Brock's Salt Lake City Visit...

I am a little more than behind on blogging; Brock's visit was two weekends ago, and I am just now getting to it. I apologize. We had so much fun, but we never have enough time - so we packed everything we could think of in four days. Lagoon (the amusement park in Salt Lake) was one of the highlights - all the other highlights will have to be stored in our memories as I didn't take any other pictures. Oh, such a bad sister!

I insisted that we play the "Horse Racing" game; Brock won.

And we got airbrushed tatoos. I acutally had one lady ask me if mine was real... she said that the purple color of the monkey was exactly what she had been looking for... ummm... OK?

JJ loves to play games, and more often than not, he wins! We give the prizes away to little kids - I love to see the look on their faces when they get a toy.

Brock's Visit... (cont.)

I wait and wait, and most often, not very patiently, for my brother to come down and cut my hair! Oh, the luxury!

Brock and I found a yummy looking pancake mix (and it truly was delicious), so we tried it out Saturday morning.

And being the wackos that we are, we had to arrange the ingredients with our new favorite pancake mix front and center so that we could get a good picture.

We Have a Hole!!!

We can hardly believe that we actually have a house being built! Now that there is a hole in the ground for the foundation, reality is finally setting in. Now if we could just get our mobile home sold...! We have had several offers, and although we have accepted all of them, not one has come through. I am optomistic that all it takes is one buyer, and I know that will happen. In the meantime, we are enjoying watching the process of having our first home built! Yippee!

Our newly dug hole!

JJ is standing "in the garage".

We love our track-hoes and their drivers! Without them, we would still be digging! Ha, ha!

Lazy Lake Days...

JJ and I are so blessed because each year in July we get to take a long (and usually much needed) vacation in Washington for two weeks, just to relax and hang out with our families. Last year was the exception. JJ was not able to go because he was in Kyrgyzstan, so this year we lived it up. Although we spent most of our days on Loon Lake at my parents' home, we also were able to travel further north to Priest Lake for five days, to play with his family on an awsome island in the middle of the lake. Unfortunately, we do not have one picture from Priest, as I forgot my camera :0( I hope these pictures make up for it - in true "Erin" fashion, I do not blog forever and then post one huge one... Here it is!

The puppies love the peddle boat and anything else lake-related!

Cousin Mac, me and Cousin Oliver in the hot tub goofing.

Cousins Mark, Oliver and Scott with good friend Andy (in the flourescent shorts) spent many an hour playing our "redneck" game called "Washers". I think we even kept the next door neighbors up late one night - my dad hooked up a flood light in the tree. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...!

Our once yearly "floatilla"; what is that, you ask? Well, each person has a floatie of some sort, then we form a line, each person hanging on to the person in front of them and we paddle around the lake (really we just paddle in little circles) with one person leading.

And the person in charge??? Brock, our captain (also the one who had to pull everyone else since he drew the short straw for the lead position)! Check out those buns of steel holding that flag up! Needless to say, we did a lot of laughing and not much else during our annual floatilla.

Husband and wife, hanging out in the boat, having a great time!

Lazy Lake Days... (cont.)

The puppies really can be sweet when they are getting along... ha, ha! They are truly the best of friends!

OK, I admit: we eat well at the lake. Cousin Oliver, Brock, Aunt Martha and JJ having a bite.

Grandpa Wendell and Dad were chatting on the deck.






Cousin Mac and Aunt Marty giving a private concert.








Naps are definitely in order at the lake.

I love this picture! Two sisters noodling about the lake.

And of course, my hubby. God love him - he is so silly!

Lazy Lake Days... (cont.)

This year, JJ and I were fortunate to have our good friends, John and Marisa Christensen, with their two kids, Braden and Sierra, join us at the lake for five days. We had a great time with them hanging out, swimming, boating and fishing. This was their first time to Washington and although the drive was long (12 hours with two six year olds! Yipes!), they decided that it was well worth it.

The picture for the family Christmas card! Ha, ha!






Dad and son catching some fish. (Thankfully we were not dependent upon them for dinner - I heard that sunfish taste awful!)

Cute little Sierra.

John drove the boat while I went skiing - thanks, buddy!

Lazy Lake Days... (cont.)

John and Sierra with a BIG catch!





JJ and Sierra flagging while Braden was being pulled behind the boat in a tube. Fun!

Sierra and Braden are ready to head out in "Grandpa Jerry's" boat.

The Christensen's cruisin' the lake in the peddle boat.

Lazy Lake Days... (cont.)

Brock and Aunt Martha relaxing on the deck.





Uncle Rick and my dad drinkin' beer. It really is funny for me to see my parents drink now - they never did when I was growing up. (Well, I should say that I never saw them drink :0)





Working on my tan.

These are my mom's new "lake birds", Alaska and Amber (coincidentally my dad's favorite beer - do I sense a theme to these lake days???)

New Friends...

Not only are the two dogs very much attracted to kids, but kids are attracted to dogs, something that I was reminded of two days ago in the park. Normally it is my two puppies that rush up to anyone approximately their own size; today it was the other way around. We were not in the park for two minutes before I found myself totally surrounded by a loving (and rather chatty) group of Samoan kids, who wound up rolling on the ground, dogs licking kids, and kids licking dogs. Oh, jeez! They let me take their picture with the promise that each child would receive their own copy on Monday - I better make good on that promise, otherwise I will not have anyone to wear my dogs out! LOL

From the left: NaNa (don't ask me how to spell his actual name, let alone pronounce it!), Samboy, Cheyanne and Emma.

The dogs are in Heaven! So much attention!

This picture is so cute - blurry, but cute! Samboy plays stick with them every day, and usually they wind up running and chasing after one another.

Packing...

Those of you that have moved recently know this feeling: UGH! You get to the point where you just sit and stare at what needs to be done and think "There is no way all this is going to go in boxes..." and somehow, yes, it will. I am taking a break today to write this blog post, and this is what I am looking at. I just keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end!

As you can see, my dogs are a huge help.


My kitchen? Oh, yes. There is the fridge... I almost lost it there for a minute.

New House...

So the big news in the Trimble household is that JJ and I just bought our first home - well, I should say our first piece of land that is going to have a home on it! We are so very excited! We have worked hard the past two years to get some debts paid off, and some other things in place, and literally by the grace of God, we were able to qualify for a loan. If everything goes according to plan, we will move in in November, just in time for a Christmas party! Yeah! My favorite time of year!!!

JJ with Jazz and Faith on our new property. It is in the Sunset Hills development in West Jordan, Utah. The back of our house will have the view you see here: the Ochre Mountains. Love it!

So happy!

This is the view from what will be the front of our house; the Wasatch Mountains are on the other side of the valley.

And this is what we see when we leave our development to head into town. I think it will feel good to live out in the "country" again. :0)

Moving Up...

So before I blogged about the big "Spring Clean", which in all reality is ironic because our home has become an even bigger mess with all the work that we have been doing. The exciting news is that JJ and I are now able to sell the mobile home and move into an actual house! We are thrilled! We have done a ton of work to our house so that we can improve the "curb appeal", and below are pictures of my new flower beds. This is the very first time that I have planted my own shrubs and plants, and I am happy to report that they are all still alive, save one that sadly left us just yesterday. Oh, well. One out of about 60 is pretty good, I would say. Happy planting to all of you!

My gloves were wet after hosing them off - this one is drying :0)

This is the front of our house, facing the street.

The side of the house, leading up to the front door.

And the "Welcome Bird". He will move with us to our new home, and find a happy place in a new flower bed.

Very Sad Day...

For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that my mom and dad brought my other lab, Indy, down for a visit while they went to Arizona. We had been having a good time; she was even getting along well with the two rambunctious puppies, but last night Indy passed away at about 10 PM. JJ and I think that she must have had a heart attack because one minute she was eating and getting a drink out of the toilet, and the next she was on the ground with no heartbeat. I have to say that right now my heart is breaking. She was a wonderful dog, and a member of our family, and I can say that we are all missing her very much. My consolation in all of this is that she went quickly, and like my brother, Brock, says: "It was how she would have wanted to go, because she always did things HER way, not the way anyone else would want her to do them." I guess she lived up to her name right to the very end: Independence.

You will be missed, sweet dog!