Baby Lexi

Alexis Shellcy Brandt was born on March 15,2013.

I had worked the night before so when I woke up I went to hang out at the hospital with Ash and Jake, since I also had to work that night I kept hinting that the lil babe(who was a surprise at the time as to whether it was a boy or girl) better come before I had to leave for work. Jake and I were making bets when the nurse guessed 5:30 I said 3:25pm while Jake said 3:30. Well at about 3:00 I finally went to the cafeteria to get some food when about 3 bites into my sandwich I got a text from Ash saying she was complete and they needed the photographer now. I threw my food away, ran upstairs and Alexis was born at 3:27 PM. Giving me one more perfect baby to call my niece!!!

 It's tradition for me to get the baby girl's some obnoxiously large bow that Dad will roll his eyes at : )

 

Needless to say, I am obsessed!!! 

Russ's B-day

26 years ago on March 4, 1987 the earth got a little more blessed, and a little more mischievous as this handsome man entered the world....

 

His birthday was on a Monday so I took the weekend off so we could celebrate. Friday night we went to dinner at Olive Garden with the gang. The boys snuck out during the 45 min wait and saran wrapped his truck, when we came out and found it we took advantage of warming Jesi up with it.

Saturday was his choice day-we could do whatever he wanted all day long. He chose four wheeling up by Midway and Cascade Springs so we took off with some yummy Gandolfo's breakfast sandwiches and four wheeled in the remaining snow. We grabbed a late lunch in Heber that afternoon and went home and rested up our sunburns before I blindfolded him for a surprise.

I sneakily had packed an overnight bag of things that he'd need for the night then as he got in my truck he took off his glasses(so he couldn't cheat) and then I used my scarf to blindfold him. I took off up the canyon to Daniels Summit Lodge. There's a restaurant there that we eat at all the time but he's never stayed at the lodge before.  I remembered how awesome it was from when I was little so I secured us a little overnighter to get him away from the the craziness that was going on at work.

When I asked if he had any idea where we were he immediately guessed we were in the canyon and about the exact whereabouts of how far up the canyon. darnit! Never try to trick a mountain man, who travels these roads all the time and relys mostly on his senses. So I threw him for a loop as I took a few wrong turns up in midway and Heber before continuing on a route he then had no idea of our whereabouts.

He was so excited when we got to the lodge, and I loved watching him roam around checking out all the cool decorations, the sweet mounts in the lobby's, and exploring our room turning the fireplace on, standing on the balcony and crashing on to the bed. We hurried and ate dinner at the restaurant and then spent the night relaxing watching Sherlock Homes 1 & 2 on TV before bed.

 Sunday we had dinner and FHE with my family where Kez and Jax brought him his piece of cake with a candle.

 

 

Monday, March 4 was birthday day! Channy and Kezy dropped off some treats to him at work. Tyson, Luke, Russ and his mom, sister and niece and me went to Lunch at Tucano's. I decorated his room that afternoon while he finished the work day. Then we had dinner at cake at his dad's house in Provo.

 

Part of my decorating was trying out the soda can cake.

Needless to say it was a great weekend!! Some of the things I love about this "old" man are: always having a positive attitude even when life isn't fair he's finding the good,  hard worker, multiple talents (he can make or do anything), his love of adventure and life, he's nice and accepting of everyone, he's thoughtful and sweet always looking out for others but especially me, his love of little kids and the way he is with them, etc.... He's pretty fan-freakin-tastic!! I love you babe : )







Island Park 2013.

Russ has the coolest traditions with his friends and one of them is that every year over President's Day weekend them and their spouses/significant others rent out a huge cabin up in Island Park Idaho and go snowmobiling for the weekend. I was invited this year and was somehow able to get work off so I could go.

I had worked the night of February 13 and I got off work, we loaded our stuff and began the drive to Idaho. I hadn't been that far north into Idaho since I went to school there (uh about 6 years ago) and it was interesting to see how it's changed, or at least from a distance : )

Part of their yearly traditions is how they do the meals, one person is assigned one meal the entire weekend. For that meal you're responsible to buy the food, cook and clean up and then you're done the rest of the trip. So essentially each couple is responsible for 2 meals. Russ got the first dinner there so when we finally arrived to the cabin about 9pm we started our valentines day dinner meal for everyone and then after eating took off to bed after a long day of driving, and me being up for about 28 hours.

(pardon the red eye. He's not that creepy looking, the photo edit just didn't transfer over from my phone)

The next few days were spent sleeping in, eating a delicious breakfast then hitting the mountains on snowmobiles for the day before returning home to the cabin to spend the night playing games, eating and eating, and eating, playing pranks,watching movies, or my personal favorite-kick it back by the fireplace. Russ has amazing friends and I spent the whole weekend laughing watching them over there man bantering and goofing off on snowmobiles and in the cabin.

 It really was gorgeous up there!

 Some of the hooligan men on the trip

 Some of the boys getting whooped by Matt at poker, again.

 We spent A LOT of time during the day digging out stuck snowmobiles. There was so much snow and after a little sunshine it was really soft, causing lots of ruckass for this group of people that can't stay on or go on the trails.

 

 This hill was particularly rough, Brittany was stuck in this picture and below you can almost see the other 3 snowmobiles that got stuck as well.

 Sunday was our last day out on the snowmobiles and since Matt and Brittany had left that morning I was the only girl out with the men on what they made an even more adventurous day. We made our own trail on the way down the mountain going off who knows which direction and Chad found himself ran right into a huge hole. We(as in the menfolk and their camera lady) got him out and thank goodness his machine and him were totally fine.

The cabin we stayed in was AMAZING! I didn't get pictures of the whole thing, but was able to document a few of my favorites.

 Panorama's of our master bed and bath courtesy of the iPhone 5 : ) There was 2 full on master's in the cabin and this is the one I won drawing straws, and I loved it!

It was a much needed vacation and I was dreading returning home and just wanted to stay up in that cabin forever! I almost got my wish as we went to load the trucks and go home but couldn't find Luke's keys to his truck. Long story short, Matt and Brittany had accidentally taken them home on Sunday....Thank goodness that Russ and Luke know vehicles like the back of their hands and was able to start Luke's truck and since the security feature won't let you shift without a key in the ignition-they bypassed that by Russ getting out and manually shifting the truck. It was interesting, but we made it back to Farmington where they key was and all was well.

Thanks again for the great getaway, can't wait for next year already!!