climbed in bed at 1:00 a.m.

4:00 a.m the alarm goes off and we start the day. I showered and got ready, because I knew there wouldn't be any time later. We had Morgan to Heather's for hair and makeup by 5:00. I managed a 1/2 hour nap here. Heather worked her magic and Morgan looked beautiful and ready for the day. Thanks Heather, your awesome!

Then married at the temple. I did not get my camera out much, why should I, we had a photographer there, so I just enjoyed the day. When we get the photo's back, I will post more!

Luncheon at a church nearby. Thankyou Birks, the luncheon was really good. I had the wrong coordinates on the invites and sent all of the Leake guests to a vacant lot. Sorry guys. They did all make it to the right place and were able to visit and have lunch.

3:00 we met at the reception center and hung umbrellas, put up pictures and put rainboots on the tables.
Jamie had lasagna for us at her place, which was around the corner. This saved us from being really grumpy. It is hard to smile, hug, shake hands and try to eat, so the before the wedding food was a fabulous idea.
Thankyou to everyone who shared this day with us. It was all we could ask for!

Now, a week after the wedding, I had the pleasure of going skiing with my friend that I grew up with on the slopes of Alta. Carrie currently lives in the upper panhandle of Idaho and is a ski patrol woman with a resort in ID. She brought some of her co-workers down to ski our slopes and I was invited to have one of the best days on the slopes, of the year. The skiing was good, but new friends and old friends make the day perfect.

I met Ilkka, from Finland, and he skiied with us all day. He was getting ready in the parking lot and introduced himself to the other car. They invited him to ski with us. What a pleasure!

Carrie, Jack (81 years old), Ilkka (from Finland)

Spring time...is play in the poop time!

Kevin loves to get little guys hooked on driving tractors. Now everytime the tractor fires up, the little neighbor boys come running to the fence line. When they see that I am driving the tractor, their cute little faces fall and they turn around and go back home.

This little guy came over with his parents to shovel a truck load of manure! But that was so lame! When you have a tractor in the yard. Why shovel? Kevin has created another hooked tractor driver! You should have seen his smile when he got off!

Bridal picture Day!
We had a fabulous time taking a zillion pictures. These are some that I took with my camera. Chase came along and we took pictures of the two of them and just Chase also. But these are my favorites from my camera!

We had to follow tradition and get some pictures in the snow! They are beautiful!
And we had a very good day, no rain, no snow, no wind!
Our photographer and videographer will have much better pictures with nice, expensive camera's, but this is what I came up with and they aren't too bad!


As much as I love the pictures in the snow. These are fabulous pictures against walls!

Now to pick which one we want to have printed.....

3.10.10
Holy Cow, A month plus has gotten away from me and it has been an adventurous month. Probably not the adventures that we are used to, like riding bikes, horses, skiing, Being out in the sunshine! But adventures just the same. Good old fashion life adventures!


Since the engagement picture taking day, we have shopped some more. Yea! I finally found a dress on line. Shopping done!!!!! Picked up the wedding dress after some hemming.


Ordered flowers!


Invitations are in the mail! Kevin has been fitted for his suit! What else is there to do? Oh yes!
Showers!!!!

The first shower was given by Vicki, Amber, Brittany, Kathy, Kristen and held at Vicki's house. Thank you so much for the nice day and your time and efforts. We felt the family and friends love by those who gave the shower and those who helped with the shower and those who came. We were supported by extended family that we only see at weddings and funerals, or maybe by accident here and there. We are truly blessed to be loved by you.


Now for the everyday survival stuff of life. The substance that makes life exciting. We had to replace a waterline in the house next door. From the street to the house. Thank goodness for a good weather day, so it wasn't too muddy and the job went smoothly, as smoothly as a big digging job can go.


I was putting the horses out in the pasture one afternoon and thought I could hurry Stella along by letting Rusty out behind her. Mares are not to be hurried. She kicked at Rusty and I was in the firing range. Big ole swollen leg from the knee down the shin. Thank goodness, no broken bones, merely a flesh wound!


Then on a pretty, sunny Friday afternoon, Kevin and Jamie went for a bicycle ride. Nothing big, just a ride around the block. They were going around a round-about when Kevin's bike went out from under him and Jamie "t-boned" him. Those are her words, she also mentioned she "ran over her Dad". Jamie landed on her head and it knocked her out for a few seconds. She came to as Kevin was pulling her feet out of her pedals. Helmet, helmet, helmet. Did I mention, buy a good helmet. Yes, Jamie is going to need a new helmet! But that is a good thing! This probably saved her from a ride to the hospital. Instead she just had a headache all day Saturday. Kevin tore his rotator cuff and had a raspberry road rash the size of a grapefruit, bent front wheel and handlebar tape ground to a pulp. But they rode home and laughed about the wreck. They think that the salt on the road caused Kevin's bike to slide, cause there wasn't anything else they could see in the road to cause this. (Gremlin's! Playing in the street!)


Then the next day, Saturday, I was bringing in the horses to go for a ride. I had a bucket of grain in my hand to entice the horses back into the barn. The boys came in nicely and went into their stalls. Then Stella came in and had her nose in the grain bucket and kept walking to her stall while I was trying to do up Rusty's stall. This had me moving backwards, when Anny got pushy! She pushed Stella into her stall and came at me for the grain. She pushed me with her nose, I was already moving backwards, tripped over the hose and flew into the gate rails. Without going into detail of how much I was yelling in pain and then yelling for Kevin to save my life. (Worst case scenario's going through my mind. I'm paralysed, the horses are going to trample me while I am crumpled here on the ground, I won't be able to walk or stand for a wedding!) Anyway......long story short. I bruised my back where I hit the lower rail, which swelled up and made walking pure misery and pain and broke a rib where I hit the upper rail. Another flesh wound!!!! After 10 days, it feels much better today!

Kevin went to the Ortho doctor and a hip replacement is not going to happen for a few more years. The Labrum is torn and can be repaired orthoscopically. This is good news!


I PASSED MY REAL ESTATE BROKER'S TEST! With the divine help from above, cause my brain was still foggy from my ribs.


And lastly, I planted my tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and cabbage today. We will see if they grow or if I am going to have to buy some plants anyway.


So, another month of 2010 is gone.