"Stamped!" The movie trailer

I know a lot of you have heard me talk about a full length feature movie that I made a while back. Just as proof that I'm not making it all up I present to you... drum roll please.... the trailer (Movie Preview) for your viewing pleasure! Click HERE to watch it!

Idaho Falls trip: Part 2

Saturday July 19, 2008~

Saturday morning was the sealing, the biggest reason for us to drive all the way to Idaho Falls. Once again my cousin and SIL watched the kids so that I could be there for that. Thank you, Thank you! Everything was so beautiful! 

  Afterwards we went over to the church to have a big family pot luck which was really nice. My cousins little boy celebrated his 2nd birthday so the kids had their own little celebration with cupcakes and presents and all. The reception was later that night so some of us went over to Reed's Dairy. It was a lot fun! They had some cute animals including a little pony, a sheep, a lamb, and a goat. Evelyn was brave enough to let the animals eat right out of her hands which was pretty sweet. It was an entire dairy so along with having adorable animals they had tons of cows and this great little shop where they sold everything from fresh cheese and milk to delicious ice cream. And not that we needed it after the big lunch that we had but none of us could resist and we all bought some yummy ice cream. We also learned a very important lesson, never take food, especially ice cream, away from Evelyn. Evelyn's ice cream cone was dripping and it looked like it was going to fall off so my mom being the motherly woman that she is offered to clean it up for her. At first Evelyn seemed totally fine with her taking the cone until suddenly tears started running down her face and she cried so loud and hard you'd think we just smacked her across the face. Nothing would calm her down. It wasn't until mom handed the now clean ice cream back to her that she finally stopped but not without giving my mom the worst stink eye. Later on was the reception which was very nice but unfortunately I couldn't stay long because the kids were so tired and restless and frankly I was too.

Sunday July 20, 2008~

Sunday morning after saying our goodbyes we started our long trip home. A few hours in we decided to take a little detour and stop in Salt Lake City at Temple Square. It was very beautiful and informative. We took the tour around the grounds and got to see both of the visitors centers, the tabernacle (from the outside), the assembly hall and the new garden area. The temple was gorgeous! On our way back to the car we made a quick decision and we decided to tour the Conference Center. It was really amazing! I cannot believe how massive that building is. There are 21,000 seats and you would never guess looking at it from the ground but there is a 4 acre roof garden. The rest of the drive that day was fine and we all met back up at my mom's cousin's house again for one more night.

Monday July 21, 2008~

The last and final day of our trip. We got a fairly early start, said our final goodbyes and we were off. Pretty soon we decided to make it a real road trip and we got a little spontaneous. We saw all the signs for Zion and just decided to go. So with 5 kids and no real preparation we did it, we took about a 3 hour tour of Zion. I'm actually really glad we did too. I'm sure anyone that saw us thought we were crazy but we didn't care. We started out our little excursion by driving up to Kolob which was very nice and a great little drive. After that we went into the actual park where we caught the shuttle and rode it all the way around stopping at a few of the different places including Weeping Rock Trail and the Court of the Patriarchs. It was great to get to see all of that. I only wished we'd had more time. The rest of the drive was long and boring and it was so nice when we finally made it back home.

For all the photos check out my photobucket account.

Idaho Falls Trip: Part 1

First of all before I tell you all about our fantastic girls only (and Preston & Joshua) road trip I wanted to give a big shout out to Andy. Right now he and a bunch of guys are out having a LAN party. In case you've never heard of a "LAN party" before, which I'm sure most of you haven't, here's a pretty good definition of it that I found here (#3 is my favorite). As much as I tease Andy about it I actually enjoy them just as much as he does and this time I wasn't invited :( Maybe next time. However, that aside, this extra Andy free time does give me a chance to get a blog in and tell you guys about the awesome trip we had.

Wednesday July 16, 2008~
We started out the trip way way early. We got up at 4:30 and left just after 5:00. The kids were all hilarious. Half delirious half just leave me alone. The rest of us were all too excited to be tired which worked out great considering we had about 10 hours of driving to do that day. By the end of the drive I had completed my goal of teaching Evelyn how to motion to the truck drivers to honk (very important to know) and at our lunch stop I managed to take a couple of cute pictures of the kids. We got to my mom's cousins house in Richfield, UT around 4:00 and spent the remainder of the afternoon chasing the kids around. Lucky for Evelyn my Cousin Randy has a trampoline so the kids had a good time jumping until they finally lost all their energy and went to sleep. My sister and her gang, my cousin, and my SIL all braved the outside and slept in a tent. I, on the other hand, opted for sleep, chickened out and slept inside.

Thursday July 17, 2008~
We slept in as best we could with 5 kids and headed out. The drive wasn't nearly as long as the day before so that was a bit of a relief. We stopped at a park on the way and Preston made such a mess eating /cleaning up after everyone. The kids were so excited about playing on the toys that they didn't even touch their food so I set Preston on the table and he scarfed it all down. He seemed to favor the chocolate cookies. When we finally got to our destination, Idaho Falls, everyone was there to greet us. My mom's two sisters and most of their families and my Grandparents were there. We went swimming and had a family pizza party. I haven't spent hardly any time with my cousins since we were kids so it was interesting getting to catch up with them.

Friday July 18, 2008~
Friday morning my cousin went through the temple to receive her endowments. Thanks to my SIL and my cousin who graciously watched my kids I was actually able to attend the session. ::Thank you Tiffany & Cressa, you girls are the best!:: It felt so good to be there with so much of my family and seeing my cousin there was very special. To me this was the highlight of the entire trip. I could have just gone to the temple that day and it would have been a total worthwhile trip let alone all the other awesome stuff that continued to happen. After the session the WHOLE family (bride and groom's) went out to a nice smorgasbord. Mmmm... There's nothing like unlimited food to make a great day even greater. After stuffing our faces with tons of great food our little group decided to split off and we went to see The Idaho falls. I remember seeing them on a trip we took as a kid but it was just as neat seeing them again. I took tons of pictures. To end our little outing we went a few blocks over and down to the temple visitor center. We got to see some really nice pictures of the temple and we watched a couple of short films about Jesus and about families. The kids seemed to enjoy them. They even made me cry a little.

 
 

Would you eat at this place?

So, I made this commercial a few weeks back for this new restaurant in town. It was a lot of fun because they gave me total freedom to do whatever I wanted as long as it was edgy. Well, they loved it and I thought it was cool enough to post on here so here you go! Let me know what you think, enjoy! Click HERE to watch it!

We're going on a trip!

My little cousin's getting sealed this Saturday in the Idaho Falls temple so us girls decided to go on a road trip. My mom, sister, sister-in-law, myself and all 5 of our combined kids are driving up to Idaho early Wednesday morning. I so can't wait, it's going to be so much fun! It sounds like most of my moms family will be there including my Grandparents and all of my Aunts, Uncles, & cousins. Some of them I haven't seen in a couple of years. I'll for sure blog about the wedding and all the other fun stuff we'll be doing up there. Unfortunately Andy is staying home (we're going to miss him:( but the good news is that he'll be here to keep our blog up and running and keep you all entertained.

While I'm thinking about it also, I've got a couple of stories I wanted to get down in writing before I forget about them. The first one happened about a month ago when I took Evelyn to the store to go pick out a new pair of summer shoes. We walked down the kids shoe isle and every once in a while I saw a shoe I kind of liked and I'd have her try them on. She seemed totally disinterested until she laid eyes on these babies.

She just knew she had to have them. When she first pointed them out to me I thought alright I'll please her and let her try them on. I wasn't really a huge fan of them but then again I really didn't see anything much better. I put the shoes on her and let me tell you it was love at first sight. There was no way she was letting me take them off her precious little feet. I tried to offer her several other pairs of shoes. Some that even had the same theme but she was stuck. There was no turning back. She knew without a second thought that those were the shoes she wanted and there was no changing her mind. They were HER shoes! In the end I gave in and bought the little princess shoes for my little princess but the whole experience made me realize that my little girl at 2 1/2 is really starting to get a mind of her own. Today it's just shoes but before I know it it's going to be clothes, then friends, and then who knows what! [June 14, 2008]

The other story happened just a week or so after the first one. Some of you I'm sure have heard this one because Andy got a really big kick out of it. It started when Andy went to cut his hair. Now Andy's been cutting his own hair for at least as long as we've been married but the kids have never really been old enough to realize or even question what he was doing... that is until this time. Andy had just finished cutting the bulk of his hair and I was just finishing by trimming the back. As what always happens when you cut hair the hair was all over the floor. And Evelyn walked in. You would have thought that she had just saw her first horror movie. She had the most horrified look on her face and she ran. She cried really loud and ran around the corner. Of course I ran after her to make sure that she was ok. She was crying so loud and it wasn't just an ordinary fake cry. At first we thought that she was hurt. It sounded really serious. When I finally got her calmed down I walked her over to the bathroom where Andy still was. She was so innocent and sweet. Through her adorable little tears she kept saying to me, "Daddy hurt.... hair broken". She was afraid for her daddy. It was really touching. Andy and I explained to her that he wasn't hurt at all and that he was just cutting his hair and I think she finally understood. Andy let her rub his newly short hair and she perked up really quick after that. [June 28, 2008]

Anyway, hope you enjoyed those. My kids are up now and causing all kinds of trouble so I'd better go. I will for sure take lots of pictures on the trip so stay tuned for that. And while you're here make sure you watch Andy's videos and check out his new website. He just posted Molly's wedding day video on the next post down and as always he did an amazing job!

Now for the Wedding...

Alright, I'm sure by now you have had the chance to watch the "Love Story" video I did for Molly & Scott. Now you can check out the actual Wedding Day highlights! Click HERE to watch it, be sure to rate it as well! Enjoy, and let me know what you think. Reception to follow soon...

Molly & Scott's "Love Story" Video

I finally got around to encoding this and uploading it to my server. It's a video I shot for my little sister's (Molly) wedding last month. I think it turned out pretty good, of course it's not as compelling watching it on-line as it was when it was shown during their first dance. Enjoy!

I'm here now!

Yeah, so if you haven't read my blog yet... then obviously you like Amber more... and I'm blogging here now.

Wimbledon finals and our family swim party

July 5th, 2008

Saturday started off with a bang when I got to watch the Wimbledon Womens' Finals. It was between Venus and Serena; the Williams sisters. It was a very exciting game to watch and both players were very competitive. In the end, Venus, the older of the two sisters played a better game and won the tournament. You probably wouldn't guess but one of my favorite parts of the whole thing is the closing ceremony. The winner and the runner up both get to say a little something about their influences and their partner, etc. etc. and both of the sisters gave great speeches. Venus said something in her speech that kind of touched me. She said that she was going to work extra hard in her doubles match with her sister because her sister deserves a win just as much as she does. I thought that was really sweet to watch her be so competitive against her sister during the match and then to turn around and have her say something like that really showed their comradely towards one another. They did, by the way, go on to win the doubles championship as well making them the winners of both the singles and doubles championship.

A little bit after the Championship ended my parents and my sister came to visit. We had such a great time! When everyone got there we suited up and took the kids all swimming. Andy ran by the store on the way home from work and picked up all the BBQ essentials and made a wonderful lunch for us all. We also had some unexpected visitors which made the day even more exciting. Evelyn got such a kick out of having so many of her favorite cousins swim with her. We spend so much time in the pool these days but it's usually just the 3 of us so it was really nice to have so much company. All my little nieces and nephews were so cute to watch in the pool. Charlie showed me how he can swim to the side of the pool all by himself (I was very impressed!) and Joshua was so brave and kept jumping off the diving board. Shed's family also brought over this blow up kayak and the boys were so sweet and took turns fairing Evelyn around the pool. Afterwards Joshua, Eliza, and Evelyn tried to check out the shower and I snapped a couple of cute pictures of them all in a row.

Independence Day and Happy Birthday ANNA!

July 4th, 2008

For the 4th we got invited to go to a friends cabin for the day so that's what we did. It was about an hour and a half away but it was such a beautiful drive that it didn't really seem that long. Plus the added pleasure of having Evelyn point out and moo to every herd of cows she saw on the way up there made it that much more enjoyable. On the way up we stopped at this rustic little diner and ate lunch with our friends. Evelyn and Andy walked across the street and Evelyn got to pet a horse that was just over the fence. She got a kick out of it and now along with the cows she now points out every horse she sees. Up at the cabin we had a great time hanging out and playing games. We enjoyed an awesome BBQ dinner and headed back down the hill early to go see the fireworks. We drove over to my cousins' since they live only a block or so away from Bakersfield College and have an incredible view of the fireworks. I have always enjoyed watching the fireworks on the 4th of July but this year it was even more incredible because it was Evelyn's first year to see them. And she loved them! In her cute little voice she kept saying "fireworks fun!". Our 4th of July was great and I hope all of yours was great too!

I also wanted to mention that along with being a special day for our country it's also a special day for my sister in law, Anna, because it's her birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNA!