baja california cruise.

Last week we went on the baja california cruise with my dad and his fiance, my sister and her husband, my two brothers, and my twin soon-to-be step sisters, and holy cow...it was so much fun! this was most of our first cruise and our group was such a blast! We flew in to LA and boarded the Carnival Imagination Sunday morning. Monday we went to Catalina, Tuesday Ensenada, Wednesday were out at sea, and returned to port on Thursday.

on the Queen Mary at Long Beach

Long Beach

On Catalina Island! My second time there and I love it!

we bought matching sunglasses. true love.

The whole group on Catalina Island where we shopped, ate, and snorkeled in the freezing water! Don't worry we had wetsuits and it was way cool!

Formal night...I love this husband of mine.

The whole group again...I stole this picture from one of the girl's snapchats.

In Ensenada, Mexico. In Ensenada we went on a zip lining excursion with 5 big zip lines and 5 canopy bridges. I'm proud to say everyone in the family completed it. It was so cool! Possibly my favorite part of the trip. We also went to La Bufadora (a famous blow hole) and shopped and ate at the flea market by it.

La Bufadora

At the flea market...there were Ute, BYU, and Utah State bags! They obviously get plenty of Utah tourists.

What's more Mexican than a Chihuahua sitting on a pile of ponchos? 

Our steak tacos & fish tacos were mind-blowing amazing!

possibly my second favorite part of the trip....mmmmm

my brother's creepy flea market find.

me and my bro

The day at sea was cloudy off and on and we spent most of the day trying to lay out but wrapped out in towels half the time to stay warm. At night on the ship, we went to dinner, went to comedy shows, music shows, a piano bar, listened to a live band, danced, and rocked out. seriously our group was so much fun!

The good thing about the cruise being short was getting home to THIS GIRL!! She had a good time with both of her grandmas while we were gone. This is her in her outfit we got her from Mexico, including the clothes, headband, and shoes.

We got home from the cruise Thursday evening, Dawson worked Friday, and then we had the long weekend. That means Dawson and I spent 9 out of 10 whole days together...and weren't even a little sick of each other. It was too good.

restored furniture.

before:

after:

painted white & new knobs

before:

(looking at the chairs...the only before pic i could find of them)

after:

reupholstered

before:

after:

painted & reupholstered

I am so excited to have all our furniture back and ecstatic about the way it all turned out! Having our couch done after 2 months of being moved in makes me love it even more! I really wanted it to be PEACH. not burnt orange, not salmon, PEACH...and it turned out great. We did all of the sanding and painting and chose the fabric but didn't reupholster it ourselves. It was decided that there are times to DIY and times to not ruin a good piece of furniture. 

We also bought an iRobot Roomba (robot vacuum) and i am in LOVE! i feel like i am constantly vacuuming but I think this will really help. With two shedding dogs and a baby, you can't put a price on clean floors.

-Mrs. Lake

party house.

well we had quite the weekend last week! thursday we had a bunch of dawson's friends from his mission (the "suriname" group) over for dinner. daws made some delicious chicken curry and some other people made roti and it was delicious. i always love the indian food splurge these boys indulge in when they get together. a few of them stayed until midnight talking with us, which is very late for us old farts, but it was well needed! gracie even stayed up until 9:00 hanging out and laughing with us.

my sister and niece came into town friday and stayed with us for the weekend! she also brought her adorable blue healer puppy who played with jude nonstop! we got our couch we were getting restored back right before they got here, so we had a place to sit for the weekend! my family all came over for pizza and to hang out friday night, and then since sis was staying at our house dawson and i were able to go to a late showing of the avengers while the kids were asleep. two late nights for us...woah! but i am proud to say i stayed awake for the whole show and i LOVED it. we may have been talking about the avengers ever since...ha. saturday morning we went for a hike up to ensign peak, went swimming that afternoon, and all went out to dinner that night. she left sunday morning, we went to church, and then had dinner with dawson's family that night. so it's been pretty non-stop around here but it was a lot of fun!

Ensign Peak with my sis, dad, niece, brother, aunt, husband, baby, and FIVE dogs...we are definitely some crazy dog people.

My niece Kendal is the sweetest girl. My favorite thing she said this weekend was when I was changing Gracie's diaper, "When I get married I'm going to have a baby and my baby is going to poop too!"