4 Years Ago...

Though this is probably the last year we will go, John and I have made a tradition to return every year to the spot where he proposed to me. It's on an island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. While the gnats are always undesirable, this year was particularly bad.

Granted, we were warned by a sign at the park entrance, we thought we had the insect repellent to ward them off... but I SWEAR, these gnats LIKED the repellent! We didn't make it to the exact spot John proposed due to us getting bit up and worrying about how bit up Rhett was getting that we decided to take pictures at a spot that had shade and turn around and head back. We also decided that the gnats were not worth coming every year and having to deal with. However, here are the family pictures from our trip!

The Great Salt Lake behind us. Kind of looks like a wave less ocean... but MORE salty!

I swear this is the ONLY tree on the island.... it's a place we stop and take a break at every year because it's the first source (and only) of shade on our journey to Elephant Rock where John proposed... this was as far as we made it this year!

Disney Land!

We had a blast with our week at DL! All the picture of Rhett at DL will be on his website, but these are the ones that don't really fit him, but some nice shots we got of the family vacationing at DL! DL is my mother-in-laws favorite place to go for family vacation. Probably because it's a park for all ages down to the infants! Here she is below on our first day sporting her pose on King Arthur's Carousel.

And then, you can see the poses run in the family.... (by the way a LOT of Rhett's pictures were snapped at the carousel because it was by far his favorite ride -- well it may have been a toss up between this and Pirates of the Caribbean!).

I guess John's not the next King Arthur.... Sword wouldn't budge!

I had never been on the riverboat that goes around an island in the lake at Disneyland. I was excited to do something I hadn't done in my previous visits there (probably because John doesn't think this ride was the most exciting -- but add kids and there is ALWAYS an adventure! Ours was with Rhett and the stairs!)

We currently own two cameras. My Cannon Powershot that we mostly use just for video since our Cannon Rebel (our nice SRL) doesn't have that feature. However, I think my Cannon Powershot is beginning to fade on me. The picture below was taken with it and it wasn't the first picture that has streaks.... however, the fade kind of made this family picture look cool!

John and I went onto Autotopia and this was John's attempt to snap a picture of me behind him while he was driving. Of all the many tries that he took this is the ONLY one he got of me IN the picture (that is before he took pictures when we were about to get out of the cars!).

He had a better shot once we stopped moving!

Part of the Butler clan at Toon Town

Most of the grandkids with grandma and Mickey (Rhett was fast asleep).

Below was a night shot that I got of Cinderellas (?? - not sure which princess' castle it was) castle, leading to Fantasy Land. We were waiting for the fireworks to start and because it is a night shot that had the shutter open for longer than your typical snap and shoot picture, the people at the bottom of the picture are distorted, but I think it has a cool effect if done just a LITTLE better! Not bad for an armature!

Rhett liked driving the car in Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, so we had to get a picture of him "driving".

Grandma and Grandpa Butler chilling on the bench on King Arthur's Carousel.

Sporting the Mickey ears in the teacup. Getting a picture in the stationary cup was the only way we were going to get a picture of Rhett in the teacup. Otherwise, he just gets snuggly put on the bench between us and he doesn't really get scene if any pictures are taken in motion.

Grandpa and Katelynn. If looks could speak, I would say that they are expressing similar emotion because their facial expressions are fairly similar! You can just tell the LOADS of fun they are having at that moment!

Okay, so this IS Cinderella's castle (in the Storybook Land boat ride). I thought all the minitures in Storybook Land were just so darn cute, but this one was my favorite.

Most of the Butler clan on Mainstreet in Disney Land.

Isn't this just an "aw" moment? They were actually celebrating their wedding anniversary this day!

One of the Butler families (minus a few children) on the spinning teacups.

John got a picture of my mother-in-law and me in motion. Rhett's actually in the cup with us, but as I stated before, he cannot be scene.

And here is the 3d model of the original Disney Land Park

I thought the Splash Mountain model was pretty cool too!

Family at the Tide Pools!

I posted a few pictures on Rhett's blog about our time at the tide pictures (click here to see that specific blog post), but I thought I would finish posting them here.

John LOVES loves the ocean. He says he is just drawn to it. I have to admit, there is something VERY appealing about spending the day at the ocean -- even if you are not really getting into it to swim. Just being there and looking out into its vastness is something quite awesome!

We were told there were caves further down the beach... Some of our nieces and nephews wanted to go and so we started down the beach. This is the best we could come up with. Not really a cave by my standards, but the kids thought it was downright cool!

My sweet mother-in-law and me.

All the kids "accidentally" getting hit by the waves as the tide started to come back in.

My niece Emily (her brother Nate is in the background) and I sinking our feet into the sand as the waves rolled over them.

A bigger wave caught John by surprise. Rhett watch the water swarm below him from the safe distance of John's chest.

Another view of the Butler clan! The vacation was an experience to be had -- and that was without the ENTIRE family there (some of the families couldn't make it).

Butlers and the Birthday Pinyata!

While we were on our family vacation at Disneyland, we celebrated my nephew's birthday (Sam Butler). They got him a pinyata (I know the spelling is wrong, but at 1:30AM as I write this, I really don't care...) as a surprise and the MOST entertaining part was watching the Butler boys setting it up over a tree. Leading of COURSE was my husband IN THE TREE!

The kids waiting patiently while the his Hispanics laugh at the WAY white folks! (Really some just stopped and were quite the entertained!)

The rise of the Pinyata and John coming safely to the ground.

John's the baby of the family. He has three other brothers (two of which were on the family vacation with us). John's oldest brother, Richie (in picture below) insisted on mummifying the kids face with the piece of cloth. And of course, he had to tie it differently on each kid (chin bandage, bow on top of the boys head, face mask, etc).

In the end, fun was had by all and when the pinyata finally DID break. Even Rhett did a dive crawl for the scattered candy/toys! Happy birthday to Sam!

Family Vacation

I am working on posting our family vaction blog on Rhett's blog and realized it was more family than Rhett and should have been posted on this blog... oh well, clik here to see Rhett's blog (which is updated WAY more frequently than this blog).

A Summer Apart

Back in February or March, I interviewed for a position as an intern for the summer. The internship was going to be in Las Vegas and at the time, John didn't have another job. The initial interview happened on campus in Salt Lake. I didn't think the interview went all that well and I didn't think much of it. Turns out the interview went better than expected and about a month later, I was contacted for a second interview to occur in Las Vegas. At this point, John had a job in Salt Lake but I thought that the interview would at least be good interview experience, so I signed up to go.
I was flown in and out of Las Vegas on the same day and had an entire day of interviews. The position was with a public airline headquartered in Las Vegas: Allegiant Air. After a couple of interviews, I was starting to get really excited about the position. It seemed like a fun place to work and I would have the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different areas within the audit function (which is what my Masters degree specializes in). By the end of the day, I was fairly confident that I had the position if I wanted it. John and I began discussing our options with him working in Salt Lake. A few days later, I got the offer and after a lot of talking and contemplating what our decision would mean, I signed and faxed back the offer letter. I was going to accept the position.
To make a long story short, beginning two weeks ago, John and I began our summer apart. I am driving home every two weeks so we can spend the weekend together. My first trip home was Memorial Day weekend. John had to work Saturday and Monday, but when he wasn't working, we were off doing some outdoorsy activity. I had SO much fun. I don't think I have ever crammed so much into a weekend. On top of that, with everything we DID do, we didn't feel rushed. I felt so blessed that our time together seemed to linger. It felt like I had been home more than just a weekend.

This weekend, we are going on a family vacation to Disney Land and we are both really looking forward to the time we will be able to spend together.

All in all, it's going to be a LONG summer!

Murder Mystery

Before John and I were married, John had roommates that lived with him in this house. We get together once a month and plan dinner and games. This past one was hosted at Jason and Tiffany Pasey's apartment up in Ogden. They planned a murder mystery and sent us invitation on what to where and who we were. It was a blast. I forgot our names (seeing this post is almost a month after the fact), but it was A LOT of fun!

John and I in our costumes -- I was some type of archeologist and John was a philanthopist/actor.


John in action -- these next couple of pictures are John role playing and I have to say he had me cracking up!

This is the group - the ORIGINAL Green House roomies (they morphed as people got married, but these were the originals) Guys from left to right - Jason Pasey (Tiffany, Benjamen), Tyler Laing (Emily), Brian Pearce (Becky), John Butler (Saria, Rhett). We are lifetime friends!

We had so much fun, we are hosting one at our house for John's highschool friends and their wives/girlfriends!

Scariest Moment of My Life Thus Far!

Today, I spent most of the day setting up for a big scrapbook show that is going on in Salt Lake over the weekend. After we finished setting up, I had a few errands to run and I didn't get home until almost 7:00pm. Rhett hadn't eaten dinner yet and I was so proud of him for not being crabby. When I got home, I promptly fed our dog - who had been locked in her kennel all day because no one was home. Rhett likes to watch Ginger eat and sometimes plays with her water dish. I left the room for a moment and before I came back Rhett had crawled out of the bathroom (where we keep Ginger's food dish). I didn't think anything of it. Well, I picked Rhett up a few minutes later to set him up to the table to eat some dinner. I noticed however that his clothes were wet and I needed to change his diaper (I bought cheaper diapers and let me tell you, Parent's Choice diapers at Walmart are NOT my choice because he leaks right through them every night! Huggies ALL THE WAY!). I laid him down and noticed he was eating something and I hadn't given him anything to eat yet. I tried to open his mouth to see what it was and low and behold he started CHOKING. And not just **cough** it got caught in my throat, but an open mouth no sound and face turn red! I sat him up to pat his back to make him cough it up, but it DIDN'T WORK. I went into an automatic mode and just remember saying aloud, "SCARED" whiled I picked him up and started pounding on his back. When that didn't do anything after a few seconds, I turned him face down across my arm and other hand and started pounding on his back and a few moments later he threw up on my carpet. I don't think there was a time I was HAPPIER puke was on my carpet! After he was breathing, I just held him tight and then it hit me how shaken the incident made me and I just held him and cried for a moment. John wasn't home yet but I was glad for a hug and a vent to him when he came home! I have to say I honestly don't remember a moment at ANY time in my life where fear had gripped me to make me react like that moment did! Thanks to all the First Aid classes that were taught to me LONG before I ever had an infant so I knew instinctively what to do.

By the way, the object that Rhett choked on was a dog kibble (probably more than one), which in and by itself wasn't all that big a deal. I purposely buy smaller kibbles and they are probably the size of a cheerio. Chomping it by itself probably wasn't where the choking became an issue as when I set him on his back and tried to pry his mouth open to see what was in there! But all in all, Rhett's fine and I was just a little shaken. I guess I'll just have to be more careful and not have Rhett around when I feed the dog! And Rhett needs to learn that DOG FOOD is not HUMAN FOOD :):)

A late posting of Seattle (November 2009)

So I tend to fall behind on this blog because the time I find for blogger usually results in me blogging exclusively for Rhett. However, I was going through some pictures and notices that there were some that I never posted. For instance, when John and I went to visit my friend Amy and her husband Eric, Eric was kind enough to give us a "local" tour of the city of Seattle. I have to admit it is a side of the city that we would have never seen if it wasn't him and his great tour guide skills! My favorite by far was the troll bridge that is in the movie Ten Things I Hate About You. When I watched that movie and saw the troll bridge I thought it was just an UGLY statue somewhere. But seeing it in person was pretty cool. I couldn't believe that there was a full car embedded in the statue (a VW Bug)!

The VW Bug is under the trolls left hand (it's a real car!! I thought it was just sculpted out of the cement) and the headlight of the car is the trolls left eye.

KING/QUEENS of the troll :)

I was surprised at how big this troll was in person! All three of us fit easily on the left hand of the troll.

The Seattle Space Needle in the FREEZING cold rain. We didn't want to pay to go up because it was a little pricey...

Check out John's mad skills at getting a picture of Seattle across the port AT NIGHT. He was sad he couldn't do better. You'll have to click on this picture to get the full effect. I think it turned out decent!

New Ornament

Ever since John and I have been married, we have gotten ourselves an ornament each year to kind of represent our year. This year, since we had Rhett, we decided that an ornament dealing with something about him would be the best. We were looking and looking to happen upon an ornament, but nothing ever caught our fancy. We were about to give up when we headed to the mall and fell upon the Hallmark store and all their ornaments. I was just going to get a pair of baby booties as an ornament, when John found this....

If you don't recognize it, it's the final scene from Gone With The Wind. It even comes complete with the final phrase that Rhett says to Scarlett -- however, we have not put batteries in it so it will play...

Rhett looking at the ornament

Rhett's ornament on the tree. I think he was excited that we got an ornament in honor of him!