Sam's High School Graduation

In May, my brother Sam graduated from Lincoln High School! Aaron and I drove up for the weekend, and we had an awesome time.



I guess I should back up and tell you that when my family was here for Easter, my brothers (Sam & Nate) were introduced to two super cute sisters (Cailyn & Shannon) from our church here in Arkansas. They hit it off pretty well ... SO ... naturally... we decided to bring the girls with us from Arkansas to Sioux Falls, SD.


We think they had a fun time...we sure did! Right before we left for Arkansas we ended up closing the deal on buying a car that we had been looking at for awhile. We absolutely LOVE it. It's technically my car... we drove my yellow VW Bug back to South Dakota and gave it back to my parents. Aaron and I both have Hyundai cars now.

It's a pretty hott car, and I LOVE driving it! Aaron likes it too... I think he's thankful to not own a VW Bug anymore. He wasn't too fond of it...



The graduation ceremony was GREAT. It was short, sweet, and then we were out of there!




Here are a bunch of random pictures from the weekend.








We love you, Sam! And we're super proud of you! -SL

Our Little Home

When I was younger I used to dream about my first little home as a newly wed. I used to think about how I would decorate it and what kind of house I would like.

Now that I AM a newly wed and we DO have our own home... I have to say...


It's perfect...just perfect.


Don't mind the grass... It was still early spring when I took these pictures. The grass hadn't quite grown in yet...


We started our flower garden, which will be a work in progress. We are still trying to figure out just what we want and how it should look. Right now we are experimenting with a couple of different things, but I love that we have that ability to have a yard and have the freedom to do whatever we want to do!


All in all.... we love it....


And it doesn't hurt that I have the most awesome husband to go along with my perfect house!


Love you honey!- SL

New Washer and Dryer!

We had a new addition to the family a couple of months ago...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new washer and dryer!! They are my new best (home appliance) friend. The washer washes so well that my whites are even whiter than they used to be, and when you pull the clothes out of the washer...they almost feel dry because that's how fast the washer spins. It's AWESOME.




My favorite part of the dryer are the steam cycles. I can throw Aaron's dress shirts into the dryer on the steam cycle and then pull them out and hang them up and NEVER have to iron them. It's wonderful!






Have I mentioned that I really like taking pictures? -SL

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

The weather here has been CRAZY! It started raining the Friday night of Easter weekend and rained until that following Wednesday. We took pictures on Monday, which is when the flooding started. I just have never seen it rain that heavy for that long, and it was really thundering and lightening the whole time! We also had some tornado watches/ warnings in there somewhere.

Aaron took some awesome video that he posted on Facebook, so if you want to see that check it out on his Facebook.

The sad thing is that we just saw the forecast for this week and it is supposed to rain for the next three days. UGH!

All this rain is good for one thing though! Snuggling up on the couch with my honey and watching some good movies!

-SL

Easter Weekend!

As per usual... I DID NOT take enough pictures, BUT this is a habit that I am trying to overcome...desperately...because memories are so important to me and pictures are one way that I can really reflect back on those memories!

My Family came into town on Friday afternoon the weekend of Easter. We were SO excited to see them. I gave them a tour around the Sam's Club Home Office. Then we went home to get unpacked and get ready to go to church for dinner.

Our Young Women at church were putting on a fundraiser: spaghetti dinner with table service, as well as a silent auction. They did awesome!! They ended up raising over $1,400 dollars! The reason they needed to do a fundraiser was to pay for Girl's Camp this summer.

Now would probably be a good time to mention that I got called as the Assistant Girl's Camp Leader. Woohoo! So I get to go to camp this year!

Anyways, we needed to raise $1,900 to send all the girl's to camp. They did amazing considering the amount of money they were tasked with raising.


Sister Dunlop coaching the girls on how to serve tables before the dinner began.
A few of the silent auction tables...by the way... Dad bid on a TON of items! He was a great help in raising money for our girls! He wrote each family members name down on a different item.
So during the dinner, we could tell it was thunder storming outside. Our Bishop made an announcement that we were under a tornado warning, and to please stay in the building until it passes. It was pretty scary!

We had an awesome weekend with the family. It did however rain in TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS all weekend long. We got a total of 11 inches of rain. It was awful. We couldn't do anything outside, so I felt really bad for my family, but we had a lot of fun playing games, dying Easter eggs, etc.

I have a brother who is 15 and a brother who is 17. There are two sisters in our ward who are the same ages as my brothers, and we ended hooking them up Friday night after the spaghetti dinner. They hung out with each other EVERY night they were in Arkansas. It was awesome! They are such cute girls, and they all had so much fun. I've never seen my brothers want to hang out with girls like that.

Here are some pictures of the family:

We miss them, and can't wait to spend more time with them!

-SL

If you ever wonder where you can find us on a Wednesday night...

For those of you who don't know... Aaron and I were both called to work in the youth program at church.

I am the Mia Maid teacher, and Aaron is the Teachers Quorum teacher. So we both have 14-15 year olds. We feel very blessed that our church callings actually help us spend time together during the week rather than us being separated while we fulfill our responsibilities. Here are some pictures from a recent combined activity!

We love these kids!

-SL