Life on the island...

Happy ninth anniversary to Max and I!

brigitteballard — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:53:12 +0000

(MY FAVORTIE PICTURE OF MY HUSBAND AND I.)

Nine years ago this weekend my husband and I got married. Fourteen years ago this weekend my husband and I officially were boyfriend/girlfriend. As we like to say… forever. As in it has been forever that we have been together. This is often accompanied with eye rolling. I love my husband very much. Thank you Max for putting up with me all fourteen years we have been together. I know I am a pain in the ass. I love you.

The day started out with our family setting up all the wedding stuff up the canyon. I am very thankful for all my friends and family that helped out with this. If I could do my wedding over again EVERYTHING would have been done by professionals and I wouldn’t have had to do anything. Anyways, it all got done and it was fine.

(MY FAVORTIE PICTURE EVER OF MY MOM AND DAD. LOOK AT THEIR SMILES.)

Then came getting ready. Have any of you ever been to a wedding where the bride drives the drunk bridesmaids to the wedding? Neither had I. Until my wedding that is. Yes, Jess and Al were drunk. /cough /cough Unfortunately for me I was pregnant. Thus… not drunk. I blame Karma for this. In the five years I dated my husband I told anyone who asked when we were going to get married that we would get married when I got knocked up. Karma.

We arrived up the canyon and I had a few bridal pictures taken. Then it was time to line up. Jess is still pissed that my now sister-in-law walked her down the aisle. I just think it is cute. I almost just forgot to mention that we walked down the aisle to Star Wars. Yep, that was our wedding march. If you haven’t figured out by now… I am a GEEK.

As I mentioned before… Jess and Al were bridesmaids. I chose the color black for their attire and just told them to wear whatever. I really didn’t care what type of dress they wore, just make it black. They did fabulous! I did have Jess and Al wear Doc Martins. I did too.

(YES WE ACTUALLY WORE THESE SHOES.)

(MY WEDDING PARTY. THE LATE RACHEL, MYSELF, JESS, AL, AND CHLOE.)

(I’VE ALREADY GOT JESS BACK FOR GETTING MY CAR.)

Oh, and the toast you ask? Jess and Al did a drunk toast. Lucky me. I was sooooo embarassed. It was all about how they were glad I got knocked up so we would FINALLY get married. Too bad some members of Max’s extended family didn’t know I was pregnant. Surprise! I will get them back for this one day. I swear I will.

In all reality I got married two months prior to my “wedding.” In the front room of Rachel’s, my maid of honor, parents house. You see, her dad was a bishop and could marry us. You could say we eloped, but both of our parents were there. So were the maid of honor, the best man and our flower girl. We kept this a secret until after we had our “ceremony” for everyone else. Here is a picture of our flower girl Chloe, her grandmother, and her grandfather who married us.

(CHLOE AND HER GRANDPARENTS AND MY HUSBAND AND I THEN.)

Last night I was at the wedding of Chloe’s father, who was our best man. If you didn’t catch it earlier I mentioned previously that Rachel died. It was around 5-6 years ago. I really can’t talk about it, but I am still angry. Anyways, Chloe’s father got married again last night. In the event that he ever reads this post, I just want to tell him again how happy we are for him. My husband was the best man, and he choked up on his toast last night. It happened when he told Chloe how happy he was for her. I can’t even tell you how many times I cried yesterday. I swear I was almost crying the entire time. Here is a picture of my husband and I from last night. You can see Chloe nine years later. Yes, those are her grandparents. The same picture nine years later! I should mention I am very glad that Chloe is still shorter than I am. If only by an inch or two.

(CHLOE AND HER GRANDPARENTS AND MY HUSBAND AND I LAST NIGHT.)

Post are coming!

brigitteballard — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:03:11 +0000

I have many really cute post that will be coming in the next few days. I just need to go through a million photos and pick which ones I want to post.

Stay tuned!

Pickleville Playhouse

brigitteballard — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:43:31 +0000

The other day I got to go to Pickleville Playhouse to see the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. My friend Loralle has the part of Muzzy and did just amazing. Every time I hear her sing I cry. This time was NO exception.

For anyone in the Northern Utah area… you should go see this musical. The entire cast did a great job and I was even more pleased with it than I thought I would be.

Quizzo

brigitteballard — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:46:02 +0000

The other day I went to the White Owl to play a trivia game they host named Quizzo. Our team took 3rd place. We won lunch. Yum.

Anyways, I love playing this game and love it more when I get to play with friends. Here is a picture of Mr. Soffe, Max and I. Soffe is a long time friend that we occasionally get to hang out with.

Fathers Day 2008

brigitteballard — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:46:28 +0000

This year Fathers Day was most likely not fun for Max. I am truly sorry Max.

Mason and Nat were super clingy.
Mason and Nat kept complaining.
Mason freaked out about having to wear a life jacket.
I freaked out on Mason for having a tantrum and just made it worst.
The side view mirror on our car broke when our canoe decided to fall off.

This picture is deceiving. It looks like we were having fun…

Actually after the whole tantrum passed we had a blast. Until the mirror broke… but we just laughed at that.

Happy Fathers Day Max! You really are the best father. Our kids and their friends love you to pieces. So do I!

The Wind Caves

brigitteballard — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:55:20 +0000

A few Sundays ago we went on a hike to the Wind Caves up Logan Canyon. This hike and I have a love/hate relationship. I love when I get to the top, but hate the hiking part to get there. This hike was actually one of Max and my first dates. I booked up the hike as fast as I could go following Max and made it all the way to the top. Unfortunately I puked at the top.

Luckily this time I didn’t puke. My kids would have never let me live it down. Not only did my kids make it to the top, but they hiked the entire way up on their own. On the way down they got tired and ended up being carried by Max. Lucky kids.

Here are some pictures!

Scout Camp

brigitteballard — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:50:03 +0000

I didn’t go to cub scout day camp with Mason, but Max did. He is actually the cub scout leader assistant. I think it is cute. He is the one that took the pictures. Thanks Max!

When Mason got home he ran up to me to tell me that camp was awesome. That he got to shoot bee bee guns and shoot bow and arrows. Plus he told me how cool the zip line was. By the speed in which he told me all of this I realized it must have been fun.

Natalie lost her first tooth!

brigitteballard — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:36:16 +0000

Here is a picture of Natalie and her lost tooth.

I really have mixed feelings on this. All week I kept telling her not to wiggle it because I didn’t want her to grow up. I think it just made her wiggle it more.

It is funny how I really want my son to grow up. I am excited at all the new milestones he reaches. When my daughter reaches these milestones though it makes me sad. She is my baby, and I think I want her to be small forever. So bittersweet.

Congrats Natalie! I am glad the tooth fairy didn’t forget to come and visit you!

Update on Mothers Day Present

brigitteballard — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:38:13 +0000

I just wanted to show you an update on my Mothers Day present. It isn’t 100% finished because of the rain. It has been raining her all the time. This is the coldest spring I remember. Snow then rain… then rain then snow. /sigh The second we have at least 3 days in a row with a forecast of sun we will finish this project.

THANK YOU MAX! I really do love it.

This is the front view. Those are tomatoes!

Here is a side view so you can see it better.

This is one of the garden boxes. That is squash on one side, and beans on the other with the trellises. Look at those cute beans!

Here is a close-up of the beans.

This is the view of our grape vines. We planed these about 5 years ago. We are putting bricks as edging. Look how cute. These grape vines get HUGE.

This is the last planter box. These cute little green sprouts are lettuce. When they get bigger we will have to thin them out a bit. I can’t wait to see how lettuce grows. I’ve never planted it before.

Memorial Day

brigitteballard — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:14:28 +0000

Memorial Day is a very important holiday in the Barfuss family. When I started dating Max, a million years ago, I was invited to participate in one of their family traditions. Boy was I in for a surprise. It is the day for what many people would call their “family reunion.” Although it isn’t a family reunion in the way you might really think of a family reunion. Plus I don’t think Max’s mom ever thought it would actually turn into a reunion. It was just a day she planed a great family activity… that they did the next year… and the year after… and still do.

THE BARFUSS MEMORIAL GAMES

Every year they start the Memorial Games the same way. They sing military songs: the Marines, the Army, the Airforce, the Navy. “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder…” Usually I pick up a camera andtake pictures at this point. I really don’t want to offend anyone with my terrible singing. After that the games begin.

ACTIVITIES (every year they are different)

Art (I am usually in charge of this.)

Track & Field (This is Sally’s activity every year.)

Guns & Shooting (this year with rubber frogs you flipped like an elastic.)

The Treasure Hunt (Pat is always in charge of this and it is a blast.)

I can’t even begin to tell you how serious the Memorial Games are. The first year I joined I was excited when I got SECOND PLACE in an event. That was when Nick told me that second place was FIRST LOSER. After that I saw the competitiveness in their family and knew I needed to step it up or I would always be a loser. I’ve only placed once in all these years… and it wasn’t first place. /sigh Yeah for being a loser.

This year we started off with a family picture. It was raining hard and that is why we had umbrellas.

Luckily Pat had reserved the church so we even held the games in the gym. Otherwise one of our houses would have been trashed. The gym was easy to clean up. Here are some pictures from the day.

Look… I am a pirate. Aye!!

My first activity was to write a pirate song. They had to use at least 10 pirate words. Here is the first group on stage.

My brother-in-law Andy and sister-in-law Sally, their kids Nell and Mable, my mother-in-law Pat, and my son Mason.

My father-in-law Rick, my brother-in-law Nick, Nick’s son Isis, Nick’s friend Daniel, and Sally and Andy’s daughter Lilly.

Max and Natalie, and Sally and Andy’s son Luke.

My sister-in-law Jasmine and me.

My second Activity was Pirate Potato Heads. Look at how creative you can be with some pipe cleansers, some felt, some fake rings and a potato.

These are the potatoes designed by the adults.

These are the potatoes designed by the kids, and the kids who designed them!

This was the first shooting event. You would take these squirt guns and fill them up with water from a bucket. Then go shoot them at the pirate. The first team with the empty bucket won. My team totally kicked butt if I can gloat. HEHEHE.

Look at Max being funny. The kids couldn’t stop laughing that he became the pirate.

This was the other shooting game. You had to flip plastic frogs into the hoop. Yes, and you even had to walk the plank to get there. How creative my in-laws are!

Don’t fall in kids!

Here is Max and me.

And the winners are… kids and adults are scored independently to be fair.

1st place… Max/Luke

2nd place… tie Pat & Nick/ Isis

3rd place… tie Andy & Sally/Natalie