Happy Fathers Day!

Unfortunately this year, my dad is in Israel.  So I didn't get to say Happy Fathers day to him today.  But I am so thankful to have my dad.  He is so supportive, and still is even though I am married.  He is such a good example to me, and has taught me so much about the gospel.  I am thankful for his patience- and for raising all of my siblings and I in the gospel.  My dad is such a good friend- he is such a wonderful person who loves to make everyone feel loved.  I am grateful for his happy face that brightens my day whenever I need a smile.  I am so grateful to have him. Thanks for everything.  Dad, I love you!!!

I am also thankful for my 'second' dad.  He is also such a good example, and always has a positive attitude about anything and everything.  When he's not around, there is always something missing.  I look forward to spending more time with him and getting to know him a little better. Thanks, Kevin, for letting me steal your son forever. :) Love you both!

1st Stevens Reunion!

Well, this past weekend was the first Kevin Stevens reunion!  Not only the first for me, but the first for all of Tanner's siblings to get together and have their own 'Stevens' reunion.  My family had our first Ron Anderson reunion last year.  We left on Wednesday afternoon and we went to his brother Trent's house in Logan.  We stayed the night there.
Day 1: In the morning, we all drove to LAGOON!  Tanner has 2 brothers, and 3 sisters. An older sister, 2 older brothers, and 2 younger sisters.  So there were a lot of us there, but it was a blast!  Unfortunately, I didn't feel good all day, so I sat and helped take care of the kids. 

This is the only pic I got, but this was the first ride we went on- the famous white roller-coaster.  What a fun day we had :) We drove to the camp site, and got there at like 10:30 at night.  It was kind of a joke because we had to set up our tent.  Fun memories though.



DAY 2: Everyone was kind of exhausted from lagoon, so we just kind of hung out and relaxed.  We went on a little hike with the kids, attempted to fish, took fun pictures, sat by the fire, went on a forewheeler ride, and other chill things.  Here are some pictures:

                            Our tent is the one on the left, Trent's is the one on the right.

                                                   First morning of goin campin!

We went on a little hike with some of the nieces and nephews.  This is Addie.  She's a doll.

                                                   Addie and Casuree holding hands.

                                         My lovely hubby being a goof.  I sure love him.

                                                                                  :)

                                   Tan and I found this awesome rock!  We kept it. haha. like little kids.

          All the little kids getting ready to go on a scavenger hunt.  They were all so excited!

                                                    Tanner and Wyatt being goofy.

                                                     Stace and Dillon bein cute.

                                         Big Springs Campground is where we camped.

                                                     Cute Kaybree picking her nose.

                                                                       Kinslee hahaha.

                             We went shooting- here's Tanner covering Chase's ears haha.

                                                       Aubree shooting her first gun!

Super fun day!!!

DAY 3:  LAVA HOT SPRINGS!!!
We drove to Lava, but I didn't get many pictures. Here's a few though.

                                         Yes. This is my husband. whom I love so much.

So on our way back, there was a train that was blocking the way to our campground.  We sat there and sat there because it wouldn't move! There was a whole line of cars on both sides of the train that were just sitting there waiting haha It was pretty funny.  Finally Whitney and her bf went and asked the captain to move.

                                        I was watching Kinslee in the car- she is so funny!

Then we got home and we just kinda did our own thing.  Tanner and I went on a little walk and took some interesting pictures.  We also scared Whitney and her boyfriend haha.

So all the little girls loved catching butterflies.  I helped them catch some- it was fun to see how excited they got.  They named this butterfly 'goldie' because she had gold on her wings.  They made her a grave because she died. So here's 'goldie' on her deathbed. hahaha.

DAY 3: We started off the day by going on a hike with everyone.  We didn't last very long because all the kids were getting cranky.  It was scorchingly hot but it was fun.

                                                                   Us on our hike.

                                                                     haha. being goofs.

We took some of the kids to a little creek- they loved it.  here's 1 year old Dillon.  cutie pie.

                    Then we had to say our goodbyes.  Here's a cute little picture of us all above.


*For my first camping experience, I will say that it was so much fun!! besides the fact that I either had a migrane, a muscle spasm, or I was nauseous, I still had so much fun.  I will always remember my first official camping trip because it was so much fun.  I am so grateful to have such a wonderful second family- I love them all!!
  Till Next year...

Camp Gear!

So, Tanner's family loves camping.  I've never been a camper, but I've decided to have a god attitude about it and just give it a shot.  Well, his Dad had a coupon for Kelty online for 45% off camping gear.  We thought it would be a good opportunity to get our camping stuff, and it finally all came!! We were really excited.  Tanner was like a little kid- he couldn't wait for it all to get here.  It got here when he was at school, so I decided to set it all up so when he came home it would all be there waiting for him :)  I lied to him and told him that the camping gear didn't come, but it really did. Anyway, here it all is!

We got a cooler, a tent, (His dad loves saying the name- PARTHENON 4 haha) 2 sleeping bags, 3 duffle bags, a backpack, a sleeping pad, a camp sink, a base camp kitchen, an air mattress, a lantern, and I think that's it.  We are excited to use it!!!

failed food experimenting

So my sister in law Whitney and I were wanting to make dessert for our family.  So, we found this recipe on pinterest for some inside out s'mores.  We didn't think they would work out, but we thought we'd give them a shot anyway.  Oh my. It was a very failed attempt.  Family hated them- and it was just a disaster.  We got some good laughs out of it though.

Whit had the idea to roast the marshmallows over the burners.  hahahahaha. It actually worked!

This is kind of embarrasing..but here is our disgusting dessert.  They weren't very good i will admit. haha. But, it was fun anyway.

                                                                   Love ya Whit!

Food experimentation..

Here are some recipes I've tried lately that I think have been a success!
Fruit Pizza:
*What I did for this was I used one of those packages of sugar cookie mix and used that for the crust. You cook it for as long as the package says.  Then I put a layer of whipped cream, and then cut strawberries, kiwis, and bananas! It was delicious :)

STRAWBERRY JAM!:
I have been really excited to make strawberry jam, just to say that I've actually tried it1  I think it turned out to be a success!
*So, what I did for this was I bought a box of pectin, and inside there is an insert that gives you directions for different kinds of jams.  Well, we had strawberries that were going to go bad so i decided to make strawberry freezer jam!  It is delicious as well.

It made so much!  2 yogurt containers, 5 glass containers, and 1 Tupperware container.  I'm excited to have this on hand all the time.

Something else I made lately were bacon filled potatoes.  I found this recipe on pinterest.  It's not hard though.  All you do is cut a raw, peeled, potato in slits.  Make sure you don't cut through the whole potato though.  Then you get raw bacon, and you put little pieces of bacon in each slit you cut.  These were a hit.

They look kind funky but they were actually quite good!

BILL COSBY!!

Sorry it's taken me so long to blog, Tanner and I have been busy!! Anyway on June 7, Tanner and I went to Bill Cosby at BYU-Idaho.  My parents had 2 extra tickets so they gave them to us. Oh my heck, he is so funny!  Everyone was laughing so hard, the entire time.  I think why Tanner and I were laughing so hard is because a lot of the stuff he was talking about related to our marriage.  He talked about how when you get married, the woman starts to order the man around.  And she 'hides' her husbands clothes from him.  Tanner and I died because that is exactly what I do.  When I'm cleaning the house, and his clothes are everywhere, I hide them so that he has to find them.  Then hopefully he'll realize I hate it when he leaves his clothes around- haha.  Bill Cosby also talked about how husbands always get blamed for things, when really- it was the wife's fault haha.  This has also happened.  Oh man- we thoroughly enjoyed our night- and it was such a fun date night for the week!  Thanks mom and dad for the tickets!!  Here's some pics:

                                      We took this before the show.  We were excited.

             I think one of the funniest things about the show were his faces...he has the funniest facial     expressions hahaha.

                                                             Hilarious. Definitely a fav.

Love you, Aub!

For my bridal shower last September, my sister Aubrey lived in California so she couldn't make it. Instead she put together this 12 month date night packet. For every month she put in a date idea in their own manilla folders, and said that whenever we can't think of any fun dates, to open that months date and do what it says!  Well last night we decided to open may.  It said to build a fort in the living room, and have a movie marathon!! so fun! we watched the little rascals :)

 I love this date idea.  Aubrey said she got the idea on pinterest, and we love it!  We look forward to reading what's in the folders every month.

 I can't figure out how to rotate this picture...haha so here it is anyway.  But this is kind of how she does it.  Each month has a paper inside with a description of what to do for that date.  So cute,  and so thoughtful. Thanks so much aub, for being so great and wonderful.  She put a little twist on each month.  She said that we couldn't look ahead at any of the months.  The anticipation sometimes kills us haha,.  Here is a list of the previous months dates.  We'll start with the very first one we opened, OCTOBER!!

 October: This month she had us take the time to sit down and write down details about your wedding day; either in our journals, or writing our own.  This was such a cute idea.  This way we won't forget our wedding day and the important details that happened that special day.
November: So for some reason there was nothing in the November folder, whoops! I'm sure we did something fun :)
December: This month's date was A SNOWMAN DATE!! Unfortunately, when we opened this envelope there was NO SNOW!!! hahaha we were heart broken.  But she included these cute hot cocoa packet things:

January: This month's date idea was New Year Resolutions time!  This was such a perfect idea.  Aubrey doesn't know this, but this is actually what started my exercise and trying to eat healthier.  I will admit it, I really like sweets.  Chocolate, candy, cake, anything- i like it!  And I have never really had an exercise program, but this got me started.  I made a goal to exercise every day for at least 30 minutes, and I'll tell you what- i feel so good!  I have lost about 5 pounds, and I hope I can continue to lose unneeded pounds!  In the winter I was also off track so it was fun to be able to prepare healthy meals for tanner when he got home for school.  Thanks aub, for getting me started on exercising every day!
February: "A night at the Steven's Home Spa!"  How fun was this!! The idea here is to pamper each other and have a relaxing, romantic evening.  Each of you choose which option you want, and maybe even a couple options.  Get everything ready to go.  Enough said :) :)
March: Go enjoy yourself a good ol' dinner and a movie!!  Inside this envelope aubrey included a $15 gift card to five guys burgers and fries, and 2 movie theatre tickets!  This is embarrasing, but Tanner I thought that these tickets were only valid on California, and so this was Aubrey's way of giving us an excuse to go visit them. hahahahaha.  Come to find out that we can use the tickets in Idaho Falls.  We used that gift card and had a wonderful date night.  We'll have to use the movie tickets in the near future!
April: This months date was a campout.  Make tinfoil dinners, and roast marshmallows. Well we chose to do this date at Tanner's parents house,  because they have a firepit in their backyard.  My favorite thing is to roast starbursts and smores in the summer, so that is exactly what we did!  We sat around the fire, talked, roasted starbursts and smores, and then slept in his parents camper!!!  It was a blast.
May: Make a fort in your living room, and have a movie marathon!! This is exactly what we did last night!!!

Our tent is dominating our apartment right now, it's kind of fun. hahaha.  Tanner and I can't wait for the rest of this years dates!! I'm so grateful for my sister Aubrey, and for the wonderful example she is to me.  She is such a good mother, one that I hope to be like when I have my own children.  I am so grateful for families, and for the chance we have to be with each other for eternity.  Aub, thanks so much for everything you do and continue to do for me.  I LOVE YOU!!!

 This is a hideous picture of me, but sadly it was the only one I could find of us!  (Aub, we need to change that haha)